Lesson 5 – Fifth Law of Divine Providence
Transcript
In this episode we will discuss the fifth and final law of Divine Providence.
Let me start this one off with one of my favourite passages from Swedenborg:
“True wisdom is seeing what is beneficial to your eternal life, and managing your life according to that. You do this when you not only know these things and grasp them with your understanding, but also will and do them.”
(Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Explained 338)
It goes to the heart of all that we have talked about and leads nicely to a conclusion.
The fifth law explains that the operation of divine providence should never be evident to us, but that we should always know that it is working in our lives.
It states: It is a Law of Divine Providence that we should not sense or feel anything of the working of Divine Providence, but that we should still know about it and acknowledge it
This is now almost self-evident, isn’t it? Imagine if you could know how God was leading you. You would feel your freedom was threatened and probably would want to rebel, especially if God was trying to lead you out some destructive habit while you were still enjoying it and not ready to give it up.
Let me share the introduction from Swedenborg’s chapter on this law, because the outline is very useful I think:
The superficial views and consequent illusions I have just mentioned blind our discernment, and our discernment cannot gain any sight unless the illusions that blind it and the distortions that becloud it are dispelled. This cannot be accomplished except by means of truths that have the inherent power to dispel distortions. For these reasons, I need to disclose these truths now, and to do so in the following sequence if they are to be clear.
If we sensed and felt the working of divine providence, we would not act freely and rationally, and nothing would seem to be really ours. The same would hold true if we knew what was going to happen.
If we saw divine providence clearly, we would interfere with the orderly sequence of its processes and corrupt and destroy it.
If we saw divine providence clearly, we would either deny God or make ourselves God.
We are allowed to see divine providence from behind but not face to face, and when we are in a spiritual state, not in a materialistic state.
(Divine Providence 175)
We may get glimpses of providence at work when we look back afterwards over a chain of events, but not while it is happening. This, the Lord tells us in the sacred scriptures of Moses:
20 But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. 22 So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. 23 Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.” Exodus 33:20-23
We are not allowed to see God at work in our lives for the same reason that we can’t be converted to faith by miracles: we have to voluntarily choose to do good because we truly believe it is right, not because we are forced to or because there will be an immediate reward for doing so.
That’s why some people choose to abandon their belief in God. They are looking for an immediate reward—or even an eventual reward—for being good, and are disappointed when they do not see divine providence working in their lives.
They do not realize that the God “who neither slumbers nor sleeps” is always working in their lives, bringing the best out of everything that happens, no matter how dark the moment appears to be and negative the experience seems.
This is a hard but important lesson—especially when there has been a serious misfortune. Sometimes it’s not until long after the fact that the lessons we learned or the positive results that ensued become clear.
We must make the choices freely and voluntarily through a process of rational thought in apparent autonomy. This, and only this, enables us to change our loves and so our life.
As we read in the beginning of Divine Love and Wisdom:
“Love is our life” – Divine Love and Wisdom 1
I hope that by now it has become perfectly clear that to change what we love is to change fundamentally who we are. This change must occur rationally and voluntarily by choice, so that we ourselves change accordingly. Swedenborg’s teachings make it clear that it is impossible to change who we are by force, by God taking all our selfish loves away in an instant, because this would remove what is intrinsic to our whole being and thus remove who we are and thus our self-awareness.
As a side note, this is why we live in a sense-based environment, so that we establish a clear sense of self and start with an appearance of autonomy. This self-awareness – the feeling and experience we have life in and of ourselves – is God’s Grace and Mercy at work. It is also critical to the nature of love, which is to seek to be of use and share what is of itself to others. This cannot happen without a sense of self and apparent autonomy.
However, perhaps I need to leave further exploration of that for a future topic, but it does explain what it means to be born again:
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
Well, those were the 5 laws of Divine Providence, as revealed to us by Emanuel Swedenborg. I hope you liked this short course and found it useful for your own spiritual path and enlightenment.
If you enjoyed this, please let others know how it has helped you and what you thought. It helps show others that there is value and brings these teachings to benefit more people.
Let me add a short BONUS FEATURE (for those who watch my videos to the end 😊)
There is NO PREDESTINATION
I love Swedenborg’s theology, because it is universal and allows for many levels of depth at which the Divine can be understood. Swedenborg, we heard, is clear about the fundamental requirement for Freedom in our spiritual development and life. It is therefore antithetical too to the idea of pre-destination, which some believe in. Either as the idea that God manipulates and pre-determines all things, or that certain groups of people, now or in the past, who never are able to accept a particular religion for cultural or geographical reasons are pre-destined to a life outside of heaven and so condemned to hell.
Towards the end of his book Divine Providence Swedenborg writes in no uncertain terms what he feels about such ideas:
“It is an insane heresy to believe that only those born in the church are saved.“
“It is a cruel heresy to believe that any member of the human race is damned by predestination.“
And at the same time, he gives a nice summary as to the reasons why, which now should make sense to us, given we have now heard all about the laws of Divine Providence.
“The reason some of us are not saved is that divine love wants us to feel heaven’s happiness and bliss in ourselves. Otherwise it would not be heaven for us; and this feeling cannot happen unless it seems to us that we are thinking and intending on our own. If it were not for this appearance, nothing could be given to us, and we would not be human. This is the reason for divine providence, which is the result of divine wisdom stemming from divine love.” (Divine Providence 330)
I hope this gives you enough manna for your mind to ponder.
Peace be with you and may your God be gracious to you!