We know, in a general sense, what “false” means. It’s the wrong answer on a “true or false” test; it’s saying 2+2=5; it’s saying that the sky is green and the clouds are orange.

That simplicity, however, comes from applying the idea of “truth” to simple, concrete facts. It gets much trickier when we try to apply the idea to the things we love and feel.

Consider, for instance, the idea that “you’ve got to look out for yourself, because no one else is going to.” Is that true? It feels true in a way, and seems to apply to a lot of real-world situations. To some degree, no matter how high-minded we might be, we have to take care of ourselves if we’re going to be any good to anyone else. But if we take that idea and make it central to our lives, will it help us be loving people? Or will it encourage selfishness, which is pretty strong in most of us anyway? Clearly the answer is the latter.

Swedenborg would label that a “falsity,” because it is ultimately a description of how to be selfish. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” would, by contrast, be labeled a “truth” because it is a description of how to be caring and kind. Basically, statements describing or springing from love of the Lord and love of the neighbor are “truth” and those springing from love of self or love of worldly things are “falsity.”

You might wonder why that is. The fact that “look out for yourself” is selfish doesn’t make it necessarily untrue; it’s a selfish world! But in Swedenborg’s theology, the universe and reality itself are direct products of the Lord’s infinite love, and are thus ultimately expressions of love. The only reason selfishness exists is that the Lord created us with freedom, which includes the ability we have to reject His love and turn it toward ourselves instead. The Lord’s every intention and purpose is to get us turn away from ourselves and toward Him; if we do that, reality can fulfill its loving purpose.

True reality, then, is completely loving, and expressions that reflect and support that loving nature are “true” - they are aligned with reality in its purest, greatest and intended form. Statements that reject and deny that loving nature are “false” because they are contrary to reality’s true form.

But there’s an argument: Couldn’t someone use the idea that “you’ve got to look out for yourself, because no one else is going to” to become strong and self-reliant, in a better position to help others, and use it to be a better person? Yes, they could; ideas that are essentially false can at times be used for good purposes. In a broad application, religious systems can have false ideas about the Lord, but still lead people to good lives and ultimately to heaven. On the flip side, ideas that are essentially true can be used for evil purposes (“love thy neighbor” could prompt giving aid to someone engaged in evil, for instance). “Truth” only becomes truly real when it is married to the desire for good; “falsity” only becomes truly real when it is married to the desire for evil.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 734; Conjugial Love 428; Divine Providence 318; The Apocalypse Explained 526 [1-2]; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 171)

318. Now, though, I need to say how our state changes as a result of our justifications and the convictions that they yield, in the following sequence. (a) There is nothing that we cannot rationalize, and we can rationalize falsity more easily than truth. (b) Once we have justified what is false, we cannot see what is true; but once we have justified what is true, we can see what is false. (c) Our ability to justify whatever we please is not intelligence. It is only cleverness, which even the worst of us may have. (d) There is a kind of intellectual justification that is not volitional as well, but all our volitional justification is intellectual as well. (e) Our justification of what is evil, both volitionally and intellectually, is what makes us believe that our own prudence is everything and that divine providence is nothing. Intellectual justification alone does not do this, however. (f) Anything that we have justified both volitionally and intellectually lasts forever, but not what we have justified only intellectually.

[2] (a) As to the first point, that there is nothing that we cannot rationalize, and we can rationalize falsity more easily than truth, is there anything that we cannot justify? Especially when atheists can "prove" that God is not the creator of the universe, but that Nature is her own creatress; that religion is nothing but chains for simple people and commoners; that we are animals and die the way they do? And especially when they can prove that there is nothing wrong with adultery or with surreptitious theft, fraud, and deceptive plots, and that shrewdness is intelligence and malice is wisdom? We all justify our own heresies. Are there not volumes full of proofs of the two primary heresies in Christendom? Make up ten heresies, as obscure as you like, ask clever people to prove them, and they will prove them all. If you then look at them solely on the basis of their proofs, will you not be seeing false things as true? Given the fact that anything false may shine in our earthly self because of its superficialities and illusions, while truth shines only in our spiritual self, we can see that what is false is easier to prove than what is true.

[3] Let me offer an example to show that anything false and anything evil can be justified to the point that what is false seems to be true and what is evil seems to be good. Let us prove that light is darkness and that darkness is light. Can we not ask what light really is? Is it anything but what we see in our eyes because of their state? What is light to a closed eye? Do not bats and owls have eyes, and do they not see light as darkness and darkness as light? I have heard that some people have sight like this, and they say that hellish people see each other even though they are living in darkness. Do we ourselves not have light in our dreams at midnight? Does this not mean that darkness is light and that light is darkness?

We can answer, though, "What are you talking about? Light is light the way truth is truth, and darkness is darkness the way falsity is falsity."

[4] For another example, let us prove that crows are white. Can we not say that a crow's blackness is simply shadow that is not its real being? Its feathers are white inside, and so is its body. These are the substances that it is actually made of. Since its blackness is a shadow, it becomes white when it gets old. I have seen crows like this. What is blackness, essentially, if not whiteness? Grind up black glass and you will see that the powder is white. This means that if you call a crow black, you are talking about its shadow and not about its real self. We can answer, though, "What are you talking about? This would mean that all birds are white."

I offer these examples, even though they are irrational, to show that we can "prove" the falsity that is opposite to what is true and the evil that is opposite to what is good.

[5] (b) Once we have justified what is false, we cannot see what is true; but once we have justified what is true, we can see what is false. Everything false is in darkness and everything true is in the light. We cannot see anything in darkness, so we do not know what anything is unless we feel it. It is different in the light. That is why falsities are called "darkness" in the Word, and why it describes people who believe falsities as walking in darkness and the shadow of death [Psalms 23:4; Isaiah 9:2; Isaiah 50:10; Isaiah 59:9; John 12:35]. By the same token, truths are called "light" in the Word, so it describes people who believe truths as walking in the light [Isaiah 2:5; John 11:9; Revelation 21:24] and as "children of light" [John 12:36].

[6] There are many indications that once we have justified what is false, we cannot see what is true; but once we have justified what is true, we can see what is false. Can anyone see anything that is spiritually true without being taught by the Word? Would there not be nothing but darkness that can be dispelled only by light from the Word, and then only for people who are willing to be enlightened? Are there any heretics who can see their errors unless they are open to real truth from the church? Until they are, they cannot. I have talked with people who had convinced themselves of faith separate from charity, asking whether they had seen how much it says in the Word about love and caring, about works and deeds, and about keeping the Commandments, to the effect that people who kept them were blessed and wise and that people who did not were stupid. They have told me that when they read such things, all they could see was that they were about faith, so they skipped over them as though their eyes were closed.

[7] People who have convinced themselves of falsities are like people who see streaks on a wall, and when they do so in the evening shadows, they see the streaks in their imagination as a rider or some other human figure, an optical illusion that disappears when daylight shines in. Can anyone feel how spiritually filthy adultery is who does not feel the spiritual purity of chastity? Can anyone feel the cruelty of vengefulness who is not engaged in doing good out of love for his or her neighbor? Is there an adulterer or anyone eager for vengeance who does not ridicule the people who call these pleasures hellish--the people who say that the pleasures of marriage love and love for their neighbor are heavenly? The list could go on.

[8] (c) Our ability to justify whatever we please is not intelligence. It is only cleverness, which even the worst of us may have. There are people who are brilliant at justifying things who do not know anything true. They can still justify both truth and falsity. Some of them say, "What is truth? Is there any such thing? Anything is true if I make it true." In this world, these people are considered intelligent, but they are nothing but whitewashers. The only people who are intelligent are the people who can tell that a truth is true and who corroborate this by a constant awareness of truths. It is hard to tell the two kinds of person apart because it is hard to tell the difference between the light of rationalization and the light of a genuine sense of truth. It can seem as though the things we see in the light of rationalization are being presented in the light of a genuine sense of truth; and yet the difference is like the difference between a deceptive light and real light. In the spiritual world, that deceptive light turns into darkness when real light shines in. It is the light that many people in hell live in; and when they are let out into real light, they cannot see a thing. We can see from this that the ability to justify whatever we please is only cleverness, which even the worst of us may have.

[9] (d) There is a kind of intellectual justification that is not volitional as well, but all our volitional justification is intellectual as well. Some examples may serve to illustrate this. There are people who firmly believe in faith separated from charity but who live caring lives. In general, there are people who firmly believe in a false theology but do not live by these false beliefs. They are people who engage in intellectual justification but not volitional justification along with it. However, people who justify a false theology and live by it are engaged in both volitional and intellectual justification. This is because our discernment does not flow into our volition, but our volition does flow into our discernment.

This enables us to see what malicious distortion is and what distortion is that is not malicious, to see that nonmalicious distortion can be united to what is good, but that malicious distortion cannot. This is because nonmalicious distortion is distortion in our discernment but not in our volition, while malicious distortion is distortion in our discernment because of malice in our volition.

[10] (e) Our justification of what is evil, both volitionally and intellectually, is what makes us believe that our own prudence is everything and that divine providence is nothing. Intellectual justification alone, however, does not do this. There are many people who inwardly are convinced of their own prudence because of the way things seem in this world but who still do not deny divine providence. Their conviction is intellectual only. If they also deny divine providence, though, they are engaged in volitional justification as well. This attitude and bias are found primarily among people who deify the material world and themselves.

[11] (f) Anything that we have justified both volitionally and intellectually lasts forever, but not what we have justified only intellectually. Anything that is only in our discernment is not within us but outside us. It is only in our thought, and nothing really comes into us and becomes part of us except what is welcomed by our volition. This becomes part of our life's love. The next section will explain that this stays with us forever.