How Freedom Fixed it all

“How Freedom fixed it all.”

DJ Mulhern

            “He is then moved by the Lord nearer to the east and at the same time to the south in the spiritual world, and brought into heavenly freedom, which is true freedom.” (TCR 478)

In this research project we will be looking into how big of a role freedom and rationality play in determining how we get to heaven. We will dive into how the Most Ancient Church did not have the same freedom we have now, and how that affected them. Also, we will address the questions, is it better to have freedom or not have it? Is freedom necessary in order to get into heaven? Finally, we will determine how freedom effects our judgement in the end, be it for heaven or hell, and how, before freedom, this could not have happened.

            First, it is important to tie down our definition of freedom and rationality: let’s look at the dictionary definition and compare it to the Swedenborg definition. Freedom: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. (Dictionary) Rationality: the quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic. (Dictionary) For the Swendenborg definition of both, we can look to Divine Love and Wisdom for the definitions: “By rationality, I mean the ability to discern what is true and therefore what is false, and to discern what is good and therefore what is evil. By freedom, I mean the ability freely to think, intend, and to do such things” (Divine love and wisdom #264). We can see that Swedenborg definitions are similar to the dictionary definitions, which help us solidify our context for this paper. Now that we have these locked down, we can actually get into how freedom and rationality play an important role in getting us into heaven.

            Let us start by looking at the freedom the people of the Most Ancient Church had by looking at the Writings of Swedenborg. “That 'a help suitable for him' means the proprium becomes clear from the nature of the proprium, and from what follows. But because the member of the Church dealt with here was inherently well-disposed, he was granted a proprium. But it [only] appeared to be his own, which is why it is called a help suitable for him” (Arcana Coelestia 140). From this reading, we can take that God gave the people of the Most Ancient Church a proprium to think as their own, but really it wasn’t their own. God did this in order to please man and bring the human race closer to God. The Most Ancient Church had a united will and intellect. The Most Ancient Church acted according to reason, as opposed to from freedom according to reason, which we know is how we act now. “It has been stated and shown above that this appearance has been granted to man in order that he may act from freedom according to reason, thus as of himself and not let his hands hang down and wait for influx”(DP 200). God needed to separate the will and intellect and therefore he made the propium. They had freedom, but not like how we do now. They had perception which meant they could see truth from love. They did not know what true freedom and rationality was because they were so close to God, and therefore could only be facing toward him or turned away from him. This situation led to the creation of very evil people called Nephilim and brought about the Flood in order to wipe out both Nephilim and perception. By wiping the evil out, God let freedom and rationality become more important, pushing us further away from God and giving us the ability to choose if we want to go closer to him or not. The people of the Most Ancient Church did not have freedom and rationality; they were too close to God to truly have them. It was like the Most Ancient Church was God’s control group that did not work out.  

            The question, “was it better to not have freedom or to have freedom is an interesting addendum. When God gave us more freedom, He allowed for us to become even closer to HIm and to be a better neighbor to Him. So, therefore, having freedom is better if you are looking at it from God’s perspective. “Hence it is that the Lord by His Divine Providence continually leads man in freedom, and the freedom appears to him to be none other than his own; and to lead man in freedom in opposition to himself is like lifting up a heavy and resisting weight from the ground by means of screws, through the power of which the weight and the resistance are not felt; or it is like what happens to a man in the company of an enemy who intends to kill him, an intention he is not aware of; and a friend leads him away by unknown paths and afterwards discloses to him his enemy's intention”(DP 211). This quote explains to us why God gave us freedom; He does not wish to have a hand in what decisions we make.  This protected our freedom, but inevitably made it truly made a lot harder for us to get into heaven. We lost our perception. Imagine being able to perceive truth from love and being able to have a united will and intellect. It might have been cool to experience. You would not fear death or anything. You would have the full understanding of how life works. But you can’t.  Having this knowledge would corrupt you because you would become evil, which would then lead you down to hell. Thank God He separated will and intellect. Having will and intellect unseparated would make you believe you are God which is the worst thing possible. Having freedom allows for us to decide whether or not we want to be a neighbor to God. We can, make this decision without seeing everything, which is better because if we could see everything, we would be corrupted. This is vividly demonstrated from the Most Ancient Church.

            Is it necessary that we needed freedom in order to get into heaven? Well, if we did not have freedom, we would not be able to move closer or further away from God. It is not necessarily needed to get into heaven, it just moves us closer or not to God. Freedom is just the tool God gave us in order to fully become neighbors to Him. If freedom was not available, we would have no way of getting closer to God, since we would already have our spot set and that would be that.

So where did the people of the most ancient church go to? Heaven or hell? Well, if they did die I would say they had their spot set already since they did not have the freedom that we do now. This is yet another example of why freedom is so important. In TCR, Swedenborg also describes heavenly placement “like a body in motion, which travels so long as it has any energy, and comes to rest when its energy is exhausted. So too it is with the freedom man's will enjoys; both of these, freedom of choice and will, can in man be called active energy, for if the will ceases to operate, so does the power to act, and if freedom of choice ceases to operate, so does the will” (TCR 482). If we do not have freedom, we would lose our will as well. This shows just how important freedom is for all of us. We can see freedom and the will are hand in hand through this passage. For when we die now, we will be judged on our actions and what we are willing to throw away from ourselves. If our freedom was taken away, Swedenborg states, “it would be, to use a comparison, like taking the wheels away from a machine, the arms that catch the wind from a mill, or the sails from a ship. In fact, it would be like a man parting with his spirit when he dies; for the life of man's spirit consists in his free will in spiritual matters. The angels groan at the mere mention of the fact that this free will is denied by many ministers of the church at the present time; they call this denial madness on top of madness” (TCR 482). To not have freedom would be madness and lead us to absolute madness! This is made vividly clear in the readings about the Most Ancient Church. It was the embodiment of insanity during that time, and evil was able to grow without anything resisting it. Freedom is essential for us and is most certainly necessary for us to get to heaven, else we risk becoming a part of chaos.  

            How does freedom affect our judgment? Let’s start answering this by looking at a quote from TCR: “The reason why anything freely accepted by a person lasts with him is that freedom has to do with his will; and if so, it also has to do with his love. It has been shown elsewhere [397] that the will is a receiver for love. Anyone can understand that all freedom has to do with love, and also with the will, when people say, 'I want this because I love it', and conversely, 'I love this, so I want it'”(TCR 493). What this quote is saying is that freedom is tied to your will, which is then tied to your ruling love. Your ruling love is what you are judged on in the spiritual world, and because of this, and the previous reasonings, freedom plays a key role into you being able to shape your ruling love, whether it be good or evil. “Any freedom coming from the Lord is real freedom; but any that comes from hell and makes itself at home with a person is slavery. Still spiritual freedom must inevitably seem like slavery to anyone who enjoys the freedom of hell, since they are opposites. Yet all who enjoy spiritual freedom not only know but feel that the freedom of hell is slavery” (TCR 495). Freedom is interpreted by us, but is always given to us by the Lord. It is up to us how we want to receive this Freedom, good or evil. Therefore, we are judged by freedom and how we take it. If we choose to love evil then we choose eternal slavery. If we choose to love good, then we choose true freedom and become closer to God. We can see how by not having freedom, and the chaos that followed, God chose to reboot us through the judgement of the Most Ancient Church. God needed the flood in order to wipe out perception and falsity. Therefore the united will and intellect will never happen again. We gain spiritual freedom and are able to choose between good and evil. This is how freedom affected judgment: it allowed for us to become more fluid in our self-adaptation and to move closer or further away from God.   

            We can conclude from this research that freedom was a pivotal tool in the judgement of humanity. Also, freedom was needed in order to bring us closer to God while becoming better neighbors to God. If we didn’t have freedom, we would go mad. Therefore God gave us the propium, which led to us having freedom and separating the will and intellect. What was wrong with the Most Ancient Church? They did not have freedom or a separated will and intellect. Finally, freedom helps us find our true love and choose between good or evil.