Faith … the WHY
Continuing our series on Swedenborg’s True Christian Religion.
Where we’ve been so far:
- God the Creator
- The Lord the Redeemer
- The Holy Spirit and the Way God Works
- The Sacred Scripture or the Word of the Lord
- The Catechism or the Ten Commandments, explained in both the external and internal senses
This chapter: FAITH
This chapter is NOT about defining what you should believe – that’s really what the whole book is about – it’s about the development of faith and its effect upon a person. This chapter and the next (on CHARITY) go together.
Conceptually, we separate faith and charity, in reality they CANNOT be separated:
“Charity can no more be separated from faith than the heart can from the lungs. For if the heartbeat ceases, the respiration of the lungs ceases at once; and if the respiration of the lungs ceases, total unconsciousness supervenes, and inability to move any muscle, so that shortly afterwards, the heart also stops and all trace of life vanishes.” (367. Section 4)
“When people say that those are saved who have faith, they are saying something true; but in the Word nothing else is meant by faith than love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, and so a life that is derived from those loves. Matters of doctrine and established beliefs do not constitute faith yet are part of faith, for these, each and every one, exist to the end that a person may become such as they teach.” (Arcana Coelestia, paragraph 2116)
First in time vs. first in intention.
“Faith, which also means truth, is first in time, but charity, which also means good, is first in intention.” (True Christian Religion, paragraph 336, section 2)
The paragraph continues:
“… the building of a church and a house, … The first thing in time in building a church is laying the foundations, building the walls, putting the roof on, and then putting an altar inside and constructing a pulpit; but the first thing in intention is the worship of God in the church, which is the reason why the other things are done. The first thing in time in building a house is making its outer fabric, and equipping it with all the necessities of life; but the first thing in intention is a convenient dwelling for oneself and the others who are to live in the house.”
IV The mass of truths, which cohere as it were in a bundle, raises the level of faith and brings it to perfection.
“There is only one true faith, because faith is truth, and truth cannot be shattered and carved up, so that one part verges to the left, and one part to the right, and still remain its own truth. Faith as generally understood is composed of countless truths, for it is a collection of truths. But all these countless truths make up, as it were, a single body, to which the truths as its parts belong. … This is why Paul calls the church the body of Christ.” (paragraph 379)
V Faith without charity is no faith, and charity without faith is no charity, and both are lifeless unless the Lord gives them life.
“… a person can only acquire by his own efforts natural faith, which is a firm belief that a thing is so because an authoritative person so declared it. He can also acquire only natural charity, which is working in someone’s favour for the sake of some reward. These two contain man’s self, and there is no life as yet from the Lord. Still a person by either of these prepares himself to receive the Lord. In so far as he prepares himself, so far does the Lord come in and make his natural faith spiritual, and likewise his charity, and so make both living. These results follow when a person approaches the Lord as the God of heaven and earth. … in so far as a person prepares himself on the natural level to receive the Lord, so does the Lord come in and make everything within him spiritual, so giving everything life.” (paragraph 359)