Good = Good

The Question of Change

                 Change is a constant of life. Every day is different from the last. Change is obvious in each person’s growth and development. How many times do people change their minds, world view, marriage partner, home, career, or god? Though not always good, change is a natural part of human life on Earth. But what is the place of change in the eternal world? Can a person change in the spiritual world, a world of actuality and not appearance? Or is change merely an appearance? Can a person change in the World of Spirits? Isn’t their fate decided once they die? Good people are good and evil people are evil. Can an evil person die and become a good person? All these questions go back to what kind of change is possible in the spiritual world. The doctrines of the New Church, as revealed by Emmanuel Swedenborg, shed some light on the issue of change. Some statements clearly refute the possibility of change, while others praise its necessity in heaven.

People Cannot Change

                Some parts of a person are described as constant. Their ruling love is described with this unceasing persistence. Learning truths in the other world will do nothing to change a person’s love.

No Repentance in Heaven

                  A person’s life is their love. To put a person simply, they are their loves. In heaven a person’s ruling love decides whether they live for eternity in heaven or hell and denotes specifics like exactly which society they live in (REF). What a person loves and therefore whether they go to heaven or hell is defined by what loves they affirmed in their life on earth.  But if a person’s loves are affirmed during life on earth, can loves change once in heaven? Passage 527 in the work Heaven and Hell specifically points out that a person cannot change their loves in heaven. The same passage explains that it is impossible for a person to change their loves because there is no repentance in the other world. True Christian Religion lays out four steps in the process of repentance – examine, recognize and acknowledge, pray, and then begin a new life (530). Angels in heaven and people in the World of Spirits are able to examine their lives, recognize aspects of their life, and pray to the Lord for help. Although, considering angels have gone through vastations before entering heaven, they do not need to repent. What about spirits not yet vastated, who still have evil loves? The complication of repentance in the spiritual world comes in the last step where a new life is started – how can a spirit begin a new life after they have died? Repentance requires repeated attempts at acting against the evil love being shunned. This is just not possible in the spiritual realm of actuality, and is meant for the natural realm of fixity.

                   As explained in Heaven and Hell § 527, a group of spirits once attempted to infuse good loves into themselves so that they would go to heaven. This resulted in them being “like dead,” because loves are a person’s very life. Without their loves a person has no ability to live, but instead are dead. Changing a person’s loves in heaven is removing their life and replacing it with something else because it is their love that enlivens them.

Instruction of Only the Good

                   Not many people die ready to go straight into heaven or hell. Most people need to go through different stages as they awaken in the World of Spirits which prepares them for their eternal life in either heaven or hell. Heaven and Hell describes three states that a person passes through – the state of exteriors, the state of interiors, and the state of preparation (491). In the state of externals the person, or spirit, experiences a life not unlike the one they experienced on earth. Some people upon awakening in the spiritual world are at first unaware that they are dead. This is when people first acclimate to life in the spiritual world. They learn that life is eternal, what this eternal life is like and that there are heavens and hells (495). In this stage, like on earth, they are still able to speak and act in spite of their internals (492). Only after the externals are disclosed can the person enter the state of interiors, which is the second stage. During this time a person’s exteriors fade away and they act and speak according to their internals (502). In the second state are the good the evil people separated. Once in a state of internals the evil people are no longer hindered by exteriors and eventually cast themselves into their hellish society (511). Only the good people undergo the third stage which is the state of preparation or instruction. Instruction is only possible for the good. They love truth and therefore have the ability to comprehend it.  People who love evil cannot be taught because they think untrue things and cannot comprehend the truth. Their rejection of truth keeps them from seeing the truth (512). An evil person is not going to be able to make a change if they cannot even see truth and are not instructed on heavenly truth.

                  The chapter in True Christian Religion on the Last Judgment contains an example of evil not being able to understand truth that took place in the World of Spirits during the Last Judgment. Passage 842 tells a story about an angel posed as Moses begging a group of Jews in the afterlife that Christ is the Messiah. It goes on to say that some remember this and were raised up into heaven, but others are unable to remember that Christ is the Messiah and were not brought into heaven. This example shows how some people are able to comprehend truth – presumably because they love it. And others are not.

General Learning about Truth

                   The state of preparation or instruction for the good is not the only opportunity to learn in heaven. As soon as a person enters heaven they have opportunities to learn. There is a difference between the state of instruction and general learning about truth outside of the state of instruction. This general learning is like what people experience when they just enter the other world. This is when they learn about the practicality and nature of eternal life (Heaven and Hell 495). This is a general knowledge not pertaining to the spirit’s specific needs. The purpose of the state of instruction is to give the angel appropriate knowledges to fulfill their love through use (Heaven and Hell 517).

People Can Change

                People do undergo change in heaven, even though their ruling love is never changed. Changing states and vastation are two very different ways that people experience change.

Changes of State

                Angels are constantly in changing states of love and wisdom. They experience an infinite variety of states. The variety is so much that one state is never exactly the same as another (Arcana Coelestia 10200). This cyclical change of state is vital to angels. Arcana Coelestia compares the necessity of changing states of love and wisdom to the necessity for changing heat and light on the earth. It is only with varied warmth and light that the body is sustained. It is these heavenly changes which sustain a spiritual body (6110). All angels experience changes in state because of their proprium (Heaven and Hell 158). They need change because it refines their perception which perfects them (Arcana Coelestia 5962). Anyone in constant delight and pleasure would soon lose the ability to value that happiness (Heaven and Hell 158). The states of angels’ love and wisdom do vary, but they are always embodying love and wisdom, never evil and falsity. When they are in a lesser state of wisdom they have a hard time seeing clearly, but they do not go so far to think falsely. Variation is enough to serve the use of perfection, but not much that angels “fall.” Heaven has states of morning, midday, and evening, never night (Arcana Coelestia 6110).  Night is the constant state of hell.

Vastation

                The process of vastation is another way that people change in the other world. Vastation forcibly removes good or evil from a person (Arcana Coelestia 7984). A good person who still subscribes to some evil loves must have them removed from their will before they can enter heaven. This constitutes a change in the persons internals while in the spiritual world. They enter the other world with some loves affirmed that are then changed. Although the general thrust of the person remains the same, their ruling love does not change. A good person remains a good person, and an evil person, with their good loves removed, remains an evil person.

How much can a person change?

Externals vs. Internals

                The most interesting case study of change comes in True Christian Religion § 796 in the chapter on the Last Judgment. The story goes that Martin Luther defended his dogma of faith alone in the World of Spirits furiously, but after much debate with Swedenborg was converted in due time. After the story the passage explains that Luther’s belief in faith alone was able to be changed because it was rooted in his external man and not his internal man. Luther’s internal spiritual man had affirmed true ideas about God and religion. It was only in his external natural that he affirmed falsity. Interiors are what truly make up a person (Heaven and Hell 501). Interiors are the eternal and real part of a person, the part that cannot change. Exteriors are a casing and expression of the internals. Divine Providence § 318 says that affirming in the will is eternal and affirming in the intellect is not. The will is the more interior and essential part which cannot be changed. The intellect is more exterior and an expression which can be changed on earth and in heaven. As long as the will or interior of a person love the Lord, they are able to change their exterior to agree with their love.

Good =Good

                 It is obvious that there is some kind of change in heaven. What is clear is that no one is forced to change. Only people, who want to change, change in heaven. Those who actually want to change for the better are good people. Because of the nature of evil, no evil person would want to become good. True Christian Religion §820 tell a story of a group of Roman Catholics who have doubts about the holiness of the saints. Because of their doubts, these people seek out a church were they are taught the truth regarding saints. After this they are then left to make up their mind on the issue. Their doubt is the crucial part of the story. Something in them did not want to believe in the veneration of saints and that part of them led to their instruction and change. They are internally good people changing to be better.

                Relating to the idea of good changing to good and evil changing to evil are the two sources of falsities presented in Arcana Coelestia § 1295. The first source of falsity is ignorance and the second is evil. Falsity from a place of evil desires cannot be changed because they are evil. Living in falsity from a place of ignorance can be changed because they have not confirmed their falsity in evil.

                Vastations, as stated in the previous section, are obviously a change person’s will is physically changing. But only the loves which are not harmonious with their ruling love are removed. The person is in a sense becoming more of who they are. They are changing into a more accurate and more perfect reflection of themself (Arcana Coelestia 7984). In this case they are not changing into something else but are becoming a fuller version of themself. Again this is good changing into good.

                The perfection of heaven is another example of good changing to good. Perfection in heaven is reached by the perfection of individual angels and societies undergoing changes of state. They are in varied points of heat and light but always in the day time. Their state never changes to night because night is that state of hell. Here most obviously the good people are being refined and changed.

Conclusion

                 There are two kinds of change in heaven – change into something different and change into something the same. Changing a person into someone different is like changing good into evil. This is impossible. Changing a person into a fuller more accurate version of who they are is not impossible. This is seen repeatedly in the spiritual world.  This is changing good into good. Changing good into good is not a real change, like changing good into evil. Yes, something happens, but is the person changed or the same?

“For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” (Matthew 25.29 NIV)