In New Christian thought, “charity” has a significantly different meaning than in the common modern English definition. In Swedenborg's works "charity" is usually the English rendering of the Latin word "caritas", which is also the root of the verb “to care.” If we think of “charity” as “a state of caring,” we can start seeing what Swedenborg was trying to convey.

“Caring” does not necessarily have to be emotional. You can take care of someone you don’t like, you can take care of business or errands or duties that have little or no emotional content. Swedenborg would call these “acts of charity,” things done from a desire to be a good person. But the idea of “caring” can elevate, too: When you care about someone it involves real affection, and to care about an idea or mission implies a deep commitment - it is a feeling, an emotional state. The ultimate state of “caring,” of course, would be caring about all of humanity, wanting what’s best for everyone on the planet. This is what Swedenborg would call “true charity,” and it is marked by love - the love of others. Importantly, though, it can't be left as an abstraction; it needs to be grounded out in action.

Or as Swedenborg puts it in Arcana Coelestia 8033: “Charity is an inward affection consisting in a desire which springs from a person's heart to do good to the neighbour, which is the delight of his life.”

At all these levels, though, charity cannot act on its own. It needs tools.

Imagine, for instance, a young mother falling and breaking her leg. Her four-year-old might love her desperately, but cannot take care of her. A paramedic, meanwhile, might see her as just a case number, but will get her stabilized and delivered to a hospital. The difference, obviously, is knowledge. The paramedic has a bunch of tested, true ideas in her head that give her the capacity to care for the mother; the four-year-old does not.

That knowledge is actually part of what Swedenborg would call “faith,” though he’s referring to spiritual things rather than medical ones. In general, “faith” in Swedenborg’s works refers to not just belief in the Lord but also the things we accept as true because they come to us from the Lord and the Lord’s teachings. If we take them and apply them to life, we can do works of charity - we can use knowledge to take care of people and things, to actually do something good. For this reason, faith and charity are often linked in Swedenborgian theology.

And just like the idea of caring, these items of faith can elevate. “Thou shalt not murder” is a good low-level matter of faith, and should certainly be applied if we want to be charitable people. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is a bit higher, a bit more internal, and will help us be charitable on a deeper level. The idea that by loving others we are loving the Lord will take us to a deeper place yet.

And perhaps most beautiful of all is what happens when we reach a state of true charity. If we work to be good because we want to serve the Lord, the Lord will eventually change our hearts, transforming us so that we delight in being good and delight in loving and helping others. At that stage the ideas of faith change from being the masters over our evil desires to being the servants of our good desires. From a loving desire to be good and serve others we will seek and use knowledge that lets us fulfill that mission.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 809, 916 [2], 1798 [2-5], 1799 [3-4], 1994, 8120; Charity 11, 40, 56, 90, 199; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 121; True Christian Religion 367, 377, 392, 425, 450, 453, 576)

377. (iii) Charity alone does not produce good deeds, much less does faith alone, but charity and faith together do.

This is because charity without faith is not charity, neither is faith without charity faith, as was shown above (355-361). Therefore charity by itself does not exist, neither does faith by itself; hence it cannot be said either that charity produces some good deeds by itself, nor that faith does by itself. This is similar to the case of the will and the understanding. The will does not exist by itself, so neither does it produce anything; nor does the understanding exist by itself, or produce anything. Everything that is produced comes from both acting together, and is the product of the understanding activated by the will. The reason why this is similar is that the will is the dwelling-place of charity, and the understanding is that of faith. Faith alone is said to be much less productive, because faith is truth, and its function is to create truths, and these enlighten charity and its exercise. The Lord teaches about this enlightenment when He said:

He who does the truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be made apparent, since they are done in God,John 3:21.

When therefore a person does good deeds in accordance with truths, he does them in light, that is to say, intelligently and wisely.

[2] The linking of charity and faith is like a marriage between husband and wife. All natural offspring are born of the husband as father and the wife as mother. Likewise all spiritual offspring are born of charity as father and faith as mother; and these are items of knowledge about good and truth. These enable us to recognise the parentage of spiritual families. In the Word too husband and father mean in the spiritual sense the good of charity, wife and mother mean the truth of faith. From this it is plain too that neither charity alone nor faith alone can produce good deeds, just as neither a husband alone nor a wife alone can produce any offspring. The truths of faith not only throw light on charity, they also give it its quality and, moreover, nourish it. Therefore a person who possesses charity and not the truths of faith is like one walking in a garden by night, and snatching fruit from the trees without knowing whether they are good or bad to use. Since the truths of faith not only throw light on charity, but also give it its quality, as said above, it follows that charity without the truths of faith is like a fruit with no juice in it, such as a dried fig or a grape after the wine has been pressed out of it. Since truths nourish faith, as was also said above, it follows that if charity is deprived of the truths of faith, it gets no more nourishment than a person does from eating toasted bread and drinking dirty water from a pool.

356. (i) It was shown above in the third section (343-348) that a person can acquire faith for himself. This showed that faith is in its essence truth, and anyone can acquire truths from the Word; and that in so far as anyone acquires them for himself and loves them, so far does he begin to acquire faith. To this must be added the following point, that if a person were unable to acquire faith for himself, everything about faith which is commanded in the Word would be said in vain. For it says there that it is the Father's will that people should believe in the Son, and that he who believes in Him has everlasting life, and he who does not believe will not see life. We also read that Jesus was to send the Comforter, who should convict the world of sin, 'for not believing in me.' There are many other passages, which were quoted above (337-338). Moreover, all the Apostles preached faith, faith in the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ. What use would all these passages be, if a person were to stand with his hands hanging down like a carved puppet fitted with movable joints, and wait for God to act upon him? In such a case, instead of the joints being able to adapt themselves to receiving this influence, they would be stimulated from within to some action which had nothing to do with faith.

[2] For the received doctrine at the present day in the part of Christendom separated from the Roman Catholics teaches that:

Man is utterly corrupt and dead to good, so that after the fall and before regeneration not a spark of spiritual strength has been left or remains in man's nature, so as to enable him to be prepared for God's grace, or to grasp it when offered, or to be capable of receiving grace of his own accord or by his own efforts; or in spiritual matters to understand, believe, embrace, think, will, begin, complete, act, work or collaborate, or to devote or fit himself for grace or do anything of himself towards conversion, either wholly or half or to the smallest extent. Man in spiritual matters relating to the salvation of the soul is like Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, or like a lifeless block of wood or stone, unable to use its eyes, its mouth or any senses. Yet man possesses the power of locomotion, that is, of controlling his outward parts, of attending public gatherings, and listening to the Word and the Gospel.

These statements are from the book of the Evangelical Church called 'The Formula of Concord' published in Leipzig in 1756 (pp. 656, 658, 661-3, 671-3). When priests are ordained they swear on this book and so swear to uphold this faith. The Reformed Churches have a similar faith. But is there anyone, endowed with reason and a religion, who would not howl down these views as nonsensical and absurd? For he would say to himself, 'If that were so, what use would the Word be, what use would religion be, or the priesthood, or preaching? Would it be more than an empty noise signifying nothing?' If you were to say this sort of thing to a heathen with some power of judgment whom you wanted to convert, telling him he was like this as regards conversion and faith, could he fail to look on Christianity otherwise than as an empty vessel? For if you take away from a person any power to believe as of himself, what else could he do? This subject will be set in a clearer light in the chapter on free will.