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In a famous statement, Swedenborg wrote, “Since
the Lord cannot manifest Himself in Person, .… and nevertheless has
foretold that He was to come and establish a new church, which is the
New Jerusalem, it follows that He will do this by means of a man, who is
able not only to receive these doctrines in his understanding but also
to publish them by the press.” (True Christian Religion 779). He also listed the works
that he had published and would publish “by command of the Lord” (Doctrine
of the Lord, preface). (For a
list of Swedenborg's theological works, indicating which he published,
click here.) These statements appear to clearly
specify that only the works that Swedenborg himself published are authoritative
Divine revelation. However, since
it has sometimes been proposed that all his
theological writings should be considered as such revelation, it seems
useful to briefly review this matter. It should be
noted at the outset that, although Swedenborg didn't
publish the unpublished works, other people did after his
death. Thus, the unpublished works are sometimes
referred to as the posthumous works.
1. Are there reasons to question the authority of the unpublished works? a) Jesus gave us the published works, and the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments, and said, in effect, "Here's everything you need to know." In those works there is more truth than any of us could absorb in a lifetime. So what justification could there possibly be for trying to add more material, especially if in deciding to do this we usurp Jesus' role of defining what is full revelation - a spiritually hazardous undertaking?! b) Even at a simpler level of ethics, how legitimate is it to publish material Swedenborg chose not to and then call it full revelation into the bargain? If someone were to obtain some of your private notes and published them to the world without your permission, and in addition said those notes represented what you thought, would you consider that ethical? And what would be the point of making such a publication in the first place since, in the eyes of a person reading something published under those conditions, the notes would have no credibility? c) A central argument that has been made in defense of the unpublished work as authoritative is that Swedenborg wrote in Apocalypse Explained 1183 that "What has come from the Lord has been written, and what has come from angels has not been written." However, since Apocalypse Explained itself is an unpublished work, the authority of this statement is open to question. (The nearly finished status of the Apocalypse Explained has been proposed as a demonstration of its authoritative nature. However, the reverse logic could just as easily be proposed - the fact that work on it was halted when it was so near completion could be seen as a fairly dramatic statement that it was not to be part of the revealed work. Rev. Frank Rose points out, however, that there were indications of Swedenborg's doubts about publishing it well before he stopped work on it. For instance, unlike Arcana Coelestia, he did not publish it serially as he went along. (F.S. Rose, "Swedenborg's Manuscripts," in J.S. Rose (ed.) Emanuel Swedenborg. Essays for the New Century Edition on His Life, Work and Impact. Swedenborg Foundation: West Chester, 2005, pp.136-7)) d) Unlike the easily specified published works, the unpublished works are a mess. As Rev. Dr. Jonathan Rose, a translator of the Writings, points out,
See also a brief summary by Rev. Frank Rose on the difficulty of even coming up with a clearly defined list of the unpublished work ("The Writings" (letter) New Church Life October 1968 ), and a more extended treatment by him, including commentary on the ragged state of, most notably, Spiritual Experiences, in "Swedenborg's Manuscripts," in J.S. Rose (ed.) Emanuel Swedenborg. Essays for the New Century Edition on His Life, Work and Impact. Swedenborg Foundation: West Chester, 2005, pp.117ff. Rose also points out that,
One major problem with proposing such a messy collection of work as authoritative revelation is that it makes God look disorganized, requiring readers of His revelation to dig through a collection of material that ranges from the confusing to the simply unreadable. More critically, the reader is forced to second guess what exactly God was trying to say in this material, which treads perilously along the edge of people, rather than God, determining the content of revelation. It also seems a curious way, to say the least, for God to communicate definitive revelation. 2. An alternative hypothesis There would appear to be a simple alternative explanation of the status of the unpublished work, suggested by another famous statement of Swedenborg's: “From my fourth to my tenth year I was constantly engaged in thought upon God, salvation, and the spiritual diseases of men; and several times I revealed things at which my father and mother wondered ... From my sixth to my twelfth year I used to delight in conversing with clergymen about faith, and that the life of faith is love...” (Letter to G. A. Beyer, Stockholm, Nov. 14, 1769. Tafel, II, 279-280) In other words, his whole life was in preparation for his ultimate use of writing the published, authoritative works of the Second Coming. The preparation idea has long been seen in the organized New Church as applying to Swedenborg's pre-theological work. We are here simply suggesting its extrapolation to Swedenborg's unpublished theological works. But what about yet another famous statement, of Swedenborg's - "From the first day of my call I have not received anything that pertains to the doctrine of that [New] Church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while reading the Word." (True Christian Religion 779)? The key point here is that this statement doesn't specify what level of understanding/illumination Swedenborg was receiving at at any given time, i.e. the extent to which he was still seeing "through a glass, darkly." (1. Corinthians. 13: 12) In other words, this statement does not conflict with the idea of Swedenborg going through the preparation process. Even to the finessed extent of the Apocalypse Explained polishing. So we propose that Swedenborg proceeded, under God’s auspices, through steadily ascending levels of understanding in his revelation. The pre- to post-publication transformation, however, appears to have been a sort of discrete degree taking things to the next level, i.e. to the authoritative revelation level. There are several pieces of evidence that such a shift took place:
If there was in fact a "discrete degree" upward shift in his revelation perception level, that does not mean Swedenborg was outright mistaken in what he wrote in the unpublished works, just that he did not yet fully appreciate and convey "the whole truth and nothing but the truth." He was just still in his preparation period and not yet at his full "heavenly image"/"plenary inspiration" "discrete degree." Indeed, this explanation also covers another traditional problem seen in the published works themselves, namely the corrections he made to drafts of the published works. These would appear - like the Apocalypse Explained polishing exercise - to represent just further refinements of his continuing learning/preparation, but in this case within the authoritative "discrete degree" level. Extrapolating this argument still further, it seems reasonable to propose that the apparent mistakes in the published works themselves are just final odd and end leftovers of his learning/preparation that he didn’t have time to finish. Recall that he said he could have written a lot more if it had been permitted (e.g. a number of times he refers to topics he did not pursue that would "fill many pages" (e.g. Arcana Coelestia 4623, True Christian Religion 444)). A point that has been raised in support of the unpublished works as authoritative is that the published works sometimes quote the pre-theological works (e.g. Prophets and Psalms). But it was Swedenborg at the published-work "discrete degree" who was doing the quoting then, and in the illumination he had at that point he could presumably accurately pick out the true Word material from his earlier work. Not to mention that, if quoting a work was enough to establish its status as part of the revealed Word of God, then you would have to include the book of Job, the Epistles of Paul, etc., which are explicitly excluded from the list of canonical books revealed in Arcana Coelestia 10325.If the case is made that the preparatory theological works were just that and nothing more, an obvious question is why, then, didn't Swedenborg discard the rough copies of them, as he did rough copies of the published works and much of his correspondence (cf. J.S. Rose, "Annotated Bibliography of Swedenborg's Writings," in Emanuel Swedenborg. Essays for the New Century Edition on His Life, Work and Impact. Swedenborg Foundation: West Chester, 2005, p. 388)? Swedenborg must have known the problems the unpublished works would potentially cause if he left them behind. One obvious answer would be that expectation of those problems arising was precisely the reason why he did leave the unpublished material. In the best free-will-maintaining tradition, leaving it provided grist for the mill for those looking for reasons to discount the teachings of the Second Coming, in keeping with the negative principle (Arcana Coelestia 2568, 2588). It seems reasonable to propose, in fact, that the handful of “mistakes” in the published works (e.g. in True Christian Religion 632, and Brief Exposition 31, the date of the Nicene Council is stated as 318 instead of 325) were provided for the same reason – so the negative principle doubter would have material with which to do his or her thing in freedom. The Second Coming teachings are, after all, a pretty overwhelming and logically compelling revelation, so it would seem particularly important to provide some disbelief opportunities! In Conclusion Is there any role at all for the unpublished works? Swedenborg, in two places in his unpublished work, characterized the Biblical epistles as “useful books for the church” (Apocalypse Explained 815, Letter to Beyer, April 15, 1766), even though not revelation. It has been proposed that the unpublished works may stand in a similar position relative to the teachings of the Second Coming. Could that be the case? If the unpublished works are the product of a lower discrete degree level of revelation, it would certainly appear neither logical nor appropriate to use them to interpret the higher degree of revelation of the published works. Thus, the unpublished works are basically, like the pre-theological works, only of historical interest for those interested in study of how Swedenborg got to where he did. A final, ironic, footnote: The Canons of the New Church is among the posthumously published works, and so in fact can't be what its title says it is. * * * * * For a list of the Divinely inspired books of the Second Coming, see The Second Advent Christian™ Canon of Scripture. For a search engine restricted to the Divinely inspired works of the Old and New Testaments and the teachings of the Second Coming, see Small Canon Search. For a related subject, see "Do We Need Church Organizations?" - Kurt Simons |
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