The Philosophy of Creation/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
REVELATION.
Revelation Is Necessary Because Spiritual
Things, Wherein Are Causes, Are
Above The Plane Of Science
And Of The Senses.
The physical senses are not capable of perceiving spiritual things, or what is superior to nature. They can comprehend only what addresses them on the plane of their own organization. The investigation of spiritual things by science destroys the mind's vision, for in so doing the sensual is made the principal, when in reality it is only instrumental. Spiritual truths must be received by revelation. It is the office of science and reason to confirm revelation.
The causes of things in nature, the soul, the spiritual world, and God are impalpable and non-revealable to the senses. None of these, therefore, can be found out by merely human searching. Nor can human reason aided only by science and sensual knowledge ascend to them, for reason, without a guide superior to itself, would follow the outward appearance rather than the inward reality. "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out," for spiritual things are the subject of revelation only.
Since nature receives influx of force from an invisible source, and each of its degrees appropriates that force and acts as of itself on its own plane, the outward appearance is that nature creates and sustains of her own self. If influx into nature is disregarded, and matter alone is taken into account, there is no other resort than to believe that nature of herself has power to form and create from inherent force. Reason unassisted by an intelligence superior to itself looks to the senses, and follows downward to nature, the plane of effects, and away from the true source of causes and of higher intelligence. Consequently things superior to nature can, in the first instance, come into thought and become known only through some form of revelation.
The Truths Fundamental To Science Are
Revealed In The Letter Of The Word.
In the literal sense of the Word, when rightly understood, may be seen the fundamentals of all genuine scientific truths, which, being taken from nature and declared in the Word, act as a fountain from which flow all truths of science. Into the truths of the literal sense of the Word influx from the Lord comes, illuminating and illustrating the entire scientific plane. All truth is derived from without, and comes to the understanding. All good comes from within through the will, which flows down into the understanding, and there operates according to the truths of faith derived directly or indirectly from the Word. Since all genuine science superior to merely experimental facts is from light derived from the Word, the Word is the only interpreter of the experimental facts. It never would have been imagined that there is a God, if the Word did not teach the "I Am." Nothing other than that nature created herself would have been possible to conception, if it were not declared in the letter of the Word that "God created the heavens and the earth." We never could have had any other idea than that the creating power is the "inherent aptitude" of atoms, if it were not declared in the letter of the Word that Divine truth is the creating power. "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of His mouth." It never would have been imagined that anything other than Natural Selection brought forth the higher forms from the lower, were it not revealed in the letter of the Word that God created each thing "yielding seed after its kind"; nor would the human family have differentiated itself from the apes, if it were not revealed by the Word that "God created man in His own image"; nor would it come to mind that man is a soul and has a body, if it were not taught in the letter of the Word that God created man a "living soul"; nor would it be thought other than that death ends life, if the Word did not teach that "all live unto Him"; nor would the existence of a spiritual world be thought of, if the Word did not declare the "Father's house" of "many mansions"; nor would man ever surmise the purpose of his creation, did the Word not reveal that he is created to receive love and wisdom from God, and the life everlasting; "I have created him for My glory."
However startling the assertion may seem, it is nevertheless true that the theory of Evolution could never have been developed or conceived were the fundamentals of science not revealed in the Word, for Evolution has its origin in the natural man hearing genuine truths from the Word, and then inverting them. Materialistic philosophy is derived by ingeniously inverting truths from the Word, and there is not one principle in the entire system, ranging from the alpha of chemistry to the omega of ethics, the reverse of which can not be found in the Word. For in the letter of the Word are provided all the truths fundamental to science, into which interior truths are to be insinuated. As one is provided with genuine truths from the Word, and has faith in them, spiritual light flows into the natural mind, and illuminates it, enabling the investigator to see scientific truths and facts not merely as they fallaciously appear, but as they really are, and to give them their place in true philosophy. Without such light it can not be concluded otherwise than that creation originated in the fortuitous concourse of atoms, and that life is due to the complexity of structure formed by such concourse.
Civilization Has Ever Been Dependent Upon
Revelation.
The necessity of revelation, by which is meant a Divine dispensation of truth that imparts to man in the first instance true thought concerning nature and things superior to it, is emphatically illustrated by our present conditions. The modern development of civilization emanates specifically from the revelation made through Christ. Though our Scripture, the Word, is doubted, materialized, literalized, and misunderstood, the vast amount of moral good and moral law revealed to the world through it is the certain and only basis of modern civilization. The Word thus becomes the source from which proceeds the spirit of all progress both scientific and religious. This may seem to be a too comprehensive declaration, yet it is substantiated by the fact that where the Christian revelation is permitted there is progress; but where it is not there is barbarism, stagnation, or retrogression. Inventions excel with those nations that have religious liberty and the freest access to the Word, because the faculty of invention draws its light from the general sphere of light emanating from the Word by means of those who have faith in it.
The Mohammedan civilization, vastly superior to the idolatrous conditions preceding, likewise originated in a revelation, what is good in it being taken by Mohammed from the Word and adapted to the states of a people and to the accomplishment of its purpose.
The Jewish civilization surpassed in the character of its worship the surrounding nations. Though its worship was similar in many respects to theirs, yet in others it was so distinct as to render it impossible for it to have been developed from any prior religion. When the Jewish doctrines, worship, and state are compared to those of other peoples, the teaching of the Word, that they grew out of revelation through prophet and seer, is the only possible conclusion consistent with reason. It is the unvarying record of history that every distinctly new dispensation of superior truth and life proceeded from prophet or seer, or from some form of revelation, which corroborates the conclusions of reason and the declaration of the Word, that knowledge superior to nature must in the first instance be revealed. So strongly had the practical truth of this fact impressed itself upon the minds of all people, that when the channels of true revelation became closed through profaning it, and the consequent falling away from Divine order ensued, even in most heathen times revelation was sought through the consultation of oracle and as coming from God or from the spiritual world.
That instruction by means of dreams and visions was once common, and reliable because from the Lord, and that the Lord talked with people "face to face," is evident from the Word. The primeval condition and states of man made it possible for all to be instructed by the influx of life and truth directly from the Creator, and, afterwards, when the heavens were formed, through the angels, whereby the mind of each was opened to receive true love, and to perceive its character and the law of its operation. Such revelation would necessarily carry with it the disclosure of Divine laws, the knowledge of a spiritual world, life after death, and the kind of life here that is the best preparation for eternal uses. Such would constitute a revelation whereby there might be rapid development to a highest form of civilization, the essentials of which in all cases are the knowledge of God and the observance of His laws. It is evident from the Word that not until the decline of the first civilization, was open communication with heaven and the Lord closed, and revelation confined to prophet, seer, and the written Word.
The worship of God is essentially the aspiration for His qualities, which could not have taken place prior to revelation of Him. The existence of worship necessarily implies a prior revelation of the Divine Being, and since there is no race of people without a form of religion, or a time known when there was not some knowledge of God, the evidence of all historic records, that the revelation of God was coeval with the creation of man, is in every way substantiated. Not only most clear and positive, but actual and extensive data must be brought forth to merit attention in controverting the evidence of all history and the natural inference from the world's practice and testimony, that the knowledge of goodness and truth is of Divine origin and primarily derived from revelation.
Again, as it is evident that man can not find out God by his own searching, and as the object of human existence is, in the Scriptural sense, to know God, and thereby to receive from His wisdom and love, it is not possible that God would create a race without revealing Himself to it; for in so doing He would not only fail in providing for His own children, but by neglect He would defeat His own design.
There is something peculiarly inconsistent in the tenets of Materialists who upon the one hand avow that God is absolutely unknowable, and upon the other that religion is a product of Evolution. Indeed one assertion contradicts the other, for religion is nothing other in its essence than the knowledge and worship of God, who is absolute love and wisdom or goodness and truth, and the only source of these things as they exist with man. They are led to think of God as absolutely unknowable because the knowledge of Him surpasses the ability of the senses to grasp, yet in some way they must account for the knowledge of Him that the world possesses.
Revelation Is Addressed To Spiritual
Faculties.
It is true that if the knowledge of God depended upon evidences procured by the natural faculties unaided by revelation, God would be absolutely unknowable. But the knowledge of God does not rest upon such a basis; it depends rather upon revelation as expressed in the Word, which, when rightly understood, neither negates correct sensual evidence nor controverts genuine reason.
It may here be remarked that the highest use of reason is to confirm revelation, and all genuine revelation, when correctly understood, is acceptable to reason. There may be many who deny revelation and also the possibility of knowing God. As for themselves they may rightly speak, but for them to say that God is absolutely unknowable to others is beyond their power to discern. The evidence of the millions to-day and of the past who bear witness to the knowledge of God revealed to the mind and in the heart and in the affairs of men and in the Word, is unimpeachable and irrefutable.
It is not claimed that God is wholly comprehensible, that the finite can comprehend the infinite; but that an infinite God can and does reveal something of His truth, life, and nature to man, not abstracted from Himself, but as coming from Him. If God were unable to make finite presentation of Divinity, He would not be infinite. If even a few men of sound minds and good lives say that God manifests Himself to them in the Word, or in their souls, or in His providence, the declaration of whole planets of men who declare God to be unknowable to them is of no possible worth against the evidence of one who says I see, I feel, I know. There is the faculty of mental vision that sees in the light of truth; the faculty of mental hearing that understands from harmony; the faculty of keen-scented perception that detects; the faculty of conscience that feels, and there is the organic heart-sense that can taste. In the mind there are faculties corresponding to the senses of the body that enable one to cognize spiritual things as the corporeal senses do material things. If we do not know these faculties, it is because we "have ears to hear" that "hear not," "eyes" to see that "see not," and understandings that do not "understand." Such faculties do exist, and they are far more certain in their use than are the corporeal senses, which unaided by revelation are subject to every illusion.
The Idolatrous And False Religions And
Superstitions Of Ancient Times Were Not
The Beginning Of Religion, But The
Perversion Of Previous
Revelations.
The simple fact that Evolutionists maintain that God is absolutely unknowable, precludes religion from being the product of Evolution, for true religion is nothing other than a mind and heart knowledge of God whereby we can act in harmony with Him. It is true that religion admits of development when there is given revelation from which to start, but the term Evolution is as inapplicable to the growth of religion as it is to creation.
The various religions of antiquity, with their one great God and lesser gods, were not the beginning of a true and rational religion, but the perversion of former revelation. Egyptian, Greek, and Roman wwship, and the like, are examples of falsified and perverted relics of revelation.
The worshipping of images is not the beginning of the development of a religion that eventually would acknowledge God; but God having been revealed, and symbols of His power having been made, the people, as they became external, gradually fell to worshipping the symbol rather than the thing symbolized. No proposition could be framed that would be more impossible and illogical than that the worship of God developed from the worship of images. The two are exact opposites. We can see that, the worship of God being instituted by the Creator, men could descend to the worship of idols. Equally clear is it that the ascent to God could not commence with an opposing falsity. No number of degrees of cold can make one of heat, nor can any development of darkness make one ray of light. Further, we get no nearer the primary cause by commencing with the assumption that the worship of God originated in idolatry, for idolatry is more difficult to conceive and further separated from the first cause than is the worship of God, which it seeks to explain.
A revelation that disclosed the relation between things natural and spiritual would naturally suggest symbolism and Correspondence. The natural world being the outbirth of the spiritual, and each thing and force in it being derived from corresponding spiritual ones, the natural object was used as the symbol of the spiritual that it suggested. The fact that the human mind is a little universe in Correspondence with the greater universe, which relation in most ancient times was understood in particular, made natural forms suggestive not only of things in the spiritual world, but in the mind of man. This knowledge enabled man, in a most real way, to observe "sermons in stones, books in running brooks, and God in everything." Representatives of mental and spiritual things, which all civilized people have delighted to make, became objects of worship when the knowledge of representation or Correspondence was lost. The highest art of the sculptor is to make visible and real some invisible power or virtue. It is well for us to worship and desire the unattained ideal that the artist succeeds in communicating to us, but to worship the image is idolatry. Thus idolatry arose in corrupting the motive of the artist and the use of the symbol.
The various religions of the world to-day are the results of the various developments from former revelation, varied because of the adulteration, falsification, and erroneous understanding of past revelations. Christianity is therefore not an evolution. It starts with a Divinely given revelation, the Word, out of which modern civilization is, above all question, a development. The origin of the civilization of to-day, developed from the Word, is an illustration of the rise of all the distinct civilizations that have been since the world began, for upon revelation in some form each has risen.
The Christian Religion Is From A Revela-
tion Of God Himself In Jesus Christ.
The Christian dispensation, though based upon revelation, and thus illustrating all others, stands alone in its character. It consists not only in a revelation of written truth that teaches of God, but also of a revelation of God, His life, His truth, and His nature through the incarnation of these in Jesus Christ.
This actual revelation of God to man may be thus outlined. The time had come in human preparation when a most perfect revelation of God should be made. It should not take place as in times of old, through the "angel of the Lord," which means an angel filled with the presence of God and therefore speaking His will; nor through a prophet, who proclaimed from the dictation of God; nor through scribes, whose hands God used to write His truth; but through a living, human nature, like man's because born of woman, and of which God was the soul because it was begotten of Him. In other words, God the Creator, desiring for all time to reveal Himself to the world, in order to accommodate the infinite to the finite, clothed Himself with a human body and a human nature, and became Emanuel, "God with us." Through that human nature, which touched man by its outmost, and was God in its inmost, the Infinite was, and is, and ever will be accommodated and mediated to finite receptivity in Jesus Christ. Through that human He spoke the words of eternal truth, lived according to it in the sight of men, and became incarnate truth. By life and deeds He revealed the nature of "the Father within." Through His self-sacrificing devotion to man, He revealed the love of God which was in Him. "Having loved His own, He loved them" not only "to the end" of His natural life, but to the end of Infinite Love's possibility and service. He loved each one as though each were the only one. We know now that the nature of the infinite God is not cruel, or cold, or fluctuating, or arbitrary, or condemnatory; but that His nature is that of Jesus Christ, which was disclosed unto us by the life without sin, or surcease or limit of devotion, service, and self-sacrifice. Indeed, in Christ, God is revealed to be such a character that, if He could, He would renounce His throne in heaven, place man there, and serve him. So far as Jesus is comprehended God is understood, and He is comprehended by all who keep His commandments, because He is a self-revealing God to all who are within His laws. This is the essential truth of the Christian religion and of all revelation.
How The Word Is God.
That the Word is God is asserted in the Word. Because God reveals Himself through the Word, it is God, and the fountain-head of all enlightenment, the foundation of civilization, and the everlasting source of wisdom and love from God, the Lord. The Word ascribes its own origin to revelation, and proclaims all knowledge, even from the beginning, to have been obtained "as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began." Materialistic science has demonstrated to the truly rational man the infallible truth of this. Science correctly concludes that the soul, the spiritual world, God, and interior causes are forever unknowable to its means of investigation. It is also evident from reason itself that revelation has been at all times the center and sole source of civilization, morality, and spiritual enlightenment.
The Word Is The Product Of Growth, And Is
Formed To Contain Infinite Truth And
Love.
The Word was no more an instantaneous creation than the earth itself. It was formed by gradual preparation and growth. Ancient allegory and fable and song were not all myth. Originally they were from the Spirit of God expressing truth in forms adapted to the genius of the people; thus came the ancient Word several times referred to in our Word, and in which was the Book of Jashur. The onward trend of the Spirit was to form eventually a complete Word of God adapted to all time, which should contain within it every truth of the infinite mind, just as nature contains all of natural law. God could not communicate to us a knowledge of natural laws by giving us a text-book of dictionary definitions. But desiring to communicate the knowledge of them to us, He wrapped them up in clay, and presented them in working order as they are in nature. There we can learn of them in their practical aspect, and possess them in working order and form. He likewise presents spiritual truths to us, not lifeless, fragmentary, encyclopedic definitions, but in their reality and working order. To do so, He has clothed His infinite truth and life in the individual, civil, and spiritual thought and experience of men, and presented them to us in the narrative of the Word. In the Word by means of history, poem, song, and narrative, the infinite truth is pictured, or mirrored down and out from God to man. The Word is as a unit a Divine allegory, the interpretation of which is God the Creator. In it God speaks to His followers in the terms of human idea and experience, as only He can. The Word, being allegorical in form, is adapted to the states and conditions of every one throughout time. As man advances, his interpretation of the Word is exalted. God's Spirit has moved on and down the ages to bring together at last a perfect means of perpetual revelation, which the Word is. It is formed as the temple of His indwelling. It is a body of which God is the soul, flashing, through word and sentence as from Urim and Thummim, light and life in the degree that man can receive it. The Word is such a formation that any one who will truly believe in Jesus Christ and read the Word, will receive all the truth that he is able to live up to, and all the life that he will keep pure. It is the tabernacle of God with men, out of which the Heavenly Father speaks to His child. It is a perfect instrument of the Father's will, and so composed that through it He can accomplish His purpose by revealing the truth to those who desire it for the purpose of shunning their evils, and by withholding it from those who want it only for selfish purposes, and would therefore profane it. In the Word dwells the creating truth, and by it God is regenerating the world, and creating a new race that shall commune with Him through the Word. It is in this sense that In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
We obtain out of nature knowledge of natural laws by natural perception and the natural tests of reason and experiment. In an identical way spiritual laws, or spiritual truths, are obtained from the Word by spiritual perception and by the spiritual tests of reason and use. The Word prescribes the infallible test of its own truth, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine." Knowledge of God seems so profound and deeply concealed a secret because it is so simple. It is yielded from His Spirit in keeping His commandments. No one will ever read the Word with unselfish desire for truth, and fail to have God adequately, and with ever increasing fulness and clearness, revealed to him through the devout and prayerful application of its principles to life. The Word, like all other works of God, is perfect. Because the Word is such a creation, unfolding by history, poem, song, and allegory the infinite love and wisdom of the Creator, it is and ever will be the primary source of intelligence, of the knowledge of God, of the spirit of progress, and of heavenly life.
It is true that there are apparent contradictions and errors of science in the letter of the Word, but within the letter of the Word is a higher meaning, which it is the purpose of the letter to contain and reflect. And further, there are clear assertions of great fundamental truths that correct and explain the seeming contradictions. The literal sense of the Word is largely adapted to the natural and uninstructed man. This is essential, for man is natural and uninstructed before he is spiritual and instructed. If the spirit of the Word were not by means of the letter accommodated to the natural, ignorant, and wicked states of man, there would be no conjunction with him. Therefore the pure and infinite truth of the internal sense of the Word is largely clothed with ideas taken from the minds of natural and evil men. Above the mere literal sense, as the meaning of an allegory is superior to the narrative, is the spiritual meaning of the Word, the "undergarment" (chiton) of the Lord, "without seam, woven from the top throughout." Only in this most general way can this subject be treated here. It must suffice to conclude that genuine science and reason, with which the Word, when rightly interpreted, is everywhere in accord, confirm the truths of the Word, and assure us that it is the Divine medium of love, wisdom, and power from God the Creator, to the earth.
God Must Be Acknowledged Not As The Discovery
Of Science, But As The Object
Of Revelation.
It is the purpose herein to pursue first causes to their fountain-head, and to lay bare what many regard an unfathomable mystery. That this may be done intelligibly, it is necessary to declare still further the means by which such investigation is prosecuted.
Revelation, of which science and reason are servants, places the knowledge of first causes within our reach. God must be acknowledged from revelation. To acknowledge Him as a discovery of one's own mind is not to acknowledge Him. And so to worship Him, is to worship not Him, but self; for God is not an object of self-searching. This great truth is not an arbitrary one, but is founded upon the nature both of man and of God. Self-searching, such as referred to in Job, "Canst thou by searching find out God?" looks outward and down exclusively; while revelation comes by an internal way by means of things without, and as we lift our eyes in the direction from which it comes, we turn our faces toward the light. God can be known and acknowledged only by the method of His manifestation, which is revelation. "There is no searching of His understanding."
That which one may think to be God, which is the mere product of human reason, is not God, but a graven image, in no wise truly resembling God, if He is a self-revealing being. It is for such reasons that it is not sufficient to have His existence forced upon us as the inevitable conclusion of logic, nor as an essential missing link, though such may be justly done to confirm the acknowledgment of Him through revelation. This brings us to the consideration of other means that are used to enable us to pursue this investigation to the desired end.
As we can not discover spiritual things, wherein are first causes, by science, we are obliged to start from the revealed, and test it both by science and philosophy. Philosophy is a connecting link between science and spiritual truth. If what is reputed to be revealed is not in harmony with what is known to be true, we may know that the claims of revelation are spurious. But if the revealed is found to be true, and at the same time of such a character that it could not have been known except by revelation, then we may know not only that the revelation is true, but also that it is truly a revelation. To such tests should revelation be put, else we will be found believing blindly what we have no reason to accept.
In arriving at first causes, we have taken advantage of many things in the Writings of Swedenborg that could not have been known except by revelation. If they are true, they will stand the severest tests of science and of philosophy. Yet we must be assured that the science and the philosophy used as tests are themselves true. If the reader is willing to proceed upon this basis, he will be carried on with sure and rational footing to the end. But if he can not accept the necessity of revelation as a starting point, if he continues to insist upon seeing spiritual things with material eyes, if he demands ocular demonstration of the invisible, or sensual evidence of the imponderable, if he will not use the things of science with enlightened reason, he must remain in utter ignorance of all things above the sensual plane, though they are easily within the reach of the rational, philosophical, and perceptive.
The Philosophy Of Swedenborg.
During Swedenborg's earlier life he wrote much of a scientific character. But later, after the commencement of his theological works, he makes no pretense to formulating science. He claims his mission to be to expound the Sacred Scriptures. Throughout his theological works he makes assertion of facts of a scientific character, and enunciates the principles of philosophy which should govern science and arrange its facts. He maintains that correct views of nature and of science depend upon the revelation of fundamental, interior causes and laws, which it was his mission to make known. From the starting point of these interior causes and laws, nature unfolds, and her otherwise impenetrable secrets are laid open.
The argument herein set forth is based upon the Word as expounded by Swedenborg's theological Writings. Without Divinely revealed spiritual truth, investigation of this character would be impossible. Now, by the aid of his Writings, the Word is a full and complete revelation of all truth. Though the conclusions to be derived are based upon revelation and upon the Word, they are submitted to the severest tests of genuine science and reason. The Writings of Swedenborg are accepted as true because they set forth the truth of the Word, and appear to reason, and are illustrated and confirmed by science. They are believed to be true because they are confirmed by all the means and processes by which knowledge can come from God to man. They are not offered here simply as an authority to stand behind the marvelous statements that are to follow. The argument is based upon revealed truth because revelation is the only source from which a system of thought can be projected in general outline to the end with mathematical accuracy and absolute certainty, and because the Word can be fully understood only by means of revealed doctrine. If one is willing to take revelation affirmatively, and to hold it, though tentatively, until it shall be adequately supported by science and reason, he will be satisfied with a complete demonstration. Let us not turn from such sources of truth in the desire to investigate interior causes with the test-tube and the microscope, and to follow self-derived intelligence; rather let us feel grateful for the mercy and love of God, who has placed within our reach the means of prosecuting our study until we shall comprehend the very organism of God Himself.
I have not thought it advisable to quote from Swedenborg's Writings as authority, for the purpose is to substantiate the main argument by science, by reason, and by the authority of truth itself. Heretofore philosophers have attempted to construct a philosophy from science upon the basis of human ingenuity, unaided by revelation. The results are apparent, as already noticed. Our philosophers have not started right. They have commenced to build their tower in the valley of materialistic thought, using the "brick" of man-made ideas for the "stone" of revealed truths; and they have substituted the "slime" of self-love for the pure cement of love for the Word and God; they have builded higher and higher, hoping by the power of intellect to gain dominion over the wisdom of the Word and over heaven; but with the consequent confusion of tongues we are familiar. Or it is as though a company gathered on the circumference of a great circle, and started without compass in all directions to find the center. As a result scarcely any approach it, for the way is straight, and narrow at that. If the start is made at the center to find the circumference, there need be none who fails to find it. The doctrine of creation by Correspondence starts with the Creator as the center. The Creator is therefore the subject of the next chapter.