Author : Emanuel Swedenborg
Publisher : Forgotten Books
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 17,98 MB
Release : 2016-09-30
Category : Self-Help
ISBN : 9781333800840
Book Description
Excerpt from The Divine Providence The chief value of the philosophy of supernatural fact contained in Swedenborg's writings is, that it enables us to form rational conceptions of the universe as thee-centric that is, as being constantly dependent in every minutest part of it, physical and mental, on a creative act of God, and yet as being separate from God, no part of it being God, although it constantly subsists from Him. It may, indeed, be described as a spiritual counterpart of the Copernican discovery. It enables us to View the universe, as it were, from the Divine standpoint; to see it, in some finite measure, as God sees it infinitely; and obviously this must be the only true way of thinking about it if the universe is in any intelligible sense a Divine creation. If it were produced by a mere fiat of omnipotent and arbitrary power, it might very well be totally unintelligible to man. But if order and process reign in it from first to last, our only hope of under standing it lies in acquiring some conception of what that order is, and this means that we must have some conception of its purpose. For order would be meaningless apart from purpose, because it would aim at nothing and consequently accomplish nothing. A true philosophy of creation, there fore, involves a knowledge of its purpose or use, and this can only come from revelation, for no one but God can give us any certain knowledge about Himself. Swedenborg there fore supports his teaching at every point by references to that supreme revelation which he calls The Word, and which is contained in our Bible, though not co-extensive with it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.