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How The War Was Won
Address by Lars-Erik Wiberg
for Sunday, August 12, 2001
Readings: (Old Testament) Psalm 90:1-9, (New Testament) Luke 12:14-48, (Swedenborg) Divine Providence ¶176
Writing in Divine Providence, Emanuel Swedenborg has told us in ¶ 176 "As
the foreknowledge of future things takes away the human itself, which is to
act from freedom according to reason, no one is permitted to know future
things. . . the desire to foreknow future things is connate with most
people, but this desire originates from a love of evil. It is therefore
taken away from those who believe in the Divine Providence, and there is
given them trust that the Lord disposes their lot; consequently they do not
want to foreknow it, lest in some way they should interfere with the Divine
Providence. This the Lord teaches . . . in Luke 12:14-48.
The translator has used the word "connate" to inform us that this
disposition toward knowledge of future things on the part of most people is
innate or inborn. In a sense we are stuck with it, and it is quite
evidently something that we have to counteract or neutralize in some way.
Writing further in Arcana Coelestia, Swedenborg states in ¶ 5195 "For
providence has regard to successive states to eternity, which cannot be
provided for unless it is foreseen. To provide things present, and not at
the same time to foresee things to come, and thus not to provide things to
come in things present, would be to provide without an end . . . and thus
not from the Divine. But providence is predicated of what is good, and
foresight of what is not good. Foresight cannot be predicated of what is
good because good is in the Divine . . . but it can be predicated of what
is not good and of what is evil; for this comes forth outside the Divine
from others who are against the Divine."
Clearly the Divine Providence is the agency through which successive states
are provided for, in a word, foreseen. Our foresight, so called, can be
construed only as evil because, inasmuch as good is in the Divine, and it
is in the Divine where things to come have been foreseen, there is no way
left for our foresight to be construed. We certainly don't mean to be evil
when we attempt to exercise foresight, but there's nothing left for us to
be when we try to act as substitutes for that which has already been
provided for by the Divine. But don't we have a right to be concerned
about the future?
On this matter, Swedenborg writes in Arcana Coelestia, ¶ 5177 about "They
who have been much solicitous about future things" and he says of them ". .
. solicitude about future things, confirmed by act, greatly dulls and
retards the influx of spiritual life; for they attribute to themselves that
which belongs to the Divine Providence." And further along in ¶ 5178,
almost as if to give his assertions a sense of reality that has been shared
by all of us, he writes "As solicitude about future things is that which
causes anxiety in man, and as such Spirits appear {in the Grand Man} in the
region of the stomach, this is the reason why anxieties affect the stomach
more than the rest of the viscera."
So what do we do? Do we do anything? Do we sit back and "Let the Lord
provide?" How do we fulfill the Doctrine of Use if we don't make our
selves to be of benefit to our families and neighborhoods and churches and
society by exercising prudent behavior. Does this not require, not the
kind of worry that gives us ulcers, but at least some sort of concern for
what's going to happen down the road? So we don't worry ourselves overmuch
with what the future holds. Don't we have to firm up our plans and get on
with them? How would we go about making any plans at all?
Fortunately, Swedenborg paves for us a road of understanding that leads
away from the fallacies of human foresight when he writes in Divine
Providence, ¶210 "Therefore, if you want to be led by the Divine
Providence, use prudence as a servant and minister who faithfully dispenses
the goods of his lord. The prudence itself appears to man as his Own; and
is believed to be his Own so long as man keeps within him that most deadly
enemy of . . . the Divine Providence, the love of self. The door for this
to be cast out is opened by man's shunning evils as sins as of himself,
with the acknowledgment that (prudence) is of the Lord. This is the
prudence with which the Divine Providence acts as one."
In other words, when we get rid of the evil of the love of self, in which
is the mistaken notion, and also evil, that we can foretell what the Lord
has already foretold, then we will be exercising all the prudence we need
because we will be acting in harmony with the Divine Providence.
Often when we Swedenborgians are confronted with this or that puzzlement in
our practical experiences, we go to Swedenborg's writings to help us
understand what's going on. As I have said before, the reason we do this
is that it works. He has so much information for us. As often as not we
uncover a rich mine of useful material for our guidance. Today, we are
examining Swedenborg's writings in regard to the concepts of foresight and
the future and the prudent way to conduct ourselves. Since we have had
lots of past successes in evaluating our experiences by means of his
concepts, should we not be able to turn around and examine his concepts in
the light of experience? This process would seem to be a two-way street,
and it is.
If we combine human foresight with concern for the future and a desire to
be prudent, these being characteristics that we now know should make us
wary, we have at hand the elements that go into planning. In the world of
business, planning is very big, and a great deal of time and effort go into
it. The plans that are thus created are apt to receive sedulous attention.
Is this a good thing? Generally speaking: No!
In his book Managing the Unknowable Ralph D. Stacey, who is a management
consultant, sheds much light on how a seemingly erratic approach to
planning
can nevertheless contain many virtues. He reveals how the vital,
impromptu, extemporaneous, and sudden responses to unanticipated external
events and circumstances must be fostered in any organization.
Conventional planning is to be shunted aside if, indeed, such planning
happens to be the mode.
Think of the precision of the results that arise from an orderly planning
process with its shared goals for an organization over a protracted
interval. Now think of the real world with its seeming instabilities, its
lack of predictability, and in its totality, comparative chaos. Ask
yourself whether the plans that have been so carefully molded internally
are likely to thrive in the midst of such an external environment. If in
doubt, reflect on the instructive experiences of General Motors when the
Japanese auto makers arrived on these shores in the 70s. GM's plans did
not anticipate this. They stuck with their rigid plans and the Japanese
ate their lunch. Much can go wrong when reasonable managers ( or
reasonable people) make rational plans for their organization's (or their
own) future.
Looking at the subject from a different slant, think of the emphasis that
organizations have been led to place on a commitment to common goals,
preferably within a specific cultural environment. This too presents to a
world that is, to us, chaotic, just the sort of inflexibility and order
that prevents an organization from being successful, fosters its
mediocrity, and risks its demise. Were Swedenborg to view modern
long-range planning from the mindset of his knowledges regarding foresight,
he might be greatly relieved in that the practice was to such an extent
self-policing by means of failure after failure.
Stacey teaches us that, in order for an organization to thrive amidst the
unknowable, it must consciously cultivate such organizational phenomena as:
authority to act autonomously at lower levels; multiple concepts of where
the firm might go; a less rigid and more random company culture; and
willingness - - even eagerness - - to junk a plan that isn't working. He
writes that intelligent variability of outlook and widespread authority to
take independent action, are desirable internal forces that will
countervail the unknowable external environment. His thesis can not be put
simply. We can see from what Swedenborg teaches us that this is a
complicated matter. But Stacey does show, through examples, that within
organizations that are among the most successful, one will find individuals
who, seizing initiative, follow decisions of their own, the need for which
could never have been foreseen much less planned. In Swedenborgian
terminology, foresight is predicated on that which is not good.
Another example which will resonate strongly within the Swedenborgian soul
takes us into the writings of Winston Churchill. In describing the
harrowing reality of events leading up to the Second World War, the most
inhuman conflict in human history, he wrote in The Gathering Storm, pp 218
& 219 "There were several moments when I seemed to be entirely alone
against a wrathful House of Commons. I am not, when in action, unduly
affected by hostile currents of feeling; but it was on more than one
occasion almost physically impossible to make myself heard. . . . I was
myself so smitten in public opinion that it was the almost universal view
that my political life was at last ended. How strange it is that this very
House of Commons, which had regarded me with so much hostility, should have
been the same instrument which hearkened to my guidance and upheld me
through the long adverse years of war till victory over all our foes was
gained! What a proof is here offered that the only wise and safe course is
to act from day to day in accordance with what one's own conscience seems
to decree."
What a marvelous, practical affirmation is this Churchillian perception in
relation to what Swedenborg has told us. Human foresight is indeed a snare
and a delusion that we follow at great risk of placing ourselves in a
position contrary to what the Divine Providence has foreseen. It is
absolutely riveting that Churchill singles out action in accord with his
conscience as the source of the day-to-day guidance which became his
imperative. Although doing what his conscience told him was best day to
day was assuredly not unique to Churchill, especially during war time, yet
it was he who had the perception to conceptualize it. Hear what Swedenborg
tells us about conscience. He writes in True Christian Religion, ¶ 666
"The Angel said . . . Regarded in itself, conscience is not a pain, but a
spiritual willingness to act according to religion and faith. Hence they
who enjoy conscience are in the tranquillity of peace and in internal bliss
when they are acting according to conscience."
Just speculate for a moment on the relief that Churchill must have felt,
perhaps even moments of personal tranquillity during the war's darkest
moments, when he realized that he was simply doing the best his conscience
could accord him day to day. Think of the satisfaction he had when the
House of Commons upheld him and hearkened to the decrees of his conscience.
Now: Hear what Swedenborg tells us in Arcana Coelestia, ¶ 6207. He writes
"The influx of the Angels is especially into man's conscience; there is
the plane into which they operate . . . " Consider this obscure yet
transcendent connection of what Swedenborg and Churchill have to teach us.
And now: Reflect on how the War was won!
Amen
Copyright 2001 by Lars-Erik Wiberg
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