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Swedenborg, Emanuel - The Infinite - Why are we here?
Identifier
003139
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Emmanuel Swedenborg –The Infinite and the final cause of creation
If the primary end be infinite …. Are there not other ends also for the existence of man?
Was he not meant to enjoy earth …? To enjoy human delights?
For what else are his senses given him? And why do his delights penetrate to his very soul?
I maintain however, that all these secondary ends conspire to the primary end; and are necessary as ways and means to it...
Now the single incentive in all these ends is some particular pleasure or element of delight, which in one case is denominated taste, smell, or sight; in another desire, love, and parental affection. …………
The delight tends to the divine end
The ultimate effect we are seeking must have more in it than a mere machine; by a mere machine the divine end could never be realised. If it could the whole universe might justly be regarded as the ultimate effect. A mere machine, however, can only serve as a means to the ultimate effect. In the ultimate machine something more is requisite; something not merely passive, something active in addition to the passive; in short something that tends and contributes to the end of creation….
There must therefore be something that can comprehend the end, that can acknowledge the end and acknowledge also in the fullness of faith, that the end is Infinite..
Hence rationality is given to man through the soul and body at once, that the divine end may be realised
The source of the experience
Swedenborg, EmanuelConcepts, symbols and science items
Concepts
AdversityConscious
Destiny
Five senses system
Great Work, the
Pain [emotional]
Reward
Why are we here