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A Promise
Address by Lars-Erik Wiberg
for Sunday, September 29, 2002
It has appeared to me for quite some time that the two
characteristics of our Swedenborgian theology that seem to make the
deepest impression on strangers to it are what we call the "Doctrine
of Use" and the "Knowledge of Correspondences." Today the main focus
involves the second characteristic with due respect to the first.
Inquirers seem always to be attracted to the idea that so much of the
Bible has an interior, spiritual meaning which can be discerned by
means of correspondences, while at the same time preserving an
understandable and meaningful literal sense. It is always pleasant
to emphasize this aspect of our faith since it accentuatues the
weight that we do accord the Lord's Word and drives home the
realization that ours is most assuredly a Christian faith.
Whoever hears about this inner spiritual meaning for the first time,
interestingly enough, although perhaps a bit amazed, tends to take to
the idea rather easily. It's as if it is quite normal to believe
that the Bible is special, and that this well may be one of the ways
in which it is. Using the principles of correspondences, Emanuel
Swedenborg presented in the 19 volumes of his Arcana Celestia (in the
Rotch Edition) an analysis of the spiritual inner meaning of Genesis
and Exodus. It is noteworthy how much inner spiritual meaning is
packed into those first two books of our Bible.
Regarding correspondences Swedenborg writes in ¶ 9280 of his text in
Arcana Celestia: "All things in the world correspond, and according
to correspondences, represent and signify spiritual and celestial
things." And further in ¶ 103 of Heaven and Hell he writes "There is
a correspondence of Heaven with all things of the earth. . . . All
things of the earth and, in general, all things of the world are
correspondences."
Today, we will be focusing on the most glorious and the primary of
all the natural correspondences which is the sun - - the most
glorious because in our Natural World it signifies correspondentially
the Sun of the Spiritual World; and the primary about which
Swedenborg writes in ¶ 468 of Apocalypse Revealed: "The origin of
correspondences is from the two suns; the one in Heaven which is pure
love; and the other in the world, which is pure fire."
Swedenborg also writes in ¶ 117 of Heaven and Hell: ". . . The sun
of Heaven is the Lord; the light there is the Divine truth, and the
heat there is the Divine good, which proceed from the Lord as a Sun.
>From this origin are all things which come forth and appear in the
Heavens . . . The reason the Lord appears in Heaven as a Sun is that
it is the Divine love from which all spiritual things come forth,
and, by means of the sun of the world, all natural things . . . "
So we now know for certain both who the Sun is in the Spiritual World
and who the sun represents in the natural world: For all practical
purposes it is the Lord in the one, and it corresponds to the Lord in
the other. What about the sun's location in the natural world now
that we know who it represents? How does it look to you and me? To
be honest about it, it looks exactly as if it revolves around the
earth. Just look at it - - or look near it - - and pay attention.
Use your common sense. Well the truth of the matter is far different
from appearances. As a matter of fact what the sun seems to do,
vis-a-vis what is actually happening, is one of the finest examples
of the essential difference between science and common sense. Common
sense is so often so wrong. Let's keep that in mind.
In August I addressed the situation that prevailed while scientific
confirmation that the sun was at the center of the solar system was
gradually becoming accepted. That acceptance took over 200 years,
and that every attempt was made to thwart it seems now to be curious.
We have become so inured to advances that are labled "scientific"
that we tend to accept them more or less willy-nilly. But back in
the interval between 1531, when Copernicus published his theory, and
1731 or so when it's actuality had been grudgingly conceded by the
Aristotelians and the Church, Science had not yet reached the
pinnacle of influence that it holds today. It usually wasn't even
called "Science" but, rather, "Natural Philosophy." By any name it
was anathema to the Church which was the fount and guardian of
knowledge and intended to remain so.
Natural Philosophy was thus at loggerheads with religion. Religious
precepts had enjoyed the acceptance of generations of devout
believers who were accustomed to the natural world having its
mysterious ways which were in God's province and about which the
faithful needn't trouble themselves nor ask unnecessary questions.
Now here comes Natural Philosophy, not only redesigning the solar
system, but also compounding it's lack of reverence by explaining
natural phenomena through secular means. The essential neutrality of Natural Philosophy was seldom
taken into account; it was deemed anti-religious and condemned for
it. When this Natural Philosophy not only showed itself capable of
explaining, but also of manipulating and discovering natural
phenomena, the Church gradually realized that it had to live
side-by-side with it. It was a bitter realization, and it still is.
Natural Philosophy, now universally known as Science, has been
accorded a place on a cultural pedestal. These days, the fact that
it hardly deserves such an exalted status unfortunately escapes most
of us.
Strictly speaking there is no such thing as what is commonly called
"scientific method."
What there is is a scientific way of conducting inquiry; actually
"scientific inquiry" would better describe what goes on because
whatever so-called method is involved is so non-methodical. It
requires, first of all, a level of intuition and imagination that few
of us have. Next it presumes an almost equally rare capacity for
thought and a high level of specialized preparation. The two in
combination: perception through intuition and evaluation through
thinking are so central to scientific inquiry that without them
science does not get done. The idea that you can master a method and
then go do science is quite haywire. What science does do, however,
is to produce method. It makes great sense of the natural world. It
teaches us how to make things and control them and predict them.
However, the reason it does not belong on that pedestal is that it
does not produce meaning. Intuition combined with thinking,
resulting in science, can provide us with lots of impersonal
information about how to explain the world. However, intuition must
combine with feeling to convey what it means personally.
Notwithstanding, meaning or not, the Church was up against a powerful
adversary that had given us a heliocentered solar system the Church
didn't want. It produced knowledge in ever increasing abundance.
Literally, for example, Denis Diderot's Encyclopaedia, consisting of
35 volumes published over 26 years, was methodically maligned and
attacked by the Jesuits as was Diderot himself. The Church was not
going to tolerate this temporal dissemination of the fruits of
non-religious inquiry. In misconstruing Science, it continued to set
arbitrary limits on each natural inquiry as being God's ground with
Science forbidden to enter. We still live with the effects of this
battle between two contestants who are not, and never were, in the
same arena. Religion attacked Science on the grounds that Science
invaded religious territory not realizing that Science, being
impersonally neutral, isn't equipped to do that.
This condition does not, of course, prevent common sense from
attributing greater power to Science than it possesses. We do it
every day - - every time we ask for "scientific proof." Of all the
strengths inherent in scientific inquiry, proof of anything is not
among them. All science can do is to confirm this or that until a
better theory comes along. However, common sense continues to demand
what it simple-mindedly assumes is proof and believes it sees the
potential in Science of mankind being the master of its own fate.
Mankind has assumed the center, taken it away from religion in vast
desacralized enclaves in the so-called advanced nations, and in the
last few centuries has participated in an event unparalleled in its
need for remediation.
We know that the sun was always at the center of the solar system
despite what common sense had to tell us about its dynamics.
Ironically, it took Science to inform us how solar-system dynamics
actually worked. More ironically, it has taken organized Religion to
evict itself from the center of much of mankind's attention through
ill-conceived contests with Science on the wrong grounds. Common
Sense has sided with Science, the apparent winner, thus leaving us
with a prevailing humanistic mishmash of secular, purely intellectual
notions. Aided by Science, the Lord actually does assume his
rightful correspondential place at the center of the the solar
system. However, at the same time, also aided by common sense, the
Lord progressively loses his authority to a mankind-centered
humanism. Most ironically much of humanity has exchanged one kind of
geocentered system for another kind of egocentered one. No wonder
that the noted scholar and historian Jacques Barzun is moved to
write an account of the past 500 years and entitle it From Dawn to
Decadence. He explains that he uses the term "decadence" not as a
pejorative but in the dense of "falling off" or "loss of possibility"
or stages of development having been exhausted. Does that make us
feel any better?
There is no way for us not to feel the effects of this spate of
humanism that we are afflicted with. Every one of us has a psychic
craving for meaning, a craving that Science isn't equipped to
provide, a craving that demands spiritual satisfaction. The history
of mankind, going back 100,000 years to the dawning days of the
Neanderthals, bless them, offers proof of a need to express love for
each other and oneness with nature. Consider these facts. The
Neanderthals, earlier humans that we who are descended from the Cro
Magnon people of later arrival, around merely 40,000 years ago, had
artistic talent as proven by their graphic cave drawings. And they
exhibited much tenderness in the manner in which they buried their dead as
determined from analysis of their grave sites. This surely suggests
an inherent reaching out for meaning, deep feelings for the very
earth, the living animals and the dead loved ones.
Down through thousands of generations of human development
prehistoric art forms and ceremonies proliferated in countless ways,
through use of myriad materials, and involving sophisticated
techniques none of them related to scientific progress. The idea of
progress had not yet even been invented. What these expressions of
art and reverence were intended to perform was basic service to the
soul - - basic fulfillment of psychic cravings for participation and
belonging - - to each other and to this magnificent Natural World.
It is by no means a twist of imagination to sense that the ancient
artisans and worshipers truly felt that they were expressing what we
can truly say amounted to unmistakeable spirituality, on their very
own, long before any religion had been invented.
Our psyche, and each of us has one, has a distinguished history; it
is packed full of unconscious feeling and information; it has
profound needs; it is substantial. Hear what Carl Jung has to say in
his book Psychological Types.: "We believe in enlightenment, as if
an intellectual change of front somehow had a profounder influence on
the emotional processes or even on the unconscious. We entirely
forget that the religion of the past two thousand years is a
psychological attitude, a definite form and manner of adaptation to
the world without and within, that lays down a definite cultural
pattern and creates an atmosphere which remains wholly uninfluenced
by intellectual denials. The change of front is, of course,
symptomatically important as an indication of possibilities to come,
but on the deeper levels, the psyche continues to work for a long
time in the old attitude, in accordance with the laws of psychic
inertia." We can add to this statement that each of us has a
generous supply of psychic inertia whose history began,
conservatively, 4000 generations ago.
We in the United States of America, despite the humanistic fallout
that all of us read and hear and watch in all sorts of media, have
not yet become desacralized. The hounds of humanism may be nipping
at our ankles; our art and literature and music and education may
currently be exhibiting the evidences of "falling off" and "loss of
possibility" about which Jacques Barzun writes so persuasively. But
there are the positive evidences of progress in the way we treat
each other such as I enumerated from this very place last month. Add to this that many Americans
are, just like you and me, persons who go to church and pray together
and act with charity and are moved through spiritual awarenesses of
many kinds to approach the Lord whom we all revere. Despite the fact
that we are badgered on every side by products and notions derived
from an ego-centered humanism, the undernourished psyches in our
nation do not yet have the upper hand.
Speaking for the Cambridge Society of the New Jerusalem which
worships here in this Chapel: We know where our Sun is. We know that
the Lord is at the center of our lives. We know that he shows his
love for us in abundant ways, and we want to show our love for Him.
We intend to nourish each and every soul who joins or visits us, to
the very best of our ability, with varied experiences that have the
sort of spiritual content that makes a psyche feel welcome and at
home.
That's a promise.
Amen
Copyright 2004 by Lars-Erik Wiberg
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