Moses, Paul, and Swedenborg: Three Steps in Rational Spirituality

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Sensuous vs. Rational Consciousness

Here is an important question to consider: What happened in the intervening 17 centuries between Paul and Swedenborg to allow conscious presence of the spiritual, so that Swedenborg was able to be consciously present in the spiritual world while all prior prophets were only in a trance state?

The answer is: Rationality through modern science.

Is that a surprise?  The Apostolic mind was pre-scientific and pre-rational, yet science education and perspective is necessary to open the rational mind.  Without opening the rational mind, we cannot accept as real anything that is not physical, because the natural mind, which is outside or below the rational mind, is made of natural or physical sensory information exclusively. All abstract ideas based on physical sensory input, remain sensual in meaning despite their abstracted nature. The idea we have of God and Heaven may be abstractly defined but they remain pre-rational or sensual in consciousness. The ideas and concepts of the natural mind are time-bound, space-bound, and identity-bound.  Even abstract concepts like "nationalism" and "value" are inherently bound to place or local content.  The universal injunction of altruism and the love of the neighbor, is interpreted in a natural sense when we operate at the sensuous or pre-rational level of thinking. God and heaven and hell are interpreted in a natural way, including what is sin and forgiveness.

And when Peter asked Him how many times he should forgive one who sinned against him, whether it should be as many as seven times, He replied:

Not up to seven times, I tell you, but up to seventy times seven times. Matt. 18:21, 22.

I have been told from heaven that the Lord forgives everyone his sins, and never punishes him for them, or even imputes them to him, because He is love itself and good itself. Nevertheless the sins are not wiped away by this, for it is only by repentance that they can be wiped away. For if he told Peter to forgive up to seventy times seven times, is there anything that the Lord Himself would not do? (TCR 409)

All spiritual topics are understood naturally in the pre-rational phase of operation. The Threefold Word is understood naturally. No idea in the natural mind can be spiritual because all spiritual ideas are purely rational and can be formed only in the inner or spiritual mind where spiritual-rational thinking and feeling are operative.  For instance, the idea of God in the Moses phase is a natural idea as shown by the fact that we separate self from God.  God is a force outside of us.  He may be distant or absent, even as natural phenomena play themselves out.  In this phase 1 level of religious operation, we want to close this distance to God by doing things that bring God closer, like ritual, prayer and sacrifice.  The fact that we have an idea like "God is watching us" or "God knows what I think" indicates that our idea of God is still natural and external. This distinction will become more evident as we continue the discussion. You won't have a distinctly clear view of the Paul-phase until you look back on it from the Swedenborg-phase.

You may experience resistance to the idea that your relationship to your God is not rational and spiritual. But this idea is taught by God in the Threefold Word. God is a spirit and all spiritual operations begin in the spiritual mind, not the natural. But since we have no consciousness except that which we have in the natural mind, we resist the idea that there is another unconscious mind where the spiritual really begins. This appears to us to put God out of our reach and it appears to threaten the relationship we’ve already developed to God and Sacred Scripture. But yet you have the option and capability of considering what is said here in a rational manner, keeping earlier attitudes and definitions apart for awhile, resting in the assurance that what is being said here is enhancing and strengthening your relationship to your God and Sacred Scripture, and in no way threatening or hostile to it, to the Church, to your religion and belief system.

The distinction between sensuous and rational consciousness is taught in the Writings. The natural mind develops from sensory input of the physical environment. This is phase level of thinking because the thinking is ordered and specified by the order and arrangement of the physical world. All the mind does in sensuous consciousness is to create more abstract representations of sensuous information. For instance, in monist science today, a trend has gained momentum in the past century, to consider human consciousness, and the mind generally, as an “emergent phenomenon” produced by the activity of the brain. Note well: this idea of consciousness “emerging” form the brain, is that all the phenomena of the mind, such as thinking, reasoning, perceiving, interpreting, feeling, willing, intending, remembering, etc., come into existence as productions of brain activity. Since brain activity is physical, involving cells, synapses, and electrons, whatever is produced by these physical operations remain physical. This is a logical necessity. Therefore the concept of “emergent” conscious phenomena are nothing but abstractions of the physical operations. These abstractions are natural, in the natural order, because they are produced by natural operations. In this way, scientists have found a convenient way of discussing the mind without haven’t to depart from monism and materialism. This is phase 1 level thinking and reasoning.

But phase 2 level of operation is radically different. Here we acknowledge dualism, that is, that natural is from the natural world, and spiritual is from the spiritual world. Therefore the mind must be dual: the natural mind constructed out of sensory input and its abstractions; the spiritual mind constructed out of the input of rational-spiritual concepts from revelation in Sacred Scripture. The meaning of concepts like mind, consciousness, God, heaven and hell, are now dualist, while this was not possible before in level 1 operation. Phase 2 operation is called “enlightened” because it recognizes a spiritual world within the natural, or, a spiritual world above the natural. Similarly, a spiritual mind within the natural mind, or above it. The spiritual and the natural always act together, tied synchronously to each other by Divine Laws of Correspondence.

Phase 1 level thinking is called pre-rational because the rational begins only within the spiritual. Unless you understand this point clearly, you will continue to experience resistance to what is being said here about the three phases or levels of operation in thinking and feeling. The Writings reveal the many details of the mind’s anatomy. Consider these points from a neutral and logical perspective. The natural mind is a miniature version of the natural world. Scientists, lawyers, and managers in industry and business, use natural logic to make decisions. This kind of thinking can be called natural-rational to distinguish it from spiritual-rational. The natural-rational is also called the external natural because the natural mind is outside of the self, while the spiritual mind is inside. The outside—inside distinction is dualist, which means that they are related in discrete degrees by correspondences. “Discrete degrees” refers to the arrangement of the universe in terms of three levels: natural, spiritual, and celestial. These three levels operate synchronously, or simultaneously, but their interaction is never direct or continuous, but discontinuous. This means that no mater how much you improve in your natural thinking, you cannot enter spiritual thinking. The movement from phase to phase 2 cannot proceed gradually or continuously. At some point in phase 1, one must ”jump” to phase 2 by beginning an entirely new way of operating, unrelated in any way whatsoever to the earlier phase of operation.

This jump in consciousness from phase 1 to phase 2 is achieved by the introduction of rational consciousness, which was not operating in phase 1, or sensuous consciousness. There is a discrete jump between sensuous and rational consciousness. No matter how much you improve in your sensuous consciousness, you cannot enter into rational consciousness. Instead, rational consciousness can be entered by beginning an entirely new type of operation, not possible in the natural mind, but possible in the spiritual mind. The only issue remaining to be understood is by what mechanism or method do we all of a sudden begin this new type of phase 2 operation in the mind.

The answer is that it is God who opens the spiritual mind, unconscious to us, when we fulfill a certain condition or requirement in our phase 1 thinking. That requirement is the acquisition of spiritual-rational concepts from the Threefold Word. The Writings are written in a natural language at a rational or scientific level. To develop rational-spiritual consciousness (phase 2) we must apply the literal meanings of the Threefold Word to our own biography, our own mental states. The Threefold Word is written on the surface in a natural style though its topics are spiritual. Merely understanding the literal meaning of the Threefold Word does not open our spiritual mind. But the moment we apply any of its truths to our own biography, the Lord opens a portion of our spiritual mind. This is the condition or requirement for moving from phase to phase 2 operation. In other words, the “jump” is accomplished by means of an unseen miracle—God operating behind the scenes, activating the spiritual mind which we have by creation or birth. This mind remains closed until we are ready to make the jump. That is, until we are ready to apply Divine Truth from the Word to our willing and thinking every day, every hour. The Lord enlightens us at that point, opening a new level of conscious operation, which was either unconscious before, or totally closed, not yet activated.

Once we are enlightened, we become consciously aware of our new phase 2 consciousness. We are now conscious of the operation of our spiritual mind, to some extent, since this opening is gradual. And remember that there is another jump awaiting us as we move into phase 3, the real human phase where our angelic nature begins. But when we are still in phase 2 operation we become consciously aware of a new type of understanding called “rational consciousness.” We are familiar with “sensuous consciousness” but not with rational consciousness. Note that there are two kinds of sensuous consciousness, one natural, the other spiritual, and both of these are different from rational consciousness, or spiritual-rational consciousness. For instance, when you awaken in the afterlife in your spirit-body, you see yourself on the outside having a body just like before, and seeing other spirits in their spirit-body. The external appearance of the spirit-body to the eyes of the spirit, or new arrival in the world of spirits, is similar to the external appearance of the natural world. This is sensuous consciousness. While on earth attached to the physical body, we have sensuous consciousness of the physical world. While in the world of spirits, we have sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world. Spirits, devils, and angels all have sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world and can see with their eyes around them.

But those who live in the hells have only sensuous consciousness without any rational consciousness. But those who live in the havens have sensuous consciousness as well as rational consciousness.

  Anatomical Diagrams of Consciousness

Sensuous consciousness is automatic from the spirit-body, while rational consciousness is voluntary, depending on our willingness to acknowledge Divine Truth and love it. The devils are not willing to do this. In the spiritual world, rational consciousness determines where we live, that is, in what mental state of thinking and feeling. In fact, the Writings reveal that there are three discrete levels of rational consciousness above the hells. We can be in a spiritual-natural state of thinking and willing, in which case we live in the region of the spiritual world called the “natural heaven” (also, the “First Heaven”). The inhabitants at that level of operation are called “good spirits.” One discrete level of thinking above this is called the “spiritual heaven” (also, the “Second Heaven”), and its inhabitants are called “angelic spirits.” Finally, at the highest level of rational consciousness, the thinking and feeling is called “celestial-rational” and the inhabitants in that mental state are called “angels” (also, the “Third Heaven”). These details are revealed in the Writings.

You can see therefore that in order to achieve heavenly life of any sort you must develop you rational consciousness before you pass on so that your spirit-body has the capacity to rise instead of sinking in the spiritual world. And the only way that God has provided for the development of rational consciousness is by means of revelations in Sacred Scripture. As we begin studying the Word from a natural perspective, we acquire a concept of God, and of heaven and hell, that are dualist. This opens our mind to be dualist, which means that both our natural mind and our spiritual mind are being opened and made operational by God. However, this occurs only to the extent that we love and live the truths we learn from the Word. The Lord waits until we begin to reform our life according to His Word, and once we do, He opens our rational consciousness of Him and our journey towards Him. As we continue our reformation and regeneration, that is, our character reformation according to the Word of God, our level of thinking is raised to the spiritual level more an more, and eventually to the celestial level. Then for the first time we become truly human, truly rational, truly spiritual.

When our mind becomes educated and we learn to think abstractly with natural concepts, we prepare ourselves for the opening of the rational mind, which alone can perceive spiritual things given that spiritual things are purely rational.  Paul was an educated man, knowing Aristotle, Plato, Socrates.  And yet, neither the Ancient Greek scholars nor Paul were able to think rationally, but only naturally.  Aristotle's God was an abstraction of the natural--it was pre-rational. Plato's realm of the ideal and the divine were abstracted natural ideas, no different from science fiction stories about advanced civilizations and psychic powers of time travel or simultaneous alternate realities. There is nothing spiritual in them, because nothing rational, only something abstract derived form the natural. This assertion cannot be understood unless you allow for the physiology of the mind revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg. The external mind is purely natural, the internal mind is purely spiritual. As well, the spiritual consists of substances in the spiritual world streaming from the Spiritual Sun. This Sun is the Lord's Proceeding and He can be seen visually in the midst of this Sun by the inhabitants of the Heavens. Swedenborg has actually seen this many times and has discussed the phenomenon with the celestial inhabitants. The light streaming out of this Sun is Divine Truth in substance and the heat streaming out within it is Divine Love in substance.

These two Divine substances are purely rational and create the atmosphere and life of Heaven. Only those can live in this atmosphere whose internal rational mind has been opened and matured through religion and science while still living on earth. Without these revelations about the inner mind and the character of Heaven no one could form purely rational ideas of the spiritual realities and thus be prepared for life in Heaven. When we arrive in the other world (a few hours after the death of the body), we either rise to Heaven with our rational mind, or sink into hell with our natural mind. Sensuous consciousness of the spirit-body is granted all spirits, but those who have a rational consciousness within the sensuous, can rise to heavenly life. Those who have resisted and rejected the rational-spiritual ideas of the Word, arrive without an internal rational consciousness, so they cannot avid sinking down in the corporeal regions of the mind, which constitute the hells in the spiritual world.

It should be mentioned here that the rational mind in heaven is encased in a corresponding spiritual body that provides every sensual experience that the physical body had, but far more perfectly and intensely. No rational mind can exist except as tied to a sensual body . The rational exists within the sensual, and the two make up heavenly happiness, bliss, and pleasure. Those who arrive with their rational mind unopened remain in their natural mind. The spiritual body they then have corresponds to their natural mind within which there is no rational mind opened or functioning. Hence the experiences they have are purely sensual as projected by this spiritual body. While the environment of the heavenly inhabitants is bright, warm, beautiful, varied, and artistic,  the environment of the hellish inhabitants is dark, cold, horrendous, homogenous, and utterly lacking in aesthetic interest. They see around them what their corporeal minds project in fantasy and delusion. Their nightmarish lot is unenviable, especially since it gets worse and worse for them as they continue to mature forever inside delusions and irrationalities.

I will discuss the true rational when we get to the third inner Swedenborg-phase or the phase of True Science.  For now, we are still dealing with Paul within the context of his natural mind, and what he had to accomplish intellectually to justify the Christian faith to Jewish men.  Paul was led by the Lord to engineer a rational justification for dualism in the Lord that was plainly taught in the New Testament Gospels. Note that what caused Paul’s conversion from the Moses phase to phase 2, was a miraculous non-ordinary experience of direct sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world. He was taken up to the “third heaven” and he witnessed by means of his spirit-body senses what was there. This sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world is not given to others because it interferes with the development of rational consciousness. Paul had a special mission to accomplish, like Moses and Swedenborg, which was to justify intellectually for others, who God was. They were all three taken up to heaven, that is, they received sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world as well as the natural world. But others are not give to do this, and are discouraged from even striving to do it. The Writings explain why miracles are not allowed by the Lord in today’s modern world. The reason is that miracles are sensuous demonstrations of spiritual power, and this is harmful to the development of rational consciousness. Instead, the Lord has given the Holy Spirit, which is a rational concept, not physical or natural. It is by means of this rational concept that we acquire spiritual consciousness. It is the Holy Spirit acting within us when we acknowledge it. This is the rational method of knowing God. This is the method the angels use to know God. The Holy Spirit cannot be seen with the sensuous eyes but only with the rational perception of rational consciousness.

In the Moses phase the expression‎ :”Spirit of God” is used instead of “Holy Spirit” as you can determine by comparing the Old and New Testament expressions. The expression‎ “Spirit of God” belongs to phase 1 and is a natural idea, whereas the expression‎ “Holy Spirit” belongs to phase 2 and is a spiritual idea.

When Paul’s sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world was opened, he was no longer able to hold on to his cherished Moses-phase idea that the afterlife comes in the future, on this earth, when the Messiah's trumpet wake up the bones and skeletons of all the dead, and miraculously covers them with the flesh that belonged to them before their death.  This natural idea of the afterlife is received from the Old Testament when it is read literally and naturally (e.g., as in Ezekiel who had a sensuous vision of the bones being raised and covered with flesh again). Paul could no longer hold on to the literal interpretation of the Old Testament Prophets because he witnessed the existence of the spiritual world and its population of people who have departed from this life and had left their bodies behind to rot and disappear in the ground or in the ocean.  He then understood that there is not going to be an end of the natural world, to be succeeded by the beginning of the spiritual world. He entered the dualist reality, thus phase 2 thinking. He now understood that those passages in the Prophets about “going to sleep” at death and then resurrecting with the bones, is not to be taken literally and naturally, but rationally and spiritually. The resurrection of the bones in the graves refers actually to the resuscitation of the individual in the spirit-body. It is the spirit-body that is called the flesh, for this is alive, while the copse and the bones, are not alive and are long gone forever, disintegrated back into the physical universe.

But Paul could not use his new sensuous dualism as a justification for Jews to switch from the sectarian and natural Moses phase to the New Testament spiritual phase of personalism with the Lord.  Paul could not convert people on the basis of his sensuous consciousness and witnessing of the spiritual world. This was not the central thesis by which he forged a justification for the Christian religion. Rather, he was led by the Lord to formulate an intellectual justification for it, that was able to build up the rational consciousness of the believers, at least up to one higher level, namely the First and Second Heavens, which rely on rational consciousness of a relative less internal level than full celestial-rational consciousness (Third Heaven).

Paul’s Divinely appointed mission was to create a rational doctrine that seemingly took its departure point from the ritual sacrifices that formed the basis of the religion of his contemporaries, but taking it one step higher in rationality by arguing that these sacrifices were only symbolic and pointing to the real sacrifice, that of Jesus on the cross.  This new rational and symbolic insight was made Providentially easy for Paul because the Old Testament in several key places anticipates the Paul-phase of religion and talks in a veiled way about the future coming of Christ, that is, of the opening of humanity’s rational consciousness, which is the beginning of true spirituality.  Paul and all the subsequent Christian doctrinal writers have focused and explored the symbolic foreshadowing of Christ's Coming.  One such figure is Melchizedek,  another is the spiritual Son of David,  another the Child that is born unto us whose name shall be God, Mighty Counselor, and another the woman's seed that shall bruise the head of the serpent.  The Lord Himself discussed the symbol of John the Baptist as Elijah the prophet, whom the Jews by ancient tradition considered the Messiah's forerunner.

Most importantly, Paul strengthened the connection between the ancient Mosaic sacrifices and the crucifixion of Christ.  Without this explicit connection, would the people in an external worship be capable of accepting the new internal faith?  Many were not.  Centuries later, contemporary Jews are still unwilling to accept this connection.  The pre-rational Jews converted by Paul insisted on the identification of Christ's crucifixion and shedding of His Blood with the atonement of their inherited sins.  The language of symbolism in the New Testament allows for this connection, as in the Holy Supper ritual that Christ initiated and commanded.  He broke bread and said, This is My Body.  He poured wine and said, This is My Blood.  To eat his Body spiritually symbolized to acknowledge and live by His commandments.  To drink His Blood spiritually symbolized to do this through spiritual truths as revealed by the Lord Himself outwardly while He was still on earth, and then inwardly, in the mind, by the Holy Spirit, after His Resurrection and Ascension. This inward revelation was the new rational consciousness of the Paul-phase of religious behavior. Henceforth the proof of God's presence was not the external miracle seen by physical eyes but the internal voice of the Holy Spirit seen only by the rational mind.

The early Christians were in a  transition phase between the natural mind and its external worship and the rational mind and its internal worship.  All internal worship exists only within some external worship. The difference is that the Moses-phase worship is natural worship within which there is no internal worship, while the Paul-phase worship is external worship within which is spiritual worship. The Lord's closest followers appear to have been alternately in both minds on different occasions.  They were capable, like Peter and Thomas, to be elevated in their conscious understanding that it was God who was standing before them, yet they could not hold on to this level of consciousness, because their minds were still pre-scientific and not rational.  In response, they did the only thing possible in that intermediary state of mind.  They divided God into two:  the Father and the Son. 

This intellectual subterfuge succeeded for awhile and allowed them to slowly extirpate themselves from the purely natural mind.  It was a neat and logical solution, though not quite rational: God the Father was the invisible universal presence and force, creator of everything.  God the Son was the visible God, and the two together made one Godhead. Later a third God was added, namely the Holy Spirit. The Trinity thus became Three Persons in One Godhead--an idea of God that is natural and corporeal, not spiritual or rational. This natural idea of the Trinity prevented subsequent generations from evolving a rational mind within religion. As a result, many more centuries had to pass until the development of the rational mind through another means, not directly from religion, but indirectly from science. This new paradigm was initiated by Swedenborg's Writings, which is called the Second Coming of God.

Each of the three Divine Persons had his own area of functioning.  God the Father was the Creator.  God the Son was the Redeemer.  God the Holy Spirit was the Sanctifier or Regenerator, involved in our thoughts and feelings, preparing us for life in Heaven.  This Trinity of Three Divine Persons was not rational, since rationally only One God is possible and thus only one Divine Person.  To substitute one “Godhead of Three Persons” for “one God,” is thus to take a point of view that resists the further opening of the rational mind.  The Writings reveal and confirm‎ by data that the idea of Three Divine Persons necessarily dissolves into the idea of Three Gods, and this idea destroys the further opening of the rational. The Church Fathers saw this issue to some extent since they added to the creed the statement that though our lips say Three Persons we must not think Three Gods but One God. But this is not possible since the logic of the mind falls back on three Gods if there are three Divine Persons. The Church doctrinal philosophers over the centuries called this a mystery that the human mind cannot understand. But it is not a mystery, just an irrational concept.

Paul's edifice was built on more than one Divine Person, and this allowed him to develop the Doctrine of Justification by Faith, and not by Works.   The fundamentalist external worship based on ritual, which the Lord calls Pharisaic, requires an external event as proof of forgiveness.  Paul retained this natural idea, but elevated it to a symbolic form that could receive a spiritual-rational meaning.  Christ is the one time Divine sacrifice that was foreshadowed in the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament.  Now that Christ has been sacrificed on the Cross, and shed His Divine Blood, God the Father's anger and revulsion at our sinful nature, is propitiated.  God the Father no longer sees our sins or our depraved nature and our love of evil and delight in it.  The Blood of His innocent and spotless Son, poured out on the Cross, is an acceptable sacrifice that takes care henceforth of all sins, past, present, and future, in all the generations.  No more animal sacrifices will be needed.  No more Mosaic rituals to follow and earn one's merit, as in the past.  Instead, now what's needed is faith, a kind of blind faith, without the rituals of sacrifice.

This inner faith is now saving, not some outer "works" of religion, by which Paul meant the ritual prescriptions and prohibitions enjoined in Mosaic Law. The Paul-phase notion of faith without works is in contrast to the Moses-phase notion of the works of religious rituals to be strictly performed. These religious works no longer had the power to wash sins away and to make one right again with God. Since Christ died on the Cross these same works are no longer efficacious, but faith is. This faith is faith in the Risen Christ as Divine.

Paul outlined the entire Old Testament history and re-cast it into this new view.  He thus elevated the literal meaning of the Old Testament to a more spiritual level by focusing on their rational and symbolic meaning, like the "foreshadowing" of Melchizedek as the "Christ figure." Abraham owed his salvation and favor with God on account of Abraham's faith in Him, not on account of any sacrifices and rituals he performed.  God was able to forgive Abraham's sins on account of his inner faith in Jehovah as the Divine Person who showed Himself to him through an Angel and adopted him as a spiritual son.  Christians can have their sins forgiven, not by sacrifices, not by merit in carrying out the works of the Mosaic Law, but by the intensity of their faith in the inner presence of God as the Holy Spirit. This new mentality required a rational component. The Moses-phase concepts we cherish early in our religious consciousness are exclusively sensual because our consciousness is a sensual consciousness located in the natural mind. We can be educated and talk intelligently and solve technical problems, but these accomplishments are based on knowledge rather than understanding. Understanding is rational and requires the spiritual mind, which is the inner mind, to be opened or activated.

Some Christians today still hanker back to a former sensuous consciousness of the Divine. This trend is a reversal of spiritual progress away from sensuous consciousness and towards rational consciousness. Christians who demand a miracle, or confirm‎ in their mind the miracles performed on stage by preachers, or by means of holy relics and shrines, hurt their rational consciousness which can only be developed through rational faith or belief, that is, belief in God as Spirit, or belief in the Holy Spirit as present rationally, not externally and sensuously. There are no miracles allowed by God today, according to the Writings, and therefore whatever miracles they witness is a self-deception that hurts their rational consciousness or rational faith. The Threefold Word warns that it is a wicked generation that seeks miracles and proof of the spirit, and that what needs to be done is to rely on the Word, that is, on Divine Truth, which is rational, not natural. There is plenty of rational proof of God and spirit that we are given in the Threefold Word.

All genuine spiritual ideas are purely rational, from God through His Word, which is the Rational Itself, also known as Divine Truth. When Christians accept the idea that the Risen Christ is Divine, they form in their mind the purely rational idea of God as the Divine Human with whom you can have a personal relationship like a Father to His children. To sensual consciousness this idea makes no sense whatsoever. How can one person, even if Divine, be present to every individual simultaneously? How can a human, born of a woman, stand before you as the infinite Divine Itself? How can a person you see in front of you take care of the whole universe while he is standing there? At this natural level of thinking, it makes more sense to think of God as a force that is everywhere all the time. Such sensual objections occur to us in the Moses-phase mentality. When we read in the Old Testament that God appeared to someone, the scene is described as an angel, a burning bush, a voice from heaven, a very bright light, but not a visible human. The Divine Risen Christ is a rational idea that stands in contrast with the sensual idea of God as the invisible infinite power and intelligence of the universe. The latter is purely sensual even though it is abstracted from the sensual. The abstraction still remains a sensual idea--God is “force” not a “Person.” To turn God into a visible Person or Divine Man, you need to think of rationally, not sensuously. Rationally we can conceive that a visible Divine Man can be present to any number of individuals simultaneously, but not naturally or physically.

By Divine Providence, the era of religious sacrifices gradually but inevitably ceased and disappeared, and Paul's doctrine of justification by faith not by works of the Law, turned more and more inward, thus opening the rational mind of the ensuing generations.  The Lord's Coming succeeded in establishing the Christian Church in the minds of millions.  The idea of God as the Holy Spirit in our mind, giving us comfort and power, was a new phenomenon in the world.   It marks the turning point in human evolution, when the rational mind was opened through belief or faith in an internal Divine presence and operation.  Internal worship without sensuous consciousness began for the first time in the history of our race.  The opening of the rational mind paved the way for the advent of modern science which will be needed eventually, to move from the New Testament state to the Third Testament state, that is, to move from thinking based on personal blind faith to thinking based on spiritual-rational faith, or theistic (dualist) science. The difference between rational faith (phase 3) and mystical faith (phase 2) is the difference between the celestial-rational (which is internal), and the spiritual-rational, which is relatively external.

The opening of the rational mind of the human race was accomplished by the Lord at His First Coming, which was a Coming in Person in a physical form in the natural world. He then revealed that He will come again when the time is ripe. This Second Coming was necessary in order to complete the salvation process of the human race that was begun by the opening of the rational mind. The opening of the rational mind was necessary in order to have a faith in the Lord that is based purely and solely on rational consciousness, untainted by sensual consciousness. The time of ripening was the time it took for the generations to solidify a culture and practice of religion that was internal, not merely external. The opening of the rational made possible the development and growth of modern science and education in all societies. With every succeeding generation sensual explanations for events such as magic or supernatural characters, were abandoned in favor of science and rationality. At last, the time of the ripening of the external rational mind arrived and the birth of the new internal rational mind was at hand. Hence the Second Coming of God was not to be a Coming in Person, like the First, but a Coming in the rational of the human mind. This was accomplished through the Writings of Swedenborg.

The First Coming had to be a sensually visible and touchable appearance because the external rational mind of humans was not yet opened or operational. It was the sensuous consciousness of the disciples that had to be convinced of Jesus as the Divine Christ. Their mind required the proof of miracles in order to be able to believe in the Divine's presence. This remains true for every generation. We require such visible proof in our childhood and adolescence when our idea of God is still sensual. We kiss icons and press them against our chest or hold them tight in our fist. We see holy men and women around us as living proof of what is sacred and supernatural. We cast our lot with the congregation praying together the Prayers of the People, hoping that this will make the requests more likely to be heard and answered by God. These are sensual ideas of God and prayer. But with Christians there is a constant pressure to abstract these ideas into a more rational form. When attending the Holy Mass or Communion we watch the priest elevate the wafer and say This is My Body, Eat. Then we watch him elevate the cup of wine and say This is My Blood. Drink. This participation forces the opening of the rational. The mind flees with horror from the sensual meaning of these things. What, drink blood?? and finds refuge in a symbolic rational meaning of “Body” and “Blood” as Divine Good and Truth, and of “eating” and “drinking” as adopting (‘eating” or “assimilating”) this good and this truth so that they become part of our character and moral fabric.

This is then what makes us immortal and capable of eternal life--it is the making of a new person out of the “ingested” pieces of the Divine Human's spiritual character (“Body” and “Blood”). As long as we identify with this Divine Human character and live the life from the Divine Good by means of the Divine Truth, we are in the Divine and the Divine is in us. This makes us immortal and eternal, and without this we remain in mere sensuous consciousness. When we pass into the other world at the death of the physical body, we awaken to a spiritual world in which the sensual consciousness sinks down, while the rational consciousness rises up.

The path from the opening of the external rational mind (First Coming of God) to the opening of the internal rational mind (Second Coming) was a downward path in religion even as it was an upward path for science. The Second Coming could not occur in the sensual presence or appearance of the Divine Human to people on earth (“in the clouds” or the” rapture”). Such a physical appearance would have shut the rational down and humanity would have reverted to barbarism. By necessity, the Second Coming had to be accomplished in a rational form so that the internal rational could be opened and rendered operational. This the Lord accomplished by opening the rational mind of Emanuel Swedenborg (1668-1771), preparing him first for an illustrious scientific career, then at age 57, opening his interior rational mind so that Swedenborg could become personally present in full consciousness to the departed from this world who were inhabitants of the spiritual world in heaven and in hell. For 27 years Swedenborg lived this life of dual citizenship and wrote more than two dozen volumes re-casting the Old and New Testaments from the Paul-phase mentality of blind faith to the Swedenborg-phase mentality of spiritual-rational thinking, which is an enlightened rational faith, not a blind faith.

The ripening of the First Christian Church, and its eventual consummation, occurred historically through various degradations of the new internal worship instituted by Christ and His Apostles, foreshadowing the states we all have to go through today as we move from the Old, to the New, to the Third Testament state.  That is, as we stop relying on physical ritual, then, as we stop relying on blind faith, and start relying on rational, scientific, and crystal clear concepts of God and our relation to God.  The degradations in internal worship were numerous.  One line of heresy involved the idea that Jesus had two natures, one Divine the other natural and merely human (Arianism).  Another line of heresy was called the Doctrine of Predestination which claimed that God the Father creates some people for Heaven and others for hell and those predestined for heaven get there no matter how they live and likewise for those predestined for hell. 

Another heresy, common today, is that the return of Christ is to take place in the natural world and He shall then bring on the Rapture in the physical world where people will be caught up in the air with Him and all the dead will then be resurrected from their graves.  Another natural idea of external worship common today is that we can influence God by praying in groups or masses of people coordinating their prayers.  Another natural idea in Christian worship today is the notion that objects such as the Shroud of Christ, or bread and wine that have been blessed by the priest, acquire supernatural powers of healing which are transferred to those who physically touch it or eat it.  All sorts of superstitious ideas besides these could further be mentioned.

The most important source of degradation in internal worship in the Paul phase comes from the notion of Faith Alone as developed by Luther, the architect of the Protestant Reform movement within Christianity.  Swedenborg was given the opportunity of discussing this with Luther himself in the spiritual world.   Luther confessed that an angel had spoken to him in his mind at the time he was writing the Faith Alone Doctrine for the Reformed Church, warning Luther that this was a false doctrine and will lead to the spiritual downfall of the Christian Church.  But Luther said he felt compelled to do it anyway because he was persuaded of the idea that in order for the new Reform movement to successfully secede from the Catholic Church, it was necessary for people to believe that works of charity are not required for salvation, but faith only in the Lord's sacrifice on the Cross.

Luther buttressed his Faith Alone Doctrine with Paul's statements about being justified by faith and not by the works of the Mosaic Law. This was a dishonest subterfuge on the part of Luther, though his motives may have been apparently good. Paul never used the idea of "faith alone" and never referred to "works of charity" but works of the Mosaic Law which had been rendered void by the new Christian dispensation. Paul clearly preaches in many places that a life of charity and love is necessary if faith is going to count. But Luther transformed Paul's idea into the idea of “faith alone without charity saves.” But the Writings reveal that when charity is removed from faith, it is the end of religion because it then slips back into the sensual phase and the rational remains closed. Without a rational, those who arrive in the spiritual world upon the death of the physical body, sink down into hell unable to grasp and hold on to the spiritual truths they are given by the angels. Without spiritual-rational truths our mind or spirit cannot support the atmosphere and eternal life of heaven.

The Catholic Church at the time, and still today, continued to insist that works of charity are necessary for salvation.  Luther thought that by braking this doctrine, the people will no longer be dependent on a corrupt priesthood for their salvation.  For it is their priests who decide what works of charity count for salvation.  Along with the Faith Alone doctrine was the giving of the Bible to the people, so that there would be no intermediary priesthood necessary for working out one's inner faith through the aid of the Holy Spirit. This was Luther's intention.

The Faith Alone doctrine is a heresy because regeneration cannot take place without a life according to one's faith.  This life in accordance with one's faith is called works of charity, but not in the same sense as Protestants today refer to "works."  A life of faith without its works is nothing but a natural-sensual idea of religion and loses all the spirituality that was originally contained in Paul's idea of faith.  Paul used the idea of "works" in the sense understood by his contemporaries, namely the works of the Mosaic laws by which propitiation or forgiveness of sins is earned through performing external ritual behaviors prescribed by worship.  This was indeed the battle Paul had to win over those who rejected Christianity or wanted to keep it Jewish.  They were a group of Jews who claimed to accept the Christ, while at the same time held on to the prescribed ritual works of the Mosaic laws, including a desire to retain the practice of animal sacrifices. Paul wrote passionately to oppose them, and he tried to convince them that the old type of ritual "works" by which the ancients were forgiven of their sins, was no longer operative in the new dispensation. 

The power of Mosaic works (sacrifices and rituals of festivals and the harvest, etc.) were gone forever.  Now we must rely on faith in Christ and a life according to that faith.  Paul repeats this idea many times, namely, faith and a life in accordance with that faith.  However, Luther succeeded in destroying that connection in the mind of Protestants.  And now the personal faith that the Lord had instituted while in the world became a mystical faith, a blind faith, no longer rational and spiritual.  As a result a new creation became necessary and the Lord had to return in a new dispensation called the Second Coming, to complete the work of the new creation He had started at His First Coming into the world.   This Second Coming, which was to be a historical event, but not a Coming in Person, actually took place in the spiritual world between 1757 and 1771.  It was a Coming or Appearance in the Rational of the human mind, not a Coming again in the natural mind through the physical mode.

Personalism in a state of mystical faith or "blind faith" is consummated, dies, and progresses to phase 3, or retrogresses to phase 1 where it becomes unrecognized meritoriousness--a deathly spiritual illness.  Even though we strongly believe that we have a "personal relationship with Christ," the fact is that in the Paul phase we are stuck in both lack of charity and no actual relationship with the Divine Human.  One illustration of this is that we pray to the invisible Father in the Name of the visible Son.  As children, we are taught to pray to Jesus, to sing to Jesus, to love Jesus.  This is true personal worship.  But when we get older, we tend to stop having this personal relationship to Jesus, and move our loyalty over to the Father, Jesus becoming a mere symbolism in name, to be appended at the end of worship to the Father because it is a required ritual.  We then pray to the Father, and we ask it in the Name of Jesus. Thus the primary relationship we have is with the Father. This degraded notion is not rational and prevents any further spiritual development of the rational mind. It is not rational to think that God forgives us because we pray in the Name of Jesus. What kind of a God is this? Why would He not forgive us outright since He can? And why would He be swayed by us praying in the Name of Jesus? This sounds like a natural person or earthly king, not the Divine Person.

The Paul phase presents us with two Divine Persons to love:  the Father to whom we pray, and the Son whom we must not forget, and in whose Name we are to pray.  However this is a divided love that cannot stand.  Only the Second Coming of God in our mind and belief,  can make it possible for us to move into phase 3, which presents us with only one Divine Person to love, namely Jesus Christ the Incarnate God-Man, who is at once Father-Son-Holy Spirit. This is the Trinity of His Aspects (or Functions), namely,  Creation--Redemption--Regeneration.  At this point the mind can be unified again, as it was in childhood for Christians, when Jesus is the only Divine that one recognizes. The mind of children with respect to God is more rational than the mind of adults who pray to the Father in the Name of the Son. This is the innocence the Lord pointed to when He said that unless we are like children we cannot inherit the Kingdom.

To progress in the Paul phase one must develop a personal relationship with the Lord. The Lord is God and there is one God. The Lord at His Incarnation revealed Himself as “one with the Father.” Those who take this affirmation seriously and innocently, go to the Lord – not the Holy Spirit for the Lord said the Holy Spirit is His Own Spirit and speaks only what he speaks. To go to the Holy Spirit is to depersonalize the Lord, whose Spirit it is! Therefore we must go the Lord. To have a personal relationship with the Lord is to acknowledge that He is God, and there is only one God. Does it make rational sense to address the Father in the Name of the Lord? Clearly, to personalize our relationship to the Lord fully we must address Him when we pray, and not some other Lord or God that is somehow “co-equal” with Him. This does not make rational sense since there can be only one God. Clearly then the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the God of the New Testament. That means that Jehovah and Jesus are the same God. Bingo! You’re on the verge of making the jump again, from phase 2 thinking to phase 3 thinking.

At this point we leave religion behind and we start a new life, a new level of consciousness that takes its origins in us form the Third Heaven, which is the highest heaven possible human beings can attain. The angels of this highest heaven do not have a religion. I was truly amazed at this when I first read it in the Writings. The angelic spirits of the Second Heaven do have a religion, and so do the good spirits of the First heaven – but not the angels of the Third Heaven. Instead, they have true science. The Threefold Word which they read in a spiritual script and language, serves for them as the source of all Divine Truth, the source of all knowledge they wish to know. It is their science encyclopedia, except that it is the Word, which means that it hides within its script an inner meaning that is endlessly rich, endlessly the source of infinite knowledge, as they study it daily to eternity. Such is the character of the Word, or Divine Truth.

When we arrive at the Third Heaven in our mind, we begin the journey of a true human. We not only have a personal relationship with the Lord, as in phase 2, but we see how the Lord is integrated in our thinking and willing, how He participates and creates our thinking and willing. Swedenborg spoke to some of the angels in the Third Heaven who told Him that their greatest and deepest joy is to actually sense the Lord’s influx into their mind from their inmost, and as it descends into their conscious awareness, recognize the Lord’s Proprium acting through them, while their own proprium is completely asleep. Proprium is a Latin word meaning “what is one’s own.”

Phase 3 consciousness therefore begins when we abandon our own proprium or self-intelligence, and adopt the Lord’s Proprium as-of self. The Lord then grants every angel to feel His Proprium as the angel’s own. An angel is actually a conjugial couple made of an angel husband and angel wife united in the mind as to be one. The Lord then flows into that couple’s conjoint self, or unified mind, with His Own Proprium. The thoughts and feelings they each have then originate form the Lord and not from themselves. This is the truly human state. This is when we can attain the highest point in terms of knowledge, understanding, loving, feeling, living. Religion does not exist at this level of thinking, only true knowledge of reality, or True Science. The Lord’s Proprium reveals the only true science there is. He appears to the angels face to face, and amazingly, we are told that no matter which way they walk or turn, they have the Spiritual Sun in front of them, and they see the Lord in the midst of that Sun. No religion is necessary, only the Threefold Word. This is the source of all their wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge.

-from <Moses, Paul, and Swedenborg: Three Steps in Rational Spirituality> by Dr. Leon James, Professor of Psychology, University of Hawaii.

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