51
REV. ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. ERNST PFEIFFER
REV.
ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. ERNST PFEIFFER
Dear
Mr. Pfeiffer.
To me that does not appear to be the case. If I understand you correctly
(which I am not quite sure of) it appears that you make the apparent
discreteness of the natural mind to be so real and substantial that the teaching
in DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM is practically put aside. You base, so it seems to me,
your conceptions of three discrete degrees in each of the three heavens and in
each Church on the reality of these discrete degrees, though admitting that it
is only an appearance. Your conception, it seems to me, postulates not three
degrees of the mind but nine, and also nine discretely different heavens. My
study and reflection on what is said in the Latin Word, including A.R. 350, has
led me to a quite different, view, which I will try to set forth briefly. I have
just done so in a letter to Rev. Theodore Pitcairn, but I know it lacked much as
an expression of my view. It is not easy to bring ideas of spiritual things down
in thoughts -and words to be found by the natural mind. What I am to say now may
supplement what I said to him and help to make my idea clearer.
The highest or inmost heaven is mainly composed of angels who as men on
earth were of the Adamic Church, who were in good of life from the Lord through
interior perception of influx of life from Him. This perception gradually
decreased until in the men signified by Noah it had entirely disappeared, but in
whom there were remains of innocence, and a beginning of the rational
understanding to which spiritual truths could be taught as separate from nature
but corresponding.
The highest heaven, or the inmost, is living perception of influx of life
from the Divine in varying grades of intensity from the center to the
circumference. The whole makes one continuous degree regarded in itself and one
of the discrete degrees, the inmost, of the heavens as one. All the angels of
this heaven live in an atmosphere proceeding
52
from
the Lord as a sun, which is the atmosphere of the third degree of truth. The
life of the Lord tempered by that atmosphere
is their
light. The second or middle heaven is composed of angels who as men on
earth were of the Churches of Noah and their descendants down to the Coming of
the Lord. The revelation of life from the Lord
The heaven based on these Churches is one, composed of angels who are
living forms of truth from the good of the highest heaven, truths which
correspond to the different grades of perception there, from inmost to
circumference in one continuous degree. Those in the spiritual Church, if
any, who
through regeneration came to perceive the influx of life from the Lord as
if it were their own, after death were taken to the heaven of perception.
Those who were in good in the Jewish Church before the Coming of the Lord
joined the spiritual heaven after death. Those of the First Christian Church who
were in good and died before the Second Advent of the Lord also were associated
with the existing heavens from previous Churches, unless their good was joined
with so many falsities in their understanding that they were bound in the false
heavens until the Last Judgment.
We are taught that the Churches existing before the Lord's
Coming were
representative Churches,
because interior Churches from remains from the Lord not yet ultimated in
a natural will and understanding of their own.
The men of the Adamic Church had no rational as we understand it any more
than an infant has. Their external
53
REV. ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. ERNST PFEIFFER
and
gradually develop an external understanding out of the faculty for rationality
given to all men in creation.
Not until the age of adolescence is the rational in the natural developed
enough to let us see spiritual truths, in the light from the interior to our own
reason and in freedom as of ourselves, and even then the spiritual is seen in
natural form. To this age the Lord comes as man on earth, and is hailed by some
with youthful enthusiasm and with earnest desire to follow Him.
But the rational of this stage is not yet able to understand that the
Divine Human of the Lord is not man born of woman. It is a temporary state
preserving the remains in some and brings their life down into the natural as
worship of a Divine Man. Not until the interior rational has been further
developed through influx from the Lord through the heavens, and sheds its light
on the natural,
That opening of the natural to the light from the internal coincides with
the "coming of age", or early manhood. From then on the rational in
the natural degree can constantly receive more light from the Lord, as the
interior desire for truth and good meets with and joins to itself the truths of
the Divine Human.
In one sense, as I understand it, the New Heaven from those who have
received the Lord in His Divine Human and have brought truths from His Love down
into their natural life, so
moulding it in conformity with those truths, is the only one that can be
called natural, or a heaven in ultimates. The angels of that heaven make one
whole, dwelling
in an
atmosphere of truth from the Divine Human, and that heaven constitutes
one continuous degree, and
looked upon
in its relation to the former heavens it is the lowest of the discrete
heavens which together form one whole man, because it is most ultimate, in
constant and proximate conjunction with the only true and specific Church on
earth.
The words of natural language are poor means for expressing ideas of
spiritual things, but they are the only
54
light
and heat from the Lord. When we have that view in mind, it would be impossible
to think of the New Heaven from the New Church as of one continuous degree. But
the heavens are described from different points of view in the Latin Word, in
relation to each other and according to their performance of use in the Grand
Man. Sometimes the New Church, and therefore the heaven from it, is said to be
the heart and lungs, and again the most external of the Grand Man. I have no
difficulty in combining the different aspects and to think of the New Heaven as
one discrete degree of the whole, yet in itself continuous, the different
societies embodying
different yet continuous grades of reception of the Lord in His Divine
Human; those in the center receiving His Life in a more interior way than the
others, all ranged in the east, south, west, or north in the same heaven; the
inmost in one aspect also the most ultimate,
because the result of more intense struggle against evil in the life on
earth and a fuller bringing down the interior life in ultimates.
The attempt I have made to express my ideas is a hurried one, and I am
well aware of its imperfections and the need of a new effort. But your
interesting letter has been left unanswered too long as it is. I will mention
some things that have been in my mind next time I write you, which I hope will
not be very long.
Dear
Mr. Bjorck.
The different aspects of Doctrine are illustrated by the
55
REV. ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. THEO. PITCAIRN
things
which represent it. For example in many places it speaks as if the Doctrine and
the understanding of the Word were one and the same thing, yet in the case of a
horse and chariot, the horse represents the understanding of the Word and
the-chariot the Doctrine. Again a candle or a lamp is said to represent
Doctrine, the lamp being the vessel containing oil. On the other hand the Word
without Doctrine is said to be like a candlestick without light; in this
representation the literal sense is the candlestick and Doctrine the light. Some
of the things representing Doctrine are, a field, a bow, a rainbow, a lip or
tongue, a way, a prophet, a fountain, a ship; as it is too extensive a subject
to enter into these various aspects of the subject, I will leave it for the
present.
It appears from your letter that you are warning against the danger of
making personal or artificial distinctions in the Church, as would be done if it
were said that so and so is a spiritual man and so and so is a natural man. The
Lord alone orders and disposes the Church, and man must not make any personal
judgments.
That there are degrees of altitude as well as degrees of length and
breadth in the New Church appears to be clearly taught in the APOCALYPSE
REVEALED, n. 348?363; compare also the APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED, n. 429?452.
THEODORE PITCAIRN
REV.
ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. THEO. PITCAIRN
Dear
Mr. Pitcairn.
I have wondered if this is really the position of DE HEMELSCHE LEER, or
if Mr. Pfeiffer in his desire to
56
A CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DOCTRINE
defend
the truth as he sees it was led to use an expression that does not really bring
out the position.
If the position is truly described in the sentence quoted, namely that
man's reception of good and truth from the Lord is Divine, I regard it as an
error. Man must cooperate with the Lord, and his reception of truth and good is
from that cooperation. The power to cooperate with the Lord is given man by the
Lord from creation. It belongs to the man as a created being, and can never
become Divine because it is from the Divine. One might as well say that the
living forms on earth, or the earth itself, is the sun, because they are created
from the sun.
The Lord's human reception of the truths of the Word was indeed Divine
always, because the Divine was the inmost of His Human. Man's inmost, his soul,
is a first finite receptacle of the
Divine, and the finite can never become the infinite.
ALBERT BJORCK
REV.
ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. ERNST PFEIFEER
Dear
Mr. Pfeiffer.
On p. 56 you say "That by the Doctrine of the Church not the
Writings of Swedenborg are meant, but the vision of these Writings and the Word
as a whole which the Church gradually acquires for itself; and second, that this
Doctrine of the Church is of purely Divine origin and of a purely Divine
essence".
This I fully agree with, and I think most thinking New Churchmen would.
But the very fact that a true vision of the Word as a whole is only gradually
acquired by the Church, seems to indicate that during this gradual process
*
Pp. 111?144 of the Third Fascicle. ED.
57
REV. ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. ERNST PFEIFFER
falsities
may adhere to -the vision, though they may be removed one after another as the
vision clears. This I think is also plainly taught in the Latin Word.
Though the Doctrine of the Church in itself is of Divine origin and of a
purely Divine essence, the vision the Church
I agree fully with what is said in the second paragraph p. 61, beginning,
"By the influx from the Lord", and also with the thoughts expressed in
the following paragraph. What I have said in my pamphlet will show that I also
agree with what is said in the next paragraph on p. 62, that the rational must
be inspired, that is, elevated and illumined, in order to see the Doctrine which
is in itself Divine; yet, this elevation and illumination of the rational is
also progressive. When you say, "it is never anything by itself, it is
never anything but the recipient of the Divine Human of the Lord", I cannot
agree. The human faculty of rationality is from the Lord, given to man in
creation. It is not the Lord, but created by the Lord in man.
In the previous paragraph you say: "The rational is only a recipient
or dwelling place for the Doctrine". A recipient vessel is something by
itself, and that which fills it takes on the form of the vessel. Man cooperates
with the Lord in regeneration by receiving good and truth from the Lord, opening
his rationality to the Lord's teaching in the Word and shunning the evils there
shown him to be residing in his will and thoughts. The devils in hell have the
faculty of rationality, but with them it is not a receptive vessel of the
Divine Human. Man's reception of the Divine can never be the Divine itself.
Some men's visions of the Lord as He reveals Himself in the Word may
closely resemble each other, but they will never be exactly alike. As the Church
grows numerically there will therefore be more diversity of vision, that is, of
Doctrine. Some men's Doctrine will be more external,
58
truth
from the Lord's Divine Human, though their understanding of the Doctrine may
differ.
We cannot say that because a man's understanding or vision
of the
Lord's Divine Human, as he
is able to
When you say that the Church hitherto has been in a natural state, I
suppose you mean the Church at The Hague which you have been in intimate contact
with, and as teacher and leader have had ample opportunity to observe the state
of. But by the way you express yourself you give the impression that you
consider the Society at The Hague to be in a state of more advanced regeneration
than the rest of the Church, seeing truth from good, and therefore able to get a
vision of the Word as a whole, or
Such expressions seem to embody the idea, that you not only speak from
the Lord, but that it is the Lord Himself who speaks through you. If so, then
indeed your magazine would be a New Word of the Lord, giving the internal sense
of the Latin Word. That would indeed be possible if, as you say on p. 58,
"the internal man is the soul itself, which is Divine and above man's
reach". But that is not the teaching of the Latin Word, as far as I can
see. Man's soul is not Divine, but the first created receptacle for the Lord's
life to flow into and be received by. The first receptacle of life, or man's
soul, is from
59
REV. ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. ERNST PFEIFFER
the
finest created
substances which
enclose the
Lord's dwelling place ? the inmost. In this soul are implanted seeds of
good from the Lord, but also tendencies to all kinds of evils by inheritance in
all born from human father and mother. From these seeds the human proprium
grows,
The Divine Human has no human father, but the Divine itself is its
Father. Therefore the Divine seed
In the genealogy of Luke, which represents the growth of the Divine Human
seed to complete union with the Lord from eternity, Mary is not even mentioned.
Mary represents the Church. She also represents the affection for Divine Truth
laid down in the human soul from creation, because without that affection there
could never be any Church. That affection is the beginning of the Church in man,
but it is not Divine, but created by the Lord in .the soul of
Thinking of the difference in our views of the correspondence of the
different Churches with the ages of man, I would draw your attention to n.
10225, of the ARCANA
60
A CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DOCTRINE
CELESTIA,
which seems to give further support to my conception as to the state of the New
Church as a whole at the present time. To me it seems impossible to think that
the Church has grown beyond the earlier years of manhood. To me it seems that
most of us are still in the Ishmaelitish rational, discussing truths
and defending each his own understanding of it. And I think the Church
necessarily has to go through such a period in its growth. At any rate we seem
to be yet far from that innocence of wisdom that belongs to old age, when man is
no longer concerned about understanding truths and goods, but about willing and
living them.
ALBERT BJORCK
Dear
Mr. Bjorck.
61
REV. THEO. PITCAIRN TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
not
pure before the Lord, and that all good and all truth are of the only Lord. But
so far as a man or an Angel is capable of being perfected, so far, out of the
Lord's Divine Mercy, he is perfected, and receives as it were an understanding
of truth and a will of good; but his having these is only an appearance. Every
man can be perfected, and consequently receive this gift of the Lord's Mercy, in
accordance with the actual doings of his life, and in a manner suited to the
hereditary evil implanted from his parents" (n. 633).
The above makes it clear that the understanding of truth and the will of
good are the Lord's and are thus Divine, and that it is only an appearance that
man has an understanding of truth or will of good; if man had an understanding
of truth or a will of goad, this would mean that man's proprium was not wholly
evil. It is known that it is the
Lord's proprium
that makes the Church and
not anything of man's proprium, and
as it is the Lord's proprium with the Church which receives good and truth this
reception is Divine.
This can be confirmed by innumerable passages; the following few must
here suffice. We read in HEAVEN AND HELL: "Man is so far in innocence as he
is removed from his proprium; and so far as anyone is removed from his proprium,
he is in the Lord's proprium" (n. 341). In the APOCALYPSE REVEALED:
"The Divine can be with man, but not in his proprium; for the proprium of
man is nothing but evil; and therefore he who ascribes what is Divine to himself
as his proprium ... profanes it. What is Divine from the Lord is exquisitely
separated from the proprium of man, and is elevated above it, and never immersed
in it" (n. 758). "Heaven is not Heaven from the things proper to the
Angels" (n. 882). In the MEMORABILIA: "All good is the proprium of the
Lord" (n. 1178). "The Holy with Angels and spirits is the proprium of
the Lord; and that which is the proprium of an Angel and spirit is evil and
unclean" (n. 1370). In the APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED: "The Lord is not
conjoined with the proprium of man, but with His Own with him. The Lord removes
the proprium of
62
A CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DOCTRINE
he
can be removed from his proprium. These means are given in the Word; and, when a
man operates by these means, that is, thinks and speaks, wills and acts out of
the Divine Word, he is then kept out of the Lord in Divine things, and is thus
withheld from the proprium; and when this lasts, as it were a new proprium, both
voluntary and intellectual, is formed with man from the Lord, which is
completely separated from the proprium of man" (n. 585).
The means by which the proprium of the Lord is built into a Church is
described in the formation of Eve out of the rib of Adam. We read: "By Adam
himself is there meant the Loud as to the Divine Itself and at the same time the
Divine Human; and by his wife the Church, which is called 'Chavah' from life,
because it has life from the Lord, and of her Adam said, she was his bone and
his flesh, and that they were one flesh, because the Church is from the Lord and
out of Him and as one with Him" (CONCERNING THE SACRED SCRIPTURE FROM
EXPERIENCE XIV).
From the above it is evident that it is the Proprium of the Lord with man
that receives good and truth, and hence that the reception is Divine. The
cooperation on the part of man is "as of himself" for the sake of
appropriation. Nevertheless, as stated above, "Man receives as it were an
understanding of truth and a will of good; but his having these is only an
appearance", for the reason that the reception of good and truth is the
Lord's and hence Divine, and is not at all man's.
I will look forward to seeing you before or after the Assembly.
THEODORE PITCAIRN
REV.
ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. THEO. PITCAIRN
Dear
Mr. Pitcairn.
63
REV. THEO. PITCAIRN TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
tion
to the teaching I referred to ? or rather to my understanding of the teaching
given 138 ? when seen in connection with what is said in other places. I am
not at present able to refer you to many special numbers, but I have just lately
read THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 470, where the general teaching is given very
clearly. In a recent letter to Mr. Pfeiffer I have stated my understanding more
fully than I did in my letter to you, and what you have said does not invalidate
that view as far as I can see.
Man's soul is not life but the first receptacle of life. Man's will is
not itself love but a receptacle of love, and man's understanding is the
receptacle of truth. They are both formed ? created from finite substances ?
by the Lord in the embryo. If man receives the good of love in his will and the
truth of wisdom in his understanding, he becomes an image ? a finite one ?
of the Divine. Man prepares himself for a receptacle of the Divine as he from
natural power believes in God and loves the neighbor (cf. T. C. R. 74).
It will be a pleasure to be able to talk with you on this and other points before or after the Assembly.
ALBERT
BJORCK
Dear
Mr. Bjorck.
While
man is a receptacle of life and a receptacle of good and truth, or rather may
become such a receptacle, it is not a merely passive receptacle, but a reactive
receptacle. If man were a passive receptacle he would be like a stalk. Man as to
his proprium or as to what is his own is not a receptacle of good and truth, but
of their opposites. The question is, what is the reactive essence in the
receptacle, which is the basis of the reformation and regeneration of the
receptacle so that it can receive good and truth
from
the Lord. Since the Coming of the Lord this essential reactive in the receptacle
is the Proprium of the Divine Human of the Lord. Hence it is that the Lord is
the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, in the regenerated
65
REV. THEO. PITCAIRN TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
THE
TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, n. 470, life would be in man, and man would not be a
receptacle but would be life, yea he would be God.
The men of the Most Ancient Church we are told had the Word written on
their hearts, that is Divine good and truth were written or impressed on their
will; but although it was written on their hearts and they were thus kept by the
Lord in Divine good and truth, the Word was not theirs, but was wholly the
Lord's. Because they were held in Divine good and Divine truth, and indeed had
these written on their hearts, when they fell and thus perverted this Doctrine
into its opposite, they claimed the Divine good and truth which had been written
on their hearts as their own; thus they made themselves gods.
To deny that the will of good and the understanding of truth are Divine
is to deny that it is wholly the Lord's and not at all man's, that is, to
confirm the fallacy of the senses spoken of in T. C. R. 470. Note that the will
of good and the understanding of truth is not the vessel but the active; it is
the vessel which causes the appearance that they are as it were man's own, and
which thus causes them to be attributed to man as if they were his. Men are in
appearances, but appearances are not the will of good nor the understanding of
truth, but if man acknowledges that the appearances with him are appearance and
that the will of good and the understanding of truth are the Lord's and are not
man's, then the will of good and the understanding of truth are in the
appearances, and the Lord dwells in man and man in the Lord.
I am looking forward with great pleasure to seeing you before the British
Assembly.
THEODORE PITCAIRN
66 A CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DOCTRINE
a
man wishes and does this as out of himself no such faculty can be appropriated
to him; since in order that appropriation may be affected, there must be an
active and a reactive. The active is from the Lord, so is the reactive, but the
latter appears to be from man; for the Lord Himself gives this reactive, and
thence it is from the Lord and not from man; but as man does not know otherwise
than that he lives out of himself, and consequently that he thinks and wills out
of himself, so he must needs do this as out of the proprium of his own
life".
REV.
ERNST PFEIFFER TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
Dear
Mr. Bjorck.
67
REV. ERNST PFEIFFER TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
genuine
Doctrine of the Church does truly correspond to the Divine Human of the Lord,
and by no means ex opposite. Although the Church and the Doctrine of the Church
are not infinite, nevertheless they are Divine. The living Church, as to its
Doctrine, is the Holy City, and it is also the Bride of the Lamb. The Lord in it
dwells in His Own. I find it difficult to believe that in your letters
That you seem not to make this distinction I take from
68
the
Lord with man, and yet it is not life- but a recipient of life.
In confirmation of the above I would
like to quote the following passages from the Latin Word. In the ARCANA CELESTIA:
"The Divine must be in what is Divine; not in the proprium
of anyone"
(n. 9338).
"All good
is Divine with man, because it is from the Divine" (n. 10618).
"Then they do not think out of themselves, neither are they affected by the
Word out of themselves, but out of the Lord; therefore not anything evil or
false does enter, for the Lord removes these" (n. 10638). In the APOCALYPSE
REVEALED: "That which is from God . . . is called Divine" (n. 961).
And in THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION: "Nothing can proceed from God but what
is Himself, and is called the Divine" (n. 6).
It may be clear that this position is
in no way in contradiction with the fact that there must be progress in the
Doctrine of the Church, as you seem to think. It can be compared with the
orderly growth of the human body, which from creation as to all its essentials
is purely Divine, and nevertheless begins from a seed. So also from re-creation
or regeneration, the body of the genuine Church is purely Divine. How otherwise
could it ever be the Bride of the Lamb and the Wife of the Lord? The evils and
falsities of which you speak, by no means belong to its organics, they are
altogether extraneous to them. Falsities which may rule among the members of the
Church do not belong to the genuine Doctrine of the Church. This latter is
spiritual out of celestial origin (A. C. 2496); the Lord is that Doctrine itself
(A. C. 2533, 2859; A. E. 19).
REV. ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. ERNST PFEIFFER
May
20th 1932. Dear Mr. Pfeiffer.
I
thank you for your interesting and lucid letter. What you have said has made it
easier for me to understand your position, but not easier to agree with it. The
sense in which you use the term "The Doctrine of the Church" when
saying that it is Divine, is, as I understand it,
69
REV. ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. ERNST PFEIFFER
something
like this: The Heavenly Doctrine is the Lord Himself because proceeding from
Him, and thus Divine. It is the teaching of Divine Wisdom proceeding from Divine
Love, or the Lord in His Divine Human coming to men as the Word. When men see
and live according to the genuine truths of the Divine Doctrine in the Word,
that Doctrine is as it were gradually transferred from the Word to men, and so
it becomes the Doctrine of the Church. As it proceeds from the Divine, it is
Divine in men. Growing in the Church as a plant grows from a seed, it becomes
the finite image
and likeness
of the Divine Doctrine which
is the Lord Himself as the Word.
So far, if this is a correct
understanding of your position, I am in full agreement with you.
The good and truth in the Church is
from the Lord alone, and is the Divine to which the Lord can come ? that in
man or the Church which is His own. And so far as the perception in the Church
of what is good and true from the Lord corresponds to the Divine Doctrine in the
Word, so far the Doctrine of the Church is Divine, and can grow and be perfected
to eternity. It is the Divine finited in the heavens and the Church.
But, as I understand the teaching
given us, neither man's reception, nor
his conception
or understanding of
the Doctrine is Divine.
The human internal is the Lord's. In
it His own infinite life dwells, and from there He creates and forms man's
internal for a receptacle of life corresponding to His; and through the internal
so formed He creates the interior in correspondence with it, and through both He
creates the natural to correspond with them. So created man is a finite
correspondence to the infinite Divine Man, or, if you please, the infinite
finited. Therefore it is said that, if the Most Ancient Church had remained in
its integrity, there
But it is through man's consciousness
on the natural degree of the mind that man's life becomes separate from the
Divine and as it were independent of it.
This is of course only an appearance,
as there can be no life independent of Life itself, but the separation of human
70
A CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DOCTRINE
life
from the Divine is real, and the Lord created man with such a mind purposely, in
order that there should come into being individual forms perceiving the
inflowing life from Him as their own, and free to use that life as if it were
their own, yet, in the beginning with an inward perception of how to use it from
love of good and truth. If
It is the separation from Life itself
which makes man
Neither is man's understanding or
perception of the Divine Doctrine in the Word Divine. It can indeed come to
correspond more and more closely to the Divine Doctrine, but even with the most
regenerate man it remains human.
This is so because man's understanding
or perception of Divine Truth is subject to the cooperation of his natural will
and understanding with the Spirit of the Lord in the Divine Doctrine.
In man's natural will there are
tendencies by inheritance to all kinds of evil, and in his understanding a
tendency to false reasoning from sense impressions. These tendencies must be
overcome before man's understanding can come to correspond with the Divine
Doctrine; and when it does correspond it is still a human understanding or
perception, not a Divine one.
The Doctrine of the Church is
therefore always one with the understanding the Church has of the Divine
71
REV. ALBERT BJORCK TO REV. ERNST PFEIFFER
Doctrine,
and imperfections and falsities are bound to adhere temporarily to the
understanding men who compose the Church have of the Divine Doctrine in the
Word. These falsities or
imperfections do not belong to
the Divine Doctrine, and
they can be dropped off from the human doctrine of the Church one by one as
men's understanding is illumined by the Divine Doctrine.
It seems to me that you both in DE
HEMELSCHE LEER and in your letters to me, lose sight of, or do not pay enough
attention to, the difference between the human and the Divine. This is shown in
your use of expressions like "essentially and purely Divine" applied
to things created human by the Lord; and this, I think, is the main cause of the
non understanding of your position that you find in others, who do not use the
terms in the sense you do, but by "essentially and purely Divine" mean
the things that belong to the Divine itself, the Lord and the Word. There is an
instance in your last letter, where you say that the human body "from
creation as to all its essentials is purely Divine". Another is in your
illustration of how finite things by correspondence can be Divine, where you say
that "as long as the body corresponds to the soul, it is sane and lives,
but as soon as the correspondence ceases, it dies". However closely the
body may correspond to the soul, it
The Lord's human was glorified and
became Divine, but the Lord's Human was from the beginning the Divine Life
itself, not created. Man is created human, and though his regeneration is an
image of the Lord's glorification and corresponds to it, he does not by
regeneration become Divine.
I most heartily wish that we may come
to understand each other better, and I think we all will when we take pains in
explaining the sense in which we use terms.
I shall look forward to receive
further letters from you, and to meet and talk with you later in the summer.
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A CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DOCTRINE
Dear
Mr. Bjorck.
In your last letter you again much
enlarge on the truth that man is only a receptacle of life, and that he has
received the gift of freedom and rationality, without which he would be only an
automaton. Of this gift you say: "It is that which makes man man, it is the
Creator's gift to man, and though from the Divine it is not Divine". From
what has been said in the last paragraph of p. 92 and the first paragraph of p.
93 of the Third Fascicle, it may be clear that the truths concerning man as a
receptacle of life and concerning the gift of freedom and rationality have fully
been taken into account in our position; but it may also appear from the numbers
of the work on DIVINE PROVIDENCE which have been quoted in those passages, that
that gift, being from the Divine, being thus the Lord with man, is Divine. The
teaching is that by that gift the Lord is conjoined with man, but that only
after regeneration man becomes also conjoined with the Lord. Your words:
"It is the Creator's gift to man, and though from the Divine it is not
Divine", are altogether incomprehensible to me. The teaching is in many
places that nothing can be from the Divine but what is Divine, or what is called
the Divine. How can we speak of "the Creator's
73
REV. ERNST PFEIFFER
TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
gift",
unless that gift
is Divine?
Can the
Lord give anything which is
not Divine?
It is true, of course, that as far as
man is not regenerated his use of that gift is not Divine; it is rather an abuse
than
Now it is the human with man, or his
natural mind, which must be regenerated. By regeneration the human of
You write: "Man's understanding
can indeed come to correspond more and more closely to the Divine Doctrine, but
even with the most regenerate man it remains human". Further on you say:
"It seems to me that you lose sight of the difference between the human and
the Divine". The human about which you speak here, is either an orderly
human or a disorderly human. Before regeneration it is disorderly, after
regeneration it is orderly. Before regeneration it is infernal, after
regeneration it is Divine. It is by virtue of the fact that the Lord glorified
His human that
74 A CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DOCTRINE
every
regenerated man, and indeed as to the human of him, for anything ?else than
the human does not need to be regenerated.
It is not the Latin Word which makes
the New Church, but the understanding of the Latin Word, or the purity of the Doctrine
born in the Church from within. Apart from the Divine of the Latin Word itself
there must be the Divine of the understanding or reception of that Word. Unless
the understanding or reception be Divine the Divine of the Word remains outside
of man, and then there is no regeneration and no Church. What is seen and
acknowledged as the Church by the Lord, is that alone which is Divine by virtue
of a Divine reception.
I repeat what I said in my last
letter: the real issue is this that in Heaven and in the genuine Church the
reception of the Divine influx is Divine, while in hell and with man as far as
he is not regenerated, the reception is not Divine. You have not entered upon
this crucial point. If the Divine
Of course, the necessity of progress
is not lost sight of in this view. Nor does it mean that man after the beginning
of regeneration is now at once altogether Divine and free of falsities and
evils; of course not. But the falsities and evils are extraneous to that which
has been regenerated. With the very beginning of regeneration and rebirth, there
is a complete new human being in man, though it is first only as a new born
infant. It is altogether Divine. It is the child of the Lord. And it gradually
grows up and becomes adult. Nothing evil can ever enter it. The evils and
falsities of the man which are not yet removed by temptations are altogether
extraneous to the organics of that new born spiritual being in us. The entering
of evils and falsities here would mean profanation and the spiritual death of
75
REV. ERNST PFEIFFER TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
The genuine Doctrine of the Church, being spiritual oat of celestial
origin, is born. from that regenerated Divine human being in the living Church.
The Word remains closed without that.
You say: "Man's understanding ...
can indeed come to correspond more and more closely to the Divine Doctrine, but
even with the most regenerate man it remains human. This is so because man's
understanding of Divine Truth is subject
to the
cooperation of
his natural
will and understanding. . .
. In man's natural will there are tendencies by inheritance to all kinds of
evil", etc. It is the plain teaching, however, that as far as regeneration
goes, all evils have been removed, and that no evils or falsities are then
suffered to enter, "for the Lord removes them" (A.C. 10638).
It is therefore irrelevant to adduce
the fact that no man is completely regenerated in one moment. This has nothing
whatever to do with the real issue. Even with the Angels regeneration goes on to
eternity; nevertheless it is the Divine of the Lord which makes an Angel. The Heavens
I have been preparing myself to write
you a series of short notes on three or four other points of our latest
correspondence; but before actually doing so, I hope that we can come to a
mutual understanding of this elementary problem of the Divinity of Doctrine born
in the Church,
76
Groeneveld
*, which, throws more light on the relation. between the Word and the Doctrine
of the Church.
Dear
Mr. Pfeiffer.
Thank
you for your letter. I will not be able to give it the full consideration it
requires until after the 12th.
The proofs of Mr. Groeneveld's article
I have read with great interest, and find no difficulty in accepting it.
ALBERT BJORCK
Dear
Mr. Bjorck.
We
read in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, n.97: "Who does not know that the Church
is not Church without Doctrine"? And in n. 486: "It is these three
things which make the Church, the Truth of doctrine, the Good of love, and
Worship out of these". And in n. 675: "The all of the Church is
doctrine which shall teach truth and through truth good".
Do
you agree that in these passages by the word "Doctrine" not the Word
itself is meant, but the Doctrine born in the Church; in the New Church
therefore not the Third Testament, but the Doctrine seen at a given time and
guiding the Church at a given time? That this is so seems evident from the fact
that a body of men may have the Third Testament while at the same time they have
no genuine Doctrine out of it. Do you agree with this?
In
THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, n. 245, we read: "That the Church is according
to its Doctrine, and that the Doctrine should be out of the Word, is known. But
nevertheless it is not the doctrine which establishes the Church,
but the
integrity and
purity of Doctrine,
77
REV. ERNST PFEIFFER TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
consequently
the understanding of the Word". In this passage it openly speaks of the
indispensableness of a doctrine which must be "integer" and pure, thus
Divine, for nothing but the Divine is "integer" and pure.
The
Divine of the Word in itself is therefore not sufficient to make the Church; it
is the understanding of the Word which makes
the Church. It is thus the understanding of the Third Testament which
makes the New Church. Do you agree with this? If you accept the first point of
this letter, you must necessarily also accept this point, for if you admit that
the Third Testament is the Word itself, and not Doctrine out of the Word, then
this is openly taught in the n. 245 quoted from THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
Number
245 of THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION thus teaches that it is the understanding of
the Third Testament which makes the New Church. Do you agree with this? Does it
not then necessarily follow that that understanding must be Divine? How can
anything else but the Divine establish and make the Church? And yet in your
letters you repeatedly say that the understanding of truth with man is not
Divine. If this were true, there could never be a Church. The Word would always
remain outside of man. And yet in the n. 675 of the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, quoted
above, it says: "It is true that the Word, Christ the Savior, and the
Sacraments, are the Church, and that these make the Church; but they do not make
it outside of man but within man".
ERNST PFEIFFER
REV.
ERNST PFEIFFER TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
Dear
Mr. Bjorck.
In your letter to Rev. Pitcairn of
April 14th you say: "I certainly believe that the Doctrine of genuine truth
in the Church is Divine". And in confirmation of this you quote from your
recent pamphlet, p. 77, where you say,: "The Doctrine of the Church
therefore in a very real sense is the
Coming of
the Lord
to the
Church and
to the
78
individual
man of the Church; if the Doctrine is from a genuine understanding of the Divine
Truth in the Word of His Second Coming". Further on in the same letter you
say: "Sometimes the Doctrine of the Church in DE HEMELSCHE LEER is defined
as a vision of the Divine Truth in the Word. If the vision is true, and the
thought or understanding is a true form of that vision, I think we all
agree". In these places you thus speak of "a genuine
understanding", of "a vision which is true", and of "an
understanding which is a true form of a true vision". But there can be no
question of "a genuine understanding",
In
your letter to Mr. Pitcaim of April 28th you say: "DE HEMELSCHE LEER (in a
sentence occurring on p. 125 of the Second Fascicle) says in so many words, that
not only the truths and goods from the Lord in man are Divine, but also man's
reception of them. . . . If the position is
truly described
in that
sentence, namely
that man's reception of good
and truth from the Lord is Divine, I regard it as an error. Man must cooperate
with the Lord, and his reception of truth and good is from that
cooperation". It does not seem possible to me to say "the truths and
goods from the Lord in man are Divine" if at the
79
REV. ERNST PFEIFFER TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
of
the Divine Truth-in the Word" or of "a vision which is true", it
is clear that you speak of truth which is within
In your letter to Mr. Pitcairn of
April 14th, after having spoken of "a genuine understanding of the Divine
Truth" and of "a vision which is true", you say: "Men may
have
80
A CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DOCTRINE
"genuine
understanding" is mixed with falsities, then the Doctrine of .the Church is
also mixed with falsities, for
But indeed I believe you will agree that the Divine Truth of the Third
Testament cannot be poured into the Church, so as to become there the Divine
Doctrine of the Church, like water from a bottle is poured into a glass. This
also appears from the continuation of that passage
81
REV. ERNST PFEIFFER TO REV. ALBERT BJORCK
which
I quoted from your letter to Mr. Pitcairn of April 28th. You there say: "If
the position of DE HEMELSCHE LEER is truly described in the sentence that man's
reception of good and truth from the Lord is Divine, I regard it as