From The Doctrines For Spiritual Christianity
People know, indeed, that everything in the universe has some relation to goodness and truth, because by goodness is meant something that universally embraces and includes all aspects of love, and by truth is meant something that universally embraces and includes all aspects of wisdom. But people do not as yet know that goodness is not real unless united with truth, and that truth is not real unless united with goodness. It appears, indeed, as though goodness may be real apart from truth, and that truth may be real apart from goodness, but still they are not. For love, all of whose constituents are good, is the being of anything real, and wisdom, all of whose constituents are truths, is the expression of anything real from that being, as we have shown in our treatise Divine Love and Wisdom 14-16. Consequently, as being has no reality apart from expression, or expression apart from being, so goodness is not real apart from truth, and truth is not real apart from goodness. Similarly, what is good without reference to anything? Can it be called good? For it is incapable of affecting anything or of being perceived. That which in union with good has the power to affect and which allows it to be perceived and felt relates to truth, because it relates to what exists in the intellect. Say to someone simply “good,” and not that this or that is good. Has “good” then any meaning? But from this or that which is perceived as one with good, it has meaning. That which is perceived as one with good is united with good nowhere else than in the intellect, and everything in the intellect relates to truth. It is the same with willing. To will without knowing, perceiving and thinking what one wills is not something real. But in union with these it becomes something real. All willing is connected with love and relates to goodness, while all knowing, perceiving and thinking is a function of the intellect and relates to truth. It is apparent, therefore, that simply to will is without meaning, but that to will this or that has meaning. It is the same with all useful endeavor, because useful endeavor is good. Unless useful endeavor is directed to some application with which to unite itself, it is not useful and so is not real. Useful endeavor takes its application from the intellect, and that which is joined or attached to the endeavor from the intellect relates to truth. That is what gives useful endeavor its character. From these few considerations it can be seen that good is not real apart from truth, thus that neither is truth real apart from good. We say that good united with truth, and truth united with good, are real. It follows from this that evil in union with falsity, and falsity in union with evil, are not something real, for the latter are the opposite of the former, and opposition means destruction – in this case the destruction of the latter’s reality. But more on this subject hereafter. (Divine Providence 11{1-4})
The husband represents wisdom, and the wife the love of his wisdom. This, however, is not a prior but a secondary love which the wife has from the Lord through the wisdom of her husband. (Conjugial Love 21)
The ability to be wise grows in people who have real married love, but for those who do not have real married love it shrinks. The reason the ability to be wise increases for people who have real married love is that married partners have this love on account of, and in keeping with, wisdom, as many demonstrations in earlier passages have shown. Then, too, the sense that belongs to this love is touch, which is common to all the senses and also full of delights, so it opens the inner reaches of the mind as it opens the inner reaches of the senses and with them the organs of the whole body. This means that people involved in this love, love nothing more than being perceptive, since people are perceptive to the extent that the more inward reaches of their minds are open. This opening, in fact, lets intellectual thoughts rise into a higher light and voluntary responses rise into a higher warmth. The higher light is wisdom, and the higher warmth is a love for wisdom. The spiritual joys that people with real married love have, united with earthly joys, make for a pleasantness that in turn brings an ability to be wise. This is why angels have married love in keeping with their wisdom, and it is why this love, with its joy, increases in keeping with the growth of their wisdom. (Conjugial Love 211{ii})
Pleasure without delight is not pleasure, but is something without life, and only from delight is and is called pleasure. Such also as is the delight, such is the pleasure. Corporeal and sensuous things are in themselves only material, lifeless, and dead; but from delights which come in order from the interiors, they have life. From this it is evident that such as is the life of the interiors, such is the delight in the pleasures, for in the delight there is life. The delight in which there is good from the Lord is alone living, for it is then from the very life of good. Some think that no one ought ever to live in the pleasures of the body and its senses who wishes to be happy in the other life, but that all these should be renounced on the ground that they are corporeal and worldly, withdrawing man and keeping him away from spiritual and heavenly life. But those who think so and therefore reduce themselves to voluntary misery while they live in the world, are not well-informed as to what the real case is. No one is forbidden to enjoy the pleasures of the body and its senses, that is, the pleasures of possession of lands and wealth; the pleasures of honor and office in the state; the pleasures of conjugial love and of love for infants and children; the pleasures of friendship and of interaction with companions; the pleasures of hearing, or of the sweetness of singing and music; the pleasures of sight, or of beauties, which are manifold, as those of becoming dress, of elegant dwellings with their furniture, beautiful gardens, and the like, which are delightful from harmony of form and color; the pleasures of smell, or of fragrant odors; the pleasures of taste, or of the flavors and benefits of food and drink; the pleasures of touch. For these are most external or bodily affections arising from interior affections, as already said. Interior affections, which are living, all derive their delight from good and truth; and good and truth derive their delight from charity and faith, and in this case do so from the Lord, thus from life itself; wherefore the affections and pleasures therefrom are living. And since genuine pleasures have this origin, they are denied to no one. Indeed, when they are from this origin their delight indefinitely surpasses delight not from this source, which is in comparison unclean. For example, the pleasure of conjugial love, when it has its origin from true conjugial love, surpasses immeasurably pleasure that has not this origin, so much so that those who are in true conjugial love are in heavenly delight and happiness, since it comes down from heaven. This was acknowledged by the men of the Most Ancient Church. The delight from adulteries felt by adulterers was to those men so abominable that when they thought of it they shuddered. From all this it is evident what is the nature of the delight that does not flow from the true fountain of life, or from the Lord. That the pleasures above mentioned are never denied to man, and that so far from being denied they are then first really pleasures when they come from their true origin, may also be seen from the fact that very many who have lived in power, dignity, and opulence in the world, and who had all pleasures in abundance, both of the body and of the senses, are among the blessed and happy in heaven, and with them now the interior delights and happinesses are living, because they have had their origin in the goods of charity and the truths that are of faith in the Lord. And since they had regarded all their pleasures as coming from charity and faith in the Lord, they regarded them from use, which was their end. Use itself was the most delightful thing to them, and from this came the delight of their pleasures. (See what has been related from experience, n. 945.) (Arcana Coelestia 995{1-4})
Where there is real love in marriage the wife accepts this aura, and the husband accepts it only through his wife. It is unknown today that among those who have real married love the husband receives this sphere only through his wife, and yet it is no secret in its own right, because a bridegroom and newlywed can know it. Everything that comes from a bride or a new wife nurtures a love of marriage, does it not? But at that time what comes from others of her sex does not. It is like this with people who are living together in real married love. Besides, since both men and women are surrounded by the sphere of their life – thickly in front and thinly in back – we can see why husbands who love their wives well face their wives and look at them fondly during the day. On the other hand, men who do not love their wives turn away from them and look at them with narrowed eyes during the day. You can tell real married love by the husband’s accepting the sphere of marriage only through his wife, and this distinguishes it from counterfeit, false, or frigid married love. (Conjugial Love 224 {xv})
That fornication belongs to the natural man in like manner as does love of the sex which, if it becomes active before marriage, is called fornication. Every man is born corporeal, becomes sensual, then natural, and successively rational, and if he does not stop there, he becomes spiritual. The reason why his progress is such, is that planes may be formed upon which higher planes may rest as a palace on its foundations. The ultimate plane with its superstructure may also be likened to a ground in which, when prepared, noble seeds are planted. As specifically regards love of the sex, it also is first corporeal, for it commences from the flesh. It then becomes sensual, for from its general [delight] the five senses are delighted. After that it becomes natural, like the same love with animals, being a roaming love of the sex. But because man was born that he may become spiritual, it later becomes natural-rational, and from natural-rational, spiritual, and at last spiritual-natural. Then that love, now become spiritual, inflows into and actuates the rational love and through this the sensual love, and finally through this the love in the body and the flesh; and this being its ultimate plane, it acts into it spiritually and at the same time rationally and sensually. It inflows and acts successively in this way when man is in meditation upon it, but simultaneously when he is in the ultimate. That fornication belongs to the natural man is because it proceeds proximately from the natural love of the sex, and while this love may be natural-rational, it is not spiritual. Love of the sex cannot become spiritual until it becomes conjugial, and from being natural it becomes spiritual when man recedes from roaming lust and devotes himself to one, to whose soul he unites his own soul. (Conjugial Love 447 {iii,1-3})
Key Points From The Video
Acknowledging the Material World: The material world, perceived through the senses, is self-evidently real. Affirming its existence is recognising the tangibility of natural objects. Doubting it would be doubting our own sentience.
Diverging Views: Spiritual Versus Material: Spiritual individuals do not question the material world more than materialists do, but their understanding of its nature diverges.
The Spiritual Understanding: Those guided by a spiritual perspective connect the natural world with the spiritual world and through that, to the Lord as the “light of life” residing within their minds.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. What would doubting the existence of the material world be tantamount to?
a. denying the existence of God
b. rejecting scientific principles
c. doubting our own sentience
d. embracing philosophical nihilism
Answer c)
2. What do materialists often posit beyond their immediate experience of the material world?
a. a realm of angels and spirits
b. a substratum of matter
c. a world of pure energy
d. a utopian society
Answer b)
3. What do those guided by a spiritual perspective connect their experience of the natural world with?
a. the spiritual world and through that to the Lord as the light of life
b. scientific experimentation and empirical evidence
c. philosophical reasoning and natural observation
d. a theoretical world of their own making
Answer a)
4. According to the Text, what does the Divine Love give rise to within the minds of those with a spiritual perspective?
a. every good affection of their will
b. every desire for material wealth
c. every inclination towards self-indulgence
d. every impulse towards worldly power
Answer a)
5. According to the Text, what does the Divine Agency create within the most external faculties of the mind?
a. the universe of the mind
b. the concept of the soul
c. the human body
d. space, time and the vast universe of nature
Answer d)
Reflective Questions
1. In what specific ways do you find yourself drawn to either a materialist or a spiritual understanding of the material world, and what underlying beliefs or assumptions might be driving this tendency?
2. How can you actively cultivate a greater connection between your experience of the natural world and the Divine Love, Wisdom, and Agency residing within your own mind?
3. How does recognising the Divine as the One Essential Life of all things change your perspective on environmental stewardship, ethical consumption, and your relationship with the natural world?
Experiential Integration
Choose a specific object in your environment (e.g., a plant, a piece of furniture, a photograph). First, observe it through the lens of your “natural mind,” focusing on its physical properties, its utility, and its aesthetic qualities. Then, shift your perspective, seeking to perceive it through the “spiritual mind.” Ask yourself: What spiritual qualities or principles does this object represent? How does it connect to the Divine Love, Wisdom, and Agency that permeates all of creation?
Record your reflections in a journal, noting any insights that emerge and how they might shift your perspective.
Before Moving On…
Allow yourself some time to reflect on the course as a whole and what came up for you. Remember too that inner reflective work can give rise to states of uncertainty and conflict, as well as opening up many questions. If you would like to talk with someone to explore these more, then please Contact Us.