Savory Meats

This paper is based on the story of Jacob, Esau, and Isaac. If you are unfamiliar with this story or just need a refresher, you can read about them here: Genesis 25, Genesis 27: 1-41, Genesis 33.

Savory Meats
If you have a pleasant disposition or a tendency toward goods, what does that mean for your spiritual life? The doctrines on repentance and regeneration focus on starving evils in order to be born again, but where does that leave us in terms of the goods we already have? (TCR 510). It would seem illogical to dismiss or ignore these goods, because would it not make sense that they are useful if they are “good?” And what about remains, those states of good that are given to us by the Lord - are they the same as natural goods? How does a person progress from being naturally good to being spiritually good? This essay will explore states of natural good, remains, and the story of Jacob, Esau, and Isaac and the internal sense of Isaac’s savory meats to discover what should be done with these goods and how they can lead to repentance and regeneration.

In the story in Genesis, near the end of his life Isaac asks Esau to make him the “savory meats” that he loves so much. These meats are important because according to the Heavenly Doctrines, savory meats signify the “delights which go with good and the forms of pleasantness which go with truth” (AC 3502). If a person does not find delight and pleasure in good and truth then they cannot use good and truth in their life, because the natural man cannot receive matters of doctrine unless through some form of external delight or pleasure. Without delights and pleasures, the doctrine will not attach itself to the person’s will and therefore cannot remain (AC 3502). This is the answer to the aforementioned questions about the use of goods in people born with a pleasant disposition: natural/external goods are used to attach doctrine to the rational/internal aspect of a person by way of affections. A person has to have an affection for goods and truths first in order to adopt those goods and truths into their will and thus into their life afterwards.

Later in Arcana Coelestia, there is a description of what the Heavenly Doctrines call “remains,” which can further explain the existence and importance of natural goods. Remains are defined as “all things of innocence, all things of charity, all things of mercy and all things of the truth of faith, which from his infancy a man has had from the Lord, and has learned” (AC 661). To clarify, all states of good come from the Lord and can be added to by learning truths from childhood onward, thus natural goods can lead to states of spiritual and celestial good later on. AC 561 also describes remains as being the good and truth that a man learns from the Lord’s Word from infancy, and also states of love towards parents, brothers, teachers, friends, charity towards the neighbor, and pity for the poor and needy. As is clear from these statements, humans cannot be good in any way without remains. It also turns out that humans cannot live without them, because through remains people are able to differentiate between good and truth, to reflect on matters of every kind, and consequently to think and reason. These things are all made possible by the fact that remains hold within them spiritual and celestial life, which man needs in order to live and have conjunction with heaven (AC 560). Now, the idea that natural goods and remains are the same thing is never explicitly stated, however when looking at what natural good is and what remains are, it looks as if they are the same. They are both borrowed states from the Lord, since He is the source of all goodness, and they are both a means by which humans can combine lower forms of good with higher forms of good. An example of the similarities/sameness between these two would be as follows: imagine there is a ten year old girl walking along a city street. She sees a homeless woman sitting on the cold ground and immediately her mind fills with sadness and pity for this woman. Where did she learn how to do that? It could be that she learned to have pity on the less fortunate from her parents, or from church, or from school. The fact is she is experiencing a form of good that is not from herself; it is a form of good that she had to learn. That is the definition of a remain. This remain also claims to be natural good, because she is a child and therefore is incapable of possessing spiritual or celestial good. From all of this it is quite possible that natural goods and remains are the same thing or at least serve the same purpose. Both are channels through which the Lord sends good to benefit others and help humans become spiritual. Therefore these natural goods/remains are extremely important because they are the tools needed to regenerate.

On the subject of natural/external goods, AC 3494 says that infants are born into good first and learn truth later as they grow from an infant into a child, youth, and finally an adult. The reason learning truth becomes important once a person grows past the infant state is that through the conjunction of good and truth, a person is able to accept good into their will where it can remain to eternity. If this does not occur, after death the externals of the person fall away, including any external states of good and truth, thus leaving only internals which have not been reformed and therefore will most likely send that person to hell. As stated before, this conjunction of the will only occurs when the person finds delight and pleasure in what they are learning. It is said that there is an influx of good and truth from the Lord down through the celestial, spiritual, and rational men into the natural, which is the worldly and bodily part of man (AC 3304). This gives man access to his internal planes, starting at the natural level and working upwards. In this way the natural serves the internal man called the rational by joining to it, the conjunction of which produces the spiritual or "human" aspect of the person (AC 4108). From these examples it is easy to see that the essential use of natural goods and the role they play in a regenerating person are to connect the lower things in a person to his higher things.   

As mentioned above, the story of Jacob, Esau, and Isaac helps explain further the origin and use of natural goods, in particular reference to repentance and regeneration. As children, the “boy Esau” corresponds to good and the “boy Jacob” to truth. The story of their relationship and their lives in a greater sense explains the continual progression of good and truth towards a conjunction that lasts to eternity (AC 3308). In the internal sense, Jacob corresponds to the “doctrine of truth of the natural” and Esau corresponds to the “good of life of the truth of the natural” (AC 3305). To put it in simple terms, Jacob is natural truth and Esau is natural good. Their combat in the womb signifies the tension of which one has priority: good or truth? (AC 3289). As will be explained, it is both – Jacob and Esau signify the doctrinal idea that truth comes first in time, but not in essence.  Therefore, when the story says that the “elder shall serve the younger,” it simply means that for a time, good shall serve truth (AC 3296). It is also said that man’s first state either before or at the start of regeneration is an inversion of what his state will be after regeneration, because at first intellectual things or things of truth will have priority, as demonstrated by Jacob taking Esau’s birthright. This continues through the story to when Jacob impersonates Esau and puts on Esau’s hairy garments, which signify good being clothed with natural truth (AC 3539, 3300-3301). Not until Jacob and Esau meet again as adults are good and truth put into their proper order with good having priority over truth. 

The idea of truth being first in time but not in essence is important when thinking about someone with a pleasant disposition because it describes the way in which a person should approach their spiritual life. A man cannot expect to become a good person overnight or to know the truth merely because he was created by the Lord or because of the faith he was born into. Instead, this idea demonstrates the importance of learning truths from the Word, whether it be by reading and reflecting on it, by attending church sermons, or even learning about what the Word says in school. After a person knows how to do the right thing they can start acting on it. As the will becomes more internal the understanding also becomes internal because of its relationship to the will (DLW 422). The ultimate goal and use of natural good and truth is to serve as a foundation for doing what is right because a person has loved the truth and accepted it into their will, which only happens after regeneration.

The priority of truth and good explains the way in which humans regenerate. As stated people, children especially, must learn what is true before they can do what is good from their knowledge of truth. AC 3316 says that Jacob’s boiled pottage signifies the chaotic mass of doctrinal things in a person’s mind after he has started to learn truths. This is the first state of a man being regenerated, or in whom truth is being conjoined to good – at this point truths are merely in a jumbled mess in his memory, which is part of the natural man (AC 3316). Esau’s journey has a lot to do with the stages of regeneration. He starts out as a “man skillful in hunting” which means that he was in the good of life, since he is good, and he had an affection for natural truths. These truths are called sensuous truths and memory-knowledges, the first ones being the truths that children are in and the second being the truths those children are in as they grow up (AC 3309). Esau being in the good of life means that he is applying goods to life, but at this stage because he has an affection for natural truths rather than an affection for good, he has not yet been regenerated (AC 3310). After this initial stage, he will be able to come into doctrinal truths and eventually into a love of good (AC 3309). The story goes on to say that Esau comes in from the field. This signifies the pursuit of the good of life that has its origin in doctrinal matters (AC 3310, 3317). Esau is taking another step towards regeneration by desiring to live a good life based on what is right. It also says that he is weary, which signifies a state of temptation. It is necessary for people to go through states of temptation in order for them to reset their spiritual faculties. These faculties are originally misdirected by hereditary evils, but after temptation a person is able to receive new life from the Lord (AC 3317). Following this process of seeking out truths, a person is able to learn about them and eventually through repentance to love doing them from good and not just from truth. The internal sense of Esau changes after he and Jacob meet again as adults; he then represents celestial good in the natural, which means that good finally has priority over truth. This is made plain from the fact that Jacob then calls Esau “lord” (AC 4239, 4242). The progression of Esau from his first state to his last state demonstrates the way in which humans can go from being naturally good people to spiritually good people. 
There is nothing wrong with having a pleasant disposition. In fact, people tend to like pleasant people! However, it can be easier for people born with a friendly personality to think that they are good or to think that they do not need to change. The important piece to realize is that everyone is evil and everyone needs to change, regardless of natural goods or personality. AC 6208 even says that people who from heredity "find delight in doing good to others...when [they] come into the next life they are amazed that they are not received into heaven. They say they have led a good life, but they are told that a good life which is the outcome of natural or hereditary disposition is not a good life," but rather leading a life regarding what is good and true is an actually good life. The hard part might be finding a way to love or find delight in what the Lord says, but luckily He is there to help everyone with along with that.