VIII.
WHY CANNOT THE RULING LOVE BE CHANGED AFTER DEATH?
THE doctrine revealed for the New Church—revealed so clearly, too, that there is no ground for a difference of opinion on this subject—is, that the love which rules supreme in the heart of man at the time of or previous to his death, will forever remain unchanged in its nature. Very often does the illumined herald of the New Church declare, that, "As man is when he dies, such he remains to eternity." "The life of a man cannot be changed after the body dies." "If evil is not removed [from the soul] in the world, it cannot be removed afterward." "The life which a man contracts [or forms for himself] in the world, remains with him for ever." "To change the ruling love in a spirit, would be to deprive him of his life, or to annihilate him." "No one's life can possibly be changed after death." "Evil life can by no means be changed [after death] into good life, nor infernal life into angelic." "The angels declare that it were easier to change a bat into a dove, or an owl into a bird of paradise, than an infernal spirit into an angel of heaven." "Infernal love can never be changed into heavenly love [after death]. . . . This is what is meant by the words of Abraham addressed to the rich man in hell: 'Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed,'" etc. "Hence it is evident that all who go to hell, remain there for ever."
In such clear and explicit declarations on this subject, do the writings of Swedenborg abound. If then, we accept his teachings concerning the future life, as a divinely authorized revelation of the solemn realities of the spiritual world, we must believe that a person's ruling love cannot be changed after death and therefore that the condition and character of the wicked in the Hereafter, will remain essentially the same to all eternity.
And we cannot reject this doctrine, or set up another in its place, viz. this:—that all who pass into the other world in an infernal or supremely selfish state, will ultimately be brought out of that state and become shining angels—without undermining or deranging the entire system of Swedenborg' s spiritual philosophy. To be consistent, we must set aside his doctrine of degrees his doctrine concerning the nature of the final judgment; his doctrine of human freedom and the law of moral growth; his doctrine of spiritual equilibrium; together with his great law of spiritual affinity which determines all associations in the spiritual world. So intimately are all truths linked or dovetailed together, that it is no easy matter to remove one, or substitute a falsity in its place, without disturbing the entire system of which that truth makes a part.
The great Swede's doctrine on this subject, then, has the merit of perfect consistency; while any different doctrine is seen, upon slight examination, to be in direct conflict with other facts and laws announced by him, the obvious truth and rationality of which compel the assent of intelligent and candid minds.
But not only has Swedenborg declared the fact that a man's ruling love cannot be changed after death, but he has told us why it cannot. In proclaiming the endless duration of the hells, he has at the same time given us the philosophical reason. It is, that when the ruling love is fully unfolded, and everything that disagrees with it is rejected, hated, loathed, the individual is then precisely what this love makes him from centre to circumference. If it be the love of self, then he is selfish all through; just as a crocodile is a crocodile, a wolf a wolf, or a serpent a serpent all through. And he has no more desire to change that love, or to receive an unselfish, heavenly love in lieu of it, or to become any other than the supremely selfish being that he is, than a wolf has to become a sheep, or a serpent a dove. And without the desire to overcome the love of self, and to have the opposite heavenly love implanted or developed in the soul, can we conceive it possible that this change will ever take place? Human character in this world or in the world to come, is not, as I have before remarked, developed under the law of vegetable growth. Its formation everywhere implies the exercise of human volition, and never takes place without it. A vegetable germ unfolds into a plant or tree according to an implanted instinct or law of its nature, and without volition. But is there any human germ, hidden away in the inmosts or elsewhere of the human spirit,—can there be any—that will ever develop into true manhood or womanhood in like manner?—that is, without conscious volition on the part of the individual? And if the properly human or heavenly growth can never take place without volition, how can the needed volition spring up in the soul of one who has passed the ordeal of judgment, and become thoroughly and supremely selfish?
True, there is but one life; and all life in derivative forms, is one and the same in its origin. The same exhaustless Fountain that vitalizes the organism of the sheep, supplies the wolf also with life. The form into which the life flows, makes all the difference in its quality or manifestations. And we cannot conceive how a wolf could be changed into a sheep, without such a complete change in its entire organism, as would utterly destroy its identity. And this destroyed, where is the original wolf? Annihilated, beyond question.
Let us hear, now, the reasons which Swedenborg himself has given, showing why a man's ruling love cannot be changed after death. He says:
"I have also heard from the angels that no one's life can be changed after death, because it is organized according to his love and faith, and hence according to his works; and that if the life were changed, the organization would be destroyed, which can never be done. They further added, that a change of organization can only take place in the material body, and by no means in the spiritual body after the former has been rejected." (Brief Exposition n. 110; Conjugial Love 524.)
"I have been told by the angels that [after death] the life of the ruling love is never changed with any one, since every one is his own love; wherefore to change that love in a spirit, would be to deprive him of his life, or to annihilate him. They also stated the reason, which is, that man after death is no longer capable of being reformed by instruction as in the world, because the ultimate plane which consists of natural knowledges and affections, is then quiescent, and cannot be opened because it is not spiritual; that the interiors which belong to the rational and natural mind, rest upon that plane like a house on its foundation; and that it is for this reason that a man remains for ever such as the life of his love had been in the world." (Heaven and Hell n. 480.)
"By washing the feet is meant to purify the natural principle of man; for unless this principle in man be purified and cleansed when he lives in the world, it cannot afterward be purified to eternity; for such as his natural principle is when he dies, such it remains; nor is it afterward amended, since it is that plane into which interior things which are spiritual flow, it being their receptacle; therefore when this is perverted, interior things when they flow in, are perverted in like manner. The case herein is as when the eye is injured, or any other organ of sense or member of the body; on which occasion interior things feel and act by them no otherwise than according to reception therein. Therefore it is that man can never be purified to eternity if he be not purified as to his natural principle in the world; this is meant by the Lord's words, 'What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.'" (Arcana Cœlestia 10,243.)
Then there are degrees belonging to the mind; and the influx of life is through the higher degrees to the lower and the quality of the life that inflows, or the character of the individual, is according to the form of the natural degree which receives the influx. If this degree is in a disordered or hellish form, it changes God's love and wisdom as they flow in, into their opposites; comparatively as the fox-glove or deadly nightshade changes the sunshine and the rain and the sweet dews of heaven into poison. But if this degree be regenerated or restored to order, then the whole man is regenerated. Life being received into an orderly natural form, is felt and manifested as the true life.
The character, therefore, of the lower or natural degree of a man's mind, since it determines for ever the quality of the life that inflows, must necessarily determine for ever the character of the man. The interior life is terminated in, and therefore takes on the character of, the external or natural life, just as the light and heat of the sun, terminating in hideous forms and excrementitious substances, take on the ugliness of the one and the offensiveness of the other. Accordingly Swedenborg says:
"A man's interiors are distinguished into degrees, and in every degree are terminated, and by termination separated each from the interior degree; and this from the inmost to the outermost. . . . These degrees in man are most distinct; hence, if he lives in good, he is as to his interiors a heaven in its least form, or his interiors correspond to the three heavens. And therefore if a man has lived the life of charity and love, he can after death be translated even into the third heaven: but in order to acquire such a capacity, it is necessary that all his degrees be well terminated, and thus by terminations be distinct from each other; and when they are terminated, or by terminations are made distinct, every degree is a plane in which the good inflowing from the Lord rests and is received. Without these degrees as planes good cannot be received but flows through, as through a sieve or a perforated basket, even to the sensual [plane], and in that is changed to what is filthy, viz., into the delight of self-love and the love of the world, consequently into the delight of hatred, revenge, cruelty, adultery, avarice, or into mere voluptuousness and luxuriousness, which delight appears to those who are in it as good. . . .
"In the other life especially it is discovered whether the things of a man's will have been terminated or not. With those in whom they have been terminated, there is a zeal for spiritual good and truth, or for what is just and right; for they had done good for the sake of good and truth, and had acted justly for the sake of what is just and right, not for the sake of gain, honor, and the like. All those with whom the interiors of the will have been terminated, are elevated to heaven, for the influent Divine can lead them; but all those with whom the interiors of the will have not been terminated, betake themselves to hell, for the Divine flows through and is turned into what is infernal, as in the case of the sun's heat, which falling upon filthy excrements, produces a foul stench." (Arcana Cœlestia 5145.)
"With things relating to spiritual birth, the case is such that reception must be altogether in the natural principle. This is why, during man's regeneration, the natural principle is first prepared to receive and so far as this principle is rendered capable of receiving, so far interior goods and truths can be brought forth and multiplied. For this reason also, if the natural man be not prepared to receive the truths and goods of faith in the life of the body, he cannot receive them in the other life, and therefore cannot be saved. This is what is meant by the expression so often used, that, as the tree falls, so it lies; or, as a man dies, so his state remains. For man has with him in the other life all the natural memory, or the memory of the external man, but is not permitted to use it in that life wherefore it is there as a fundamental plane into which interior truths and goods fall; and if that plane is incapable of receiving the truths and goods which flow in from an interior principle, they are either extinguished, perverted or rejected." (Ibid. 4588.)
These degrees of the mind, Swedenborg tells us, exist in every man, "from his birth potentially, and actually when opened." And he tells us, also, how the higher or heavenly degrees of life are opened; and that every one after death, "enters that degree which was opened within him in the world." (Divine Love and Wisdom 238.) But evil, or the indulgence of a supremely selfish and worldly love by the natural mind, closes more and more firmly the higher or heavenly degrees.
"In such a man—[one who 'delights in all kinds of wickedness, as in adultery, fraud, revenge, blasphemy, and so on']—the spiritual mind is more and more firmly closed; the confirmation of the evil by the false especially closes it. Therefore evil and the false once confirmed, cannot be extirpated after death; this can only be done in the world by repentance." (Ibid. 262.)
I have quoted freely that the reader may see the reasons given by Swedenborg himself, why a man's ruling love cannot be changed after death; and why, therefore, the hells must be eternal in duration. And they are reasons, we observe, growing out of, harmonizing with, and making indeed a part of, his grand and comprehensive system of spiritual philosophy. So that, in adopting a different view from the one he has taught in regard to the duration of the hells—in denying their eternity, and insisting that, some time or other and in some way or other, the ruling love will be changed after death, and the devils be all converted into angels—we not only reject a doctrine as clearly revealed as anything can be, but we are compelled also to sweep away so much of his spiritual philosophy as would leave his whole system tottering. We are compelled to deny that the life's love can become so inwrought into the spiritual organism during one's earthly pilgrimage, that an entire change in the quality of the love would involve annihilation, or a total destruction of the soul's organism (C. L. 524; H. H. 480). We are compelled to deny, what we are repeatedly assured the angels affirm, that the interior things of the mind, resting for ever on the ultimate or natural plane of life developed here on earth "like a house on its foundation," will for ever be in Harmony or correspondence with that plane. (Ibid.) We must deny, too, that there is any such eternal and indissoluble connection between the life here and the life hereafter, as Swedenborg has declared; or that any such cleansing of the external or natural man here below as he alleges, is essential to that internal purification without which there can be no heaven. (A. C. 10,243.) We must deny the declared existence of degrees to the mind or that no higher degree of life can be entered and enjoyed in the other world, than the degree which has been opened in this. We must deny that the lower or natural degree bears any such fixed and permanent relation to the higher, as the eye bears to seeing or the ear to hearing. And considerably more must we deny, if we would be consistent.
Who that has studied Swedenborg enough to grasp a tithe of his deep and comprehensive philosophy, and has felt constrained by the illuminating power of his writings to acknowledge that he was, indeed, a man ordained and sent of God, dares venture on such a string of denials? Yet they all follow inevitably from the denial of his doctrine concerning the eternity of the hells, or the assumption that a man's ruling love may be changed after death.
Then apply to the doctrine taught by Swedenborg on this subject one other test—that most searching one of all—that divinely authorized touch-stone of truth and of error expressed in the formula, "By their fruits ye shall know them."
Judge the doctrine by its fruits—that is, by its obvious influence on the character of believers. Compare it in this respect with that other doctrine which some would substitute in its place—viz., the doctrine that a man may repent and his ruling love be changed in the other world, and the devils be ultimately all converted into angels.
The New Church doctrine says: "Keep the commandments; shun evils as sins; deny self, take up the cross and follow the Lord. For if you do not, while on earth, begin the great work of building up the kingdom of heaven in your heart, you will have no inclination to begin this work beyond the grave; and that blessed kingdom will, therefore, never be yours."
The other doctrine, stripped of its fine rhetoric and speaking in the plainest language, says: "It is best, of course, to keep the commandments. This will carry you to heaven quickest. But live as you will—sin as you may—trample on all the laws of God as you choose—indulge your avarice, your lust, your pride, your selfishness, your hate, to any excess—develop and strengthen within you the life of hell to whatever extent—and God will some day, spite of yourself and every other obstacle, bring you out of that hellish state, and make you a shining and happy angel."
Now which of these doctrines is it best for men to believe? Which is most stimulating to the better part of our nature, and most helpful in repressing and restraining the worse? Which is most likely to excite to prayer and watchfulness? to patience and self-denial and holy endeavor? to inward and persevering conflict with the foes of our own household? Which is the most wholesome doctrine to preach?—which the most benign in its practical tendency and effects? It is not difficult, I think, to answer these questions. And let us remember that "a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." Nor is it possible for a false doctrine to exert upon the hearts and lives of men a more benign influence than the truth.