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Two Sources of Truth -
Or Two
Foundations?
by the Rev. Ormond Odhner
"What is truth?"
That, undoubtedly, is the most famous question in history. The Lord did
not answer this question of Pilate's directly, although elsewhere in the
Word he had already done so
"I am . . . the
truth." But at His Second Advent He has given abundant answer.
Perhaps the most universally applicable definition of truth given in the
Writings is the following: "Truth is the form or quality of
good." (HD 24.) Or, as elsewhere stated, "When good is formed so
as to be intellectually perceived, it is called truth." (AC 3049.)
And again, "Truths . . . are nothing else than goods formed."
(AC 4574.) When good - or, if you wish, substitute "love" - when
good or love takes form so that you can see it intellectually, that is
truth.
With these teachings in mind,
I would ask you the question entailed in the title of this address: Are
there two sources of truth, nature and the Word; or are there
merely two foundations of truth, and only one source, the Word or
revelation?
The answer depends, of course,
upon what you mean by truth. The Writings themselves use the word
"truth" in many different ways. They speak of Divine truth,
spiritual truths, rational truths, moral truths, natural truths or the
truths of nature, appearances of truth, sensual and scientific truths.
Modern dictionaries, not so concerned with theology, define truth as that
which is in line with the real state of things, that which is in
conformity with fact or reality.
But the Writings, we have
seen, define truth as the form of good - as good taking visible form. Is
it a truth, then, that two plus two equals four? It is undoubtedly good
that it does. Is "Thou shalt not kill" a truth ? It is
undoubtedly good that thou shalt not. And if all truth is good taking
form; and if, as the Lord taught, there is none good but one, that is,
God; then is not all truth, in essence, Divine? Is not a spiritual truth
simply the Lord's Divine good or love appearing on the plane of the
spiritual? Is not a scientific truth simply the Divine love appearing on
the plane of the scientific? And is not even an appearance of truth simply
the Divine love as it appears to man in a certain state?
And, in fact, does anyone
really see a truth at all unless he sees the Divine good or love within
the thing that he is considering? I think not. He may see a fact, but he
does not really see a truth. The laws of climate force men to work. That
is a fact. But does anyone see truth in this unless he sees that the Lord
has mercifully provided that the laws of climate shall force men to
work, in order to keep them in a life of use, and thus comparatively free
from the influences of the hells ?
That thought, I believe, is
what caused one of the former bishops of the General Church to define
truth thus: To see natural truth is to see the Lord at work to build and
preserve the world of nature; to see moral truth is to see the Lord at
work to build and preserve human society; and to see spiritual truth is to
see the Lord at work to build and preserve the heavens.
Are there, then, actually two
sources of truth, two sources of a sight of the Lord, nature and the Word,
or is there only one source, the Word? (I am of course not talking about
scientific discoveries: H2O equals water, but who needs
revelation to find that out? Revelation is not given to disclose what man
can discover on his own. Nor am I even speaking of what the Writings call
a natural truth, "Thou shalt not kill." You do not need
revelation to learn that, either. The only revelation part about that truth
is that it is a Divine truth, and not just a civil or a moral truth.) But
is there any other source of truth - any other source of a sight of the
Lord's Divine love taking form on the various planes of life - than the
Word, and the Word alone?
The teaching in the Writings
from which it is sometimes concluded in our church that there are two
sources of truth, nature and the Word, is in the Spiritual Diary, nos.
5709 and 5710. The conclusion, which is not the actual teaching,
apparently came about from the common practice of forgetting the exact
wording of the Writings and then re-wording their teachings in our
memories.
It is, nevertheless, a rather
strange passage in the Writings, and in one place, in the English, it
contains a bad mistranslation, where it has animals drawing conclusions
from certain things, whereas the original Latin has men drawing these
conclusions. The passage was written after March 30th, 1757, and some time
before May 3rd, 1758, thus after all the Arcana had been published,
but it is still written in the usual rather obscure and unfinished style
of the Diary.
Greatly condensed, it teaches
the following. There are two foundations of truth, one from the Word, the
other from nature. The foundation from the Word is for heaven and for
those who are in the light of heaven. The foundation from nature is for
those who are natural and in natural light, "thus for those who have
confirmed themselves from the letter of the Word in things not true."
But these two foundations of truth agree with one another.
Then comes a rather peculiar
teaching, which calls for explanation. We read, "Since sciences have
shut up the understanding, therefore science may also open it." The
use of the word "science" here is what calls for explanation,
and will do so even more later on. By "science" Swedenborg
rarely if ever meant science as we know it today - "Science,"
with a capital "S": biochemistry, astro-physics, endocrinology.
By "science" Swedenborg meant knowledge, philosophy, experience,
and such of the sciences as we now know them which existed
in his day.
We repeat: "Since
sciences have shut up the understanding, therefore science may also open
it." The number goes on to say that heavenly things must have their
foundation in such things as the laws of order in nature, in order that
they may be fixed and permanent. Next comes the teaching that because
falsities have shut up the intellect, and because all ideas of thought,
even false ones, are based upon natural things, therefore natural things
must be as a foundation for spiritual things, with those whose ideas are
false.
The passage goes on. The Word
(apparently as it is in its literal sense) is the foundation itself for
those who are in genuine good; but for those who doubt the Word, its
internal sense must be laid open by means of natural truths, "by
means of which conflicting ideas are thrown off."
Two examples are then given of
how the two foundations of truth agree. First, a man may confirm himself
against God because he sees the good suffering in poverty, while the evil
are exalted to riches and honors by craft. But "natural truth"
teaches that worldly riches and honors are not real blessings, both
because they tend to lead man away from heaven, and because they come to
an end with time, whereas what is from the Lord endures to eternity.
Therefore these two foundations of truth agree. Second, there are some
people who think that man is like a beast, lives like a beast, and dies
like a beast, with no life hereafter. (And here we now quote exactly:)
But science teaches that
with man there is an internal and an external, and that the internal can
be elevated to God, and consequently (can) think about God, and about
those things which belong to heaven ... ; also, that it is able to be
affected by Divine things, and so to be conjoined with the Divine, which
is eternal; and that which is conjoined with the Divine cannot die.
This scientific, therefore,
also conjoins itself with the teachings of the Word.
The passage then closes with
the following sentences
In brief, nothing can be
founded upon scientifics, except it be previously founded upon the Word.
This must be first; the other is only a confirmation from man's
scientifics.
There is much to be said about
these teachings. To end with, the last two sentences practically
contradict all that went before. No truth can be founded upon scientifics
unless it first be founded upon the Word. But there are two foundations of
truth: nature, for those in the light of the world, and the Word, for
those in the light of heaven. But to begin with, is it a natural truth, a
truth of nature, that worldly riches and honors are not real blessings,
because they tend to lead man away from heaven and because they end with
time, whereas what is from the Lord endures to eternity? I suppose that
all but the last clause is, provided you believe in heaven. And science as
we know it today - "Science" with a capital "S";
science which is able to prove what it says by experiment - does not at
all teach that man has an internal and an external; that the internal can
be affected with things Divine, and so be conjoined with the Divine, and
therefore cannot die. But "science," as Swedenborg used the term
- experimental science, knowledge, philosophy, and experience - did, in
his day, teach such things. All the great philosophers did. And, I
believe, it is scientific and natural truths, in this broad sense of the
term, that must be used as a foundation of truth for those who doubt the
Word - a foundation to open up for them the internal sense of the Word,
which is never in conflict with genuine scientific and natural truths.
And, indeed, such a founding of celestial and spiritual truths in natural
truths must exist, it is said elsewhere in the Diary, "to the
end that order may be perfect." (SD 1531.)
But, as we all know,
scientific and natural truths, so-called, prove nothing at all concerning
God, nor concerning anything spiritual or eternal, except for him who
wants to believe. The atheistic Russian astronauts sneered because they
never saw God or heaven as they circled the earth in space. As our passage
taught,
Nothing can be founded upon
scientifics, except it be previously founded upon the Word. This must be
first; the other is merely a confirmation from man's scientifics.
In Swedenborg's scientific and
philosophical works, and also in the Writings, there are many teachings to
the effect that apart from the Word man can discover nothing at all about
the existence of a God who is to be worshipped and loved, nor that there
is a life after death, and a heaven and a hell, nor yet anything whatever
about the things that belong to heavenly life. In other words, there is no
such thing as what the Writings call natural theology. By going out into
nature and observing it, you can learn no more about God than you already
knew about God before you went out into nature.
And yet, in what we might call
Swedenborg's first work on theology, The Infinite and the Final Cause
of Creation, he assayed to prove by logic the existence of a God and
the immortality of the human soul. On his third foreign journey,
1733-1734, he had gone to Leipzig to publish his Principia, that
remarkable study of the mode of creation and of the nature of elemental
substance. In it he begins from God or the Infinite, of course, but the Principia
is not a work primarily designed to prove the existence of God. The
Infinite is.
In Leipzig, apparently,
Swedenborg came into contact with the agnosticism and atheism then current
in the learned world. His first major religious writing seems to have
resulted from this contact.
The Infinite is no
theological treatise on such doctrines as the Trinity and the internal
sense of the Word, but is, instead, a highly philosophical, extremely
logical discourse to prove the existence of an Infinite, and to show that
this Infinite is the final cause of an ordered creation. From reason, by
reason, it endeavors to prove the existence of God by the cosmological
argument: Every effect must have a cause, and hence creation must have a
Creator.
But it ends by showing that
this argument must essentially lead to the revelation of Jesus Christ.
In The Infinite Swedenborg
speaks highly of human reason and rationality, but he does not speak of
them in such a way as to teach that reason without revelation can discover
spiritual truths. Hear the following examples.
Philosophy, truly rational,
can never be contrary to revelation. (Pref.) The end of reason is that
man may perceive what things are revealed - to perceive that there is a
God and that He is to be worshipped. (Ibid.) Wisdom and reason
were given to venerate and worship the infinite Deity. (V.)
Using the word
"divinity" in a peculiar way, he writes,
The true divinity in man is
none other than the acknowledgment of the existence and infinity of God,
and a sense of delight in the love of God. (XIII.)
And in a section on "the
only begotten Son of God," he writes,
Through Him, somewhat of the
divine may dwell in us, namely, in the faculty to know and believe that
there is a God. . . . By Him we are led to a true religion. (XIV.)
In The Infinite Swedenborg
even speaks specifically of natural theology, but though in praise of it,
he does so thus
As by the grace of God we
have all these matters revealed in Holy Scripture, so where reason is
perplexed, . . . we, must at once have recourse to
revelation; and where we cannot discover from revelation either what we
should adopt, or in what sense we should understand its declarations, we
must then fly to the oracle of reason. In this way natural theology must
proffer her hand to revealed, where the meaning of revelation seems
doubtful; and revealed theology must in turn lend her hand to rational
theology when reason is in straits. For revealed and rational theology
can never be contrary to each other, if the latter only be truly
rational, and does not attempt to penetrate into the mysteries of
infinity. (XV.)
Natural theology is mentioned
here, yes, but here is no claim that human reason, unaided by revelation,
can arrive at all the truths necessary for genuine religion. Rather are
revealed and natural theology said to complement each other, natural
theology doing what it can to discover truths, but submitting to
revelation in matters it cannot discover by itself, and, on the other
hand, coming to man's aid where revelation is lacking or is difficult to
understand.
Swedenborg's fourth foreign
journey began in 1736 and took him to Denmark, Germany, Holland, France,
and Italy, and back through some of those countries to Sweden four years
later. During this period he was working on the Economy of the Animal
Kingdom, and in this, in its religious asides, he first makes direct
defense of the necessity of divine revelation in order that man may learn
any spiritual and divine truths. Speaking of the formation of the chick in
the egg, he says, "All the circumstances here recorded are the most
plain proofs of an infinite and omnipotent Divine Providence." He
then goes on to show that human reason and philosophy cannot fathom the
nature of this infinite, and continues,
But what His Divine nature
is; how He is to be worshiped; in what way He is to be approached; by
what means He is to be enjoyed - this it has pleased Him (immortal glory
be unto Him) to reveal in His holy testaments. (1: 296-298.)
In The Infinite Swedenborg
had taught that although human reason could demonstrate the existence of
God, it could never fathom His nature. Here he adds a new thought: God has
revealed His nature and the quality of genuine worship in "His
holy testaments."
In the same vein is the
following
He is the wisest of mortals
who comprehends this alone with certainty, that he can know nothing of
God from himself. (Economy, II: 241.)
Further on in the Economy, speaking
of the existence of two suns, the one the sun of the world, the other the
sun of life and of wisdom, he writes,
The one sun is within
nature, the other is above it; the one is physical, the other is purely
moral; and the one falls under the philosophy of the mind, while the
other lies withdrawn among the sacred mysteries of theology, between
which two there are boundaries that it is impossible for human faculties
to transcend. For the mind, which is within nature, there is no path
open beyond and above nature; consequently none by which its philosophy
can penetrate into the sanctuary of theology.
And then notice these words:
No human faculty of
perception can possibly understand of itself . . . the existence and
nature of anything higher than itself. (II: 266.)
Such teachings leave hardly
any room for natural theology and religion, and in these teachings,
furthermore, there is at least the germ of the idea that the human
proprium cannot give birth to any spiritual or divine truth. The same
thought is also beautifully stated in these words:
No one can enter into God
except God Himself, whose will it is that our thoughts should terminate
in a certain infinity and abyss of things, which should throw us into a
state of holy amazement, and so give rise to profound adoration of His
being, and a sacred unbounded ascription of honor to His name. Then it
is that He receives us, takes us into His confidence, and stretches
forth His hand to save us, lest we perish in the deep. . . . In vain do
we endeavor to find, except from revelation, how God acts. (II: 252-3.)
And the very last paragraph
of the Economy contains a specific defense of the Scriptures, after
stating that their rules are the laws by which the city of God may be
obtained. It reads,
These rules are not so dark
or obscure as the philosophy of the mind, and the love of self and of
the world, would make them; nor so deep and hidden but that any sincere
soul, which permits the spirit of God to govern it, may draw them from
this pure fountain, pure enough for the use and service of the members
of the city of God all over the world. (II: 366.)
The Economy, then, was
published about 1740-1741. In it, Swedenborg no longer was placing so much
trust in the ability of human reason to prove the existence of an
infinite, creating God. Now he says that the divine nature, its worship,
man's approach to it, are - glory be to God - things revealed in God's
holy testaments. Human reason cannot enter into God. God must be revealed,
and man must approach revelation in a spirit of humility. To such a humble
approach, God will reveal out of the Scriptures those laws of life that
lead to the city of God.
After writing the Economy, Swedenborg
continued his studies in anatomy, and published several works on the body,
the brain, etc. In them, however, I have found no important statements
bearing on our subject. But now we have arrived at the great turning-point
in Swedenborg's life. A fifth foreign journey, lasting from 1743 to 1745,
took him to Germany, Holland, and England. It was during this time that
the Lord first appeared to him. The spiritual world was opened to him, and
he was on the final pathway to becoming the instrument for the revelation
of the Second Advent.
The first large work he wrote
after this we call the Word Explained. In it he makes several
statements concerning the absolute necessity of revelation in order that
man may learn spiritual and heavenly things, but we here quote only the
following, from a section on "Human Philosophy and the Divine
Word."
It is most surely a constant
truth that without . . . the Divine Word, there would have been no
knowledge whatsoever of things spiritual and heavenly, yea, and no
knowledge of the state of our soul after the death of the body. This is
so clear that none can deny it. From what other source can such
knowledge come, if not from revelation? The natural man, that is to say,
man after the fall, can have no knowledge of things of this kind from
himself; for his wisdom or understanding extends only to such things as
are before the eyes, or are present to the senses; nor can he ever
elevate himself above such things. The truth of this statement is
abundantly proved; for we see it evidenced in those who are in the very
midst of this knowledge. The Divine Word is preached before them daily,
and they take or drink therefrom; and yet in their hearts or minds they
deny that such things as are drawn from the Divine Word have any
existence. And when men who live in the midst of these knowledges . . .
have, not a fluctuating faith, but no faith at all, what would then have
been the case if the world had been without the Divine Word? . . . Man
of himself can never elevate himself above himself and behold the things
that are above him. . . . Therefore the knowledges of such things can
come from no other source than the Messiah, who is in heaven, and who is
heaven itself and the very Word of God. (WE 904-905.)
Without the Word, no knowledge
at all of things spiritual and heavenly, no knowledge of the state of the
soul after death,
After the Word Explained comes
the Spiritual Diary, and shortly after that had been begun, the Arcana
Caelestia. Some time after 1754 and some time before the Last judgment
of 1757, Swedenborg reported in the Diary a dispute he heard in the
spiritual world between those who favored natural theology and those who
favored revealed.
Natural theology could
discover nothing at all about the Divine, about heaven and hell, about
life after death, or about faith, unless man had previously known these
things from revelation. (SD 4757-4759.)
The same teaching is
elaborated in the Arcana, no. 8944, De Verbo 16, and Sacred
Scripture 114-118, where we read,
Without the Word no one
would have knowledge of God, of heaven and hell, of a life after death,
and still less of the Lord.
There is, then, only one
source of truth, only one source of a sight of the Lord, and that source
is the Word of God. There are, however, two foundations of truth, nature,
or the truths of nature, and the Word. For those who believe the Word,
truth may be founded or based on its literal teachings. But for those who
doubt or deny the Word as it is in its letter, natural truth - the genuine
truths of philosophy, science, and experience - must be the foundation,
and by those truths such persons must be led to see the genuine truth that
is in the internal sense of the Word, with which genuine natural truth can
never disagree.
-The New Philosophy
1966;69:240-249
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