The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained/Chapter15

by Benjamin Fiske Barrett

 

XV.—Free-Will.

The freedom of the human will has been a subject of frequent debate and much angry controversy among Christians. But latterly the more thoughtful and intelligent of all denominations have been gradually settling down in the belief of the New Church doctrine on this subject—most of them, probably, without the knowledge or even suspicion that it is the New Church doctrine; just as they have been gradually sloughing off the old dogmas of election, reprobation, infant damnation, and the like, and accepting something more rational and Scriptural instead.

But at the time when Swedenborg wrote, the generally accepted doctrine on this subject among Protestant Christians was, that man is utterly destitute of free-will in spiritual and divine things; that, in respect to the things which regard the soul's salvation, "he is like a stock or a stone, or like the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned;" that, "before conversion man is a rational creature who has understanding, but not in divine things; and a will, but not such that he desires any saving good. Nevertheless, he cannot contribute anything to his own salvation, and in this respect he is worse than a stock or a stone;" that "in conversion, whereby from being a child of wrath he becomes a child of grace, man does not co-operate with the Holy Spirit, since the work of his conversion belongs exclusively to the Spirit," which "accomplishes it in the understanding, heart and will of man as in a passive subject—the man doing nothing but remain passive."

These extracts are all from the Formula Concordiæ, which contains the generally accepted opinions of Protestant Christendom a century and a quarter ago. And their teaching is seen to be quite in harmony with the other beliefs then prevalent in the Christian church, and affords another illustration of the spiritual darkness in which the church of that day was immersed, and the consequent need there was of new light from on High. Now contrast this old and once prevalent belief with the new doctrine as received and taught in the New Church.

This doctrine is: That man is not life, but only a form receptive of life from God, who alone is Life itself; that he is gifted with free-will in things spiritual as well as in things civil, moral and natural, and is, therefore, free to choose between right and wrong, and to do whichever he chooses; is as free to look to and obey the revealed will of God, as he is to obey the civil laws which constitute the expressed will of the kingdom or state; that free-will is an essential element of humanity, and without which man would not be man; that it is the Lord's continual desire that man should become spiritual by voluntarily receiving from Him spiritual truth and good—a thing which would be utterly impossible if he had not free-will in spiritual things; that without such free-will the Word of God would be useless, and its commands to believe and do and shun certain things, would be absurd and meaningless; that there could be no reciprocal union of man with the Lord and the Lord with man, consequently no heaven which is the result of such union, without free-will in spiritual things; that the denial of such free-will would necessitate the impious conclusion, that God himself, and not man, is the cause of evil; that God is in the perpetual endeavor to re-create man in his own image and likeness, but cannot do it without man's coöperation, and this could not be given if man had no free-will in spiritual things; that only the good which a man freely chooses, or which is received by him in freedom, remains as a permanent possession; that man's free-will is forever held inviolable, and forever guarded by the Lord as his most precious endowment, since without it the good and truth of charity and faith could not be implanted in him, nor heavenly happiness be conferred. We are perfectly free to choose good or evil; but when we do good, while we do it as of ourselves, yet we ought to believe and acknowledge that it is the Lord who every moment gives us the disposition and power to do it. Swedenborg says:

"Such is the law of order, that man ought to do good as of himself, and not hang down his hands under the idea that, because he cannot of himself do anything that is good, he ought to wait for immediate influx from above, and so remain in a passive state; for this is contrary to order. But he ought to do good as of himself; and when he reflects upon the good that he does or has done, he should think, acknowledge and believe that it was the Lord in him who did it. For when a person hangs down his hands under the above-mentioned idea, he is not a subject on which the Lord can operate, since He cannot operate by influx on any one who deprives himself of everything into which the requisite power can be infused. . . Man does not live from himself; yet unless he appeared to himself so to live, he could not possibly live at all." (A. C. 1712.)