1. 前言:新天國與新教會的信仰
首先, 將本書中所講述的真實的基督徒信仰, 也就是新天國和新教會的信仰, 分別以總體和具體的形式概要地說明。作為接下來全書的引言, 或作為進入聖殿的大門, 又或作為詳細內容的概要。此信仰被稱為新天國和新教會的信仰, 因為天人(angel)組成的天國和世人組成的教會, 如同一個人的靈魂與肉體, 內外一致,行動如一。因此, 若教會之人活在良善與真理之中, 對於思想內在而言, 他就是天國的一名天人。在肉身死後, 他便進入天國, 照著良善與真理在他裡面聯合的狀態在那裡安享極樂。當知道, 在主現在正建立的新天國中, 這樣的信仰是新天國的引言,入門和概要。
23. 3. People who live lives based on truth and use that truth to focus on and move toward what is good; and also the nature of truths that lead to what is good. We intend whatever we love, and whatever we love or intend we think about and justify by various means. Whatever we love or intend we call good, and whatever thoughts and various justifications we have we call true: 4070. That is why truth turns into goodness when it becomes a matter of our love and will, or when we love and will it: 5526, 7835, 10367. And since our love or our will is the core of our existence, no truth comes to life for us as long as we only know about it and think about it-[it comes to life] only when we love and will to do it and we do it as a result of our love and our will: 1 5595, 9282. That is how truths receive their life-from what is good: 2434, 3111, 3607, 6077. So truths get their life from what is good, and truths have no life apart from what is good: 1589, 1950, 1997, 2572, 3180, 4070, 4096, 4097, 4736, 4757, 4884, 5147, 5928, 9154, 9667, 9841, 10729. Illustrated [by a comparison]: 9154. When truths can be said to have come to life: 1928. When truth is joined to what is good it becomes part of us because it becomes a matter of our life: 3108, 3161. In order for a truth to be joined to some goodness, our will needs to agree with our understanding; not until our will agrees does the joining take place: 3157, 3158, 3161.
[2] As we are being regenerated, truths become a part of us, along with a feeling of pleasure because we love to do them; and later those truths come back to us with that same feeling again, because the truths and the feeling are joined together: 2480, 2487, 3040, 3066, 3074, 3336, 4018, 5893, 7967. Some feeling related to what we love always attaches itself to any truths we learn, depending on the use we make of those truths in our lives. If those truths come to mind, the feelings come with them: or if those feelings recur, then the truths come with them: 3336, 3824, 3849, 4205, 5893, 7967. Goodness does not recognize anything as true unless it is in harmony with the inclinations of its love: 3161. Truths gain entrance to us by means of things that are pleasurable and delightful [to our earthly self]: 3502, 3512. All genuine love of truth comes from and is shaped by goodness: 4373, 8349, 8356. There is a subtle entry and inflow of goodness into truths, and there is a joining together of goodness and truth (4301); and that is how truths come to life (7967).
[3] Because some feeling of love always attaches itself to any truths we learn, depending on the use we make of those truths in our lives, a given type of goodness recognizes the truth that is its own, and a given type of truth recognizes the goodness that is its own: 2429, 3101, 3102, 3161, 3179, 3180, 4358, 5807, 5835, 9637. The result is a joining together of what is true and what is good: 3834, 4096, 4097, 4301, 4345, 4364, 4368, 5365, 7623-7627, 7752-7762, 8530, 9258, 10555. Truths recognize each other as well and gather together: 9079. This happens because of an inflow from heaven: 9079.
[4] Goodness is the reality underlying life and truth is how life becomes manifest from that goodness. 2 So goodness finds the manifestation of its life in truth, and truth finds the underlying reality of its life in goodness: 3049, 3180, 4574, 5002, 9144. Thus everything good has its own truth and everything true has its own goodness, because goodness apart from truth has no manifestation and truth apart from goodness has no reality: 9637. Further, goodness gets its form and character from truths, and correspondingly truth is the form and character of goodness (3049, 4574, 6916, 9154); and so truth and goodness need to be joined together in order to be anything at all (10555). So goodness is constantly engaged in the longing and effort to join truths to itself: 9206, 9495. Some illustrations of this: 9207. Correspondingly, truths also strive to join themselves to some goodness: 9206. The joining is reciprocal-goodness with truth and truth with goodness: 5365, 8516. Goodness acts and truth reacts, though it does this as an effect of goodness: 3155, 4380, 4757, 5928, 10729. Truths focus on the good they can do as their origin and aim: 4353.
[5] The joining of truth with goodness parallels the successive phases of our lives beginning in infancy. We gather truths first as information, and then as the basis for rational thinking; ultimately we put them to use in deciding how to live our lives: 3203, 3665, 3690. It is also like a child: it is conceived, lives in the womb, is born, matures, and eventually gains wisdom: 3298, 3299, 3308, 3665, 3690. It is also like seeds and soil (3671) and like the relationship of water to bread (4976). Our first feeling of love for truth is not genuine, but as we are perfected it is purified: 3040, 3089. Still, forms of goodness and truth that are not genuine serve to lead us to forms of goodness and truth that are, at which point we abandon the earlier forms: 3665, 3690, 3974, 3982, 3986, 4145.
[6] Further, we are led to what is good by means of truths, and not in their absence: 10124, 10367. If we do not learn or accept truths, goodness cannot flow into us, so we cannot become spiritual: 3387. The joining of goodness and truth progresses as our knowledge grows: 3141. For all of us, our acceptance of truths depends on our rational capacity: 3385, [ 3387].
[7] The truths of our earthly self are in the form of information: 3293, 3309, 3310. The information and concepts we have are like containers: 6004, 6023, 6052, 6071, 6077. Truths are containers of goodness because they are receptive to it: 1469, 1900, 2063, 2261, 2269, 3318, 3365.
[8] Goodness flows in through an inner way for us, or through the soul, while what is true flows in from the outside through our hearing and sight; and they are joined together within us by the Lord: 3030, 3098. Truths are lifted up from the earthly self and sown in what is good in the spiritual self, and this is how truths become spiritual: 3085, 3086. Then they flow back into the earthly self; goodness in the spiritual self flows directly into goodness in the earthly self but flows indirectly into the truth in the earthly self: 3314, 3573, 4563. Some illustrations of this: 3314, 3616, 3576, 3969, 3995. In brief, how amply and well truths are joined to what is good in us depends on how amply and well we focus on what is good in the way we lead our lives: 3834, 3843. The joining takes place in one way for heavenly people and in another way for spiritual people: 10124. More on the joining together of goodness and truth and on how it takes place (3090, 3203, 3308, 4096, 4097, 4345, 4353, 5365, 7623-7627); and also on how what is good on the spiritual level is given form through truths (3470, 3570).
Fotnoter:
1. Although the English locution "to do truth" may seem strained, it mirrors the Latin of this passage, which reads verum . . . facit, "one does truth. " Compare similar language at New Jerusalem 24[4] ("practicing . . . goodness") and 106:4 ("doing what is good and what is true"). This kind of emphatic language about "doing" goes back to the Bible. Examples from the New Revised Standard Version include: "All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient" (Exodus 24:7); "Whoever does [these commandments] and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:19); "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it" (Luke 8:21); "Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God" (John 3:21); "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them" (John 13:17); "It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified" (Romans 2:13); "Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves" (James 1:22); "If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true" (1 John 1:6). See also Matthew 12:50; Luke 6:47. Compare the passage cited here, Secrets of Heaven 9282: "Statements on life, worship, and the public sphere are nothing to us as long as they remain in our intellect alone; it is when they are present in our will that they first become part of us. That is why the Word is constantly saying that a thing is ‘to be done. '" Compare also New Jerusalem 4: "‘Living' includes both intending and acting. " [JSR, SS]
2. The Latin word here translated "reality" is Esse, the infinitive of the verb meaning "to be," used substantively. The Latin word underlying the term "becomes manifest" is Existere, a substantive infinitive of the verb that means "to arise," "to spring (from)," or, etymologically, "to stand forth. " Esse refers to underlying existence; Existere, to actualization. In True Christianity 21 Swedenborg correlates the terms with substance and form. [GFD, JSR]
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