The Only Way to Abstain from Sinful Evils So Thoroughly That We Develop an Inner Aversion to Them Is to Do Battle against Them

Everyone knows on the basis of the Word and teaching drawn from it that from the time we are born our self-centeredness is evil and that this is why we have an inborn compulsion to love evil behavior and to be drawn into it. We are deliberately vengeful, for example, we deliberately cheat, disparage others, and commit adultery; and if we do not think that these behaviors are sins and resist them for that reason, we do them whenever the opportunity presents itself, as long as our reputation or our wealth is not affected.

Then too, we really enjoy doing such things if we have no religion.

from Life/Faith, Section 92

Evil and Punishment

All evil bears its punishment with it. Evil spirits are punished because the fear of punishment is the one means of subduing evils in this state. Exhortation no longer avails, nor instruction, nor fear of the law nor fear for one’s reputation; for now the spirit acts from a nature which cannot ne coerced or broken except by punishment — Heaven and Hell, Section 509

from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Truth

5. The very core of divine providence is its focus on what is infinite and eternal in the forming of the angelic heaven so that it can be a single person in the Lord’s sight, a person who is his image (Continued)

In contrast, people who do not allow themselves to be led to heaven and enrolled there are prepared for their places in hell. Left to ourselves, we constantly gravitate toward the very depths of hell, while the Lord is constantly drawing us back. If we do not let ourselves be drawn back, we are prepared for particular places in hell, where we are enrolled immediately after our departure from this world.

Each such place is opposite to a particular place in heaven because hell is directly opposed to heaven. So just as an angel-people are assigned their places in heaven according to their desires for what is good and true, devil-people are assigned their places in hell according to their desires for what is evil and false. Two opposing entities set against each other in parallel arrangement are kept in connection.

This is the very heart of divine providence in respect to hell.

from Divine Providence, Section 69

5. The very core of divine providence is its focus on what is infinite and eternal in the forming of the angelic heaven so that it can be a single person in the Lord’s sight, a person who is his image (Continued)

As already noted [Section 65], heaven is divided into as many communities as there are organs, viscera, and members in us, and no part of these can be anywhere except where it belongs. Since angels are parts like this in the divine heavenly person, then, and only people who have lived on earth become angels, it follows that people who allow themselves to be led to heaven are constantly being prepared by the Lord for their places.

This happens by means of the kind of desire for what is good and true that corresponds, and every angel-person is enrolled in this place after leaving our world. This is the very core of divine providence in respect to heaven.

from Divine Providence, Section 68

Section 65: Published 5/25/2022

5. The very core of divine providence is its focus on what is infinite and eternal in the forming of the angelic heaven so that it can be a single person in the Lord’s sight, a person who is his image (Continued)

Next, Since we are by creation heavens in smallest form and therefore images of the Lord, and since heaven is made up of as many desires as there are angels, each of which is a person as to its form, it follows that the constant effort in divine providence is for each of us to become a heaven in form and therefore an image of the Lord. Further, since this is accomplished by means of the desire for what is good and true, it is for us to become that desire. This, then, is the constant effort in divine providence.

The very heart of providence, though, that we should be some particular place in heaven or in some particular place in the divine heavenly person and therefore in the Lord. This is what happens for people whom the Lord can lead to heaven. Since the Lord foresees this, he also constantly provides for it, with the result that all of us who are allowing ourselves to be led to heaven are being prepared for our own places in heaven.

from Divine Providence, Section 67

5. The very core of divine providence is its focus on what is infinite and eternal in the forming of the angelic heaven so that it can be a single person in the Lord’s sight, a person who is his image (Continued)

This enables us to understand to some extent a mystery we can call angelic, namely, that every desire for what is both good and true is human as to its form. That is, whatever emanates from the Lord is a desire for what is good because it comes from his divine love and is a desire for what is true because it comes from his divine wisdom. In angels and in us, the desire for what is true that emanates from the Lord seems like a perception of what is true and like thought about it because we are attentive to perception and thought and not particularly attentive to the desire that they come from, even though [the perception and thought] emanate from the Lord as integral to the desire for what is true.

from Divine Providence, Section 66

5. The very core of divine providence is its focus on what is infinite and eternal in the forming of the angelic heaven so that it can be a single person in the Lord’s sight, a person who is his image (Continued)

Since the whole heaven is like a single person in the Lord’s sight, heaven is divided into as many inclusive bodies as there are organs viscera, and members in us; and each community is divided into as many less inclusive or specific communities as there are major parts of our viscera and organs. We can see from this what heaven is like.

Now, since the Lord is the essential Person and heaven is an image of him, we refer to being in heaven as “being in the Lord.” On the Lord as the essential person, see Divine Love and Wisdom, Sections11-13 and 285-289.

from Divine Providence, Section 65

Divine Love and Wisdom:

Sections 11-13: Published 4/12/2018-4/13/2018

5. The very core of divine providence is its focus on what is infinite and eternal in the forming of the angelic heaven so that it can be a single person in the Lord’s sight, a person who is his image

I explained in Heaven and Hell 59-86 that heaven as a whole is like a single person in the Lord’s sight, that the same holds true for each community of heaven, that this is why every angel is a perfectly formed person, and that this is because God the Creator, who is the Lord from eternity, is a person. I also explained that there is therefore a correspondence of everything in heaven with everything in human being (Heaven and Hell, Sections 87-102).

I myself have not seen that the whole heaven is like a single person, because no one can see the whole heaven but the Lord alone. However, I have at times seen that entire communities of heaven, large and small, have looked like a single individual. I have been told at such times that the largest community, heaven in its entirety, looks the same, but only in the Lord’s sight, and that this is why every angel is a person in complete form.

from Divine Providence, Section 64

Heaven and Hell:

Sections 59-67: Published 2/20/2020-2/23/2020

Sections 68-72: Published 2/24/2020-2/25/2020

Sections 73-77: Published 12/27/2019-12/28/2019

Sections 78-86: Published 2/26/2020-2/28/2020

Sections 87-102: Published 5/18/2019-5/26/2019

4. There is a clear image of what is infinite and eternal in the angelic heaven (Continued)

The view of heaven provided by this brief description enables us to see that what makes heaven in us is the desire that comes from a love for what is good. But who knows this nowadays? Who actually realizes what “a desire that comes from a love for what is good” is, or realizes that the desires come from a love for what is good are beyond number, infinite? For as already noted [Section 61], every angel is quite clearly her or his desire, and heaven in form is the form of all the desires of divine love there.

No one can unite all these desires into this form except the One who is both love itself and wisdom itself and is at the same time infinite and eternal, since there is something infinite and eternal in every form–something infinite in its union and something eternal in its perpetuity. If that infinite and eternal element were taken away, there would be an instantaneous collapse.

Who else can unite desires into a form? Really, who else can unite one part of it? No part of it can be united except on the basis of an all-embracing concept of all the parts, and the all-embracing whole depends on a concept of each particular component of it. There are millions of components of [heaven’s] form, there are thousands entering every year, and there will be thousands entering forever. All little children go there, as do all the adults who are desires that come from a love for what is good.

This again shows that there is an image of what is infinite and eternal in the angelic heaven.

from Divine Providence, Section 63

4. There is a clear image of what is infinite and eternal in the angelic heaven (Continued)

The reason the angelic heaven is an image of what is infinite and eternal is that it is an image of the Lord, who is the Infinite and Eternal One. We can see an image of his infinite and eternal nature in the fact that there are millions of angels who make up heaven, and that they make up as many communities as there are general desires of heavenly love, with each individual angel in each community being quite clearly his or her own desire. The form of heaven is made up of all these general and specific desires, a form that is like a single being in the Lord’s sight just the way a person is a single being. This form is becoming more perfect to eternity as its numbers increase, because the more people there are who are participating in the form of divine love, which is the form of forms, the more perfect is the union.

We can see quite plainly from this that there is an image of what is infinite and eternal in the angelic heaven.

from Divine Providence, Section 62