Emanuel Swedenborg

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Emanuel Swedenborg bigraphy, stories - Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian

Emanuel Swedenborg : biography

29 January 1688 – 29 March 1772

Emanuel Swedenborg ( born Emanuel Swedberg; 29 January 1688January 29 Old Style February 8 New Style – 29 March 1772) was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian, revelator, and, in the eyes of some, Christian mystic. and the Encyclopedia of Religion (1987), which starts its article with the description that he was a "Swedish scientist and mystic." Others have not used the term, e.g. http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-3424503013/swedenborg-emanuel.html He termed himself a "Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ" in True Christian Religion, a work he published himself. He is best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell (1758).Bergquist, Preface (p. 15–16)

Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. In 1741, at the age of 53, he entered into a spiritual phase in which he began to experience dreams and visions, beginning on Easter weekend of April 6, 1744. This culminated in a ‘spiritual awakening’, in which he received revelation that he was appointed by the Lord to write a heavenly New Church Doctrine to reform Christianity. According to the New Church Doctrine the Lord had opened Swedenborg’s spiritual eyes, so that from then on he could freely visit heaven and hell, and talk with angels, demons and other spirits; and that the Last Judgement had already occurred, in 1757, although this was only visible in the spiritual world, where he had witnessed it. Swedenborg, E. The Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed. All the Predictions in the Apocalypse are at This Day Fulfilled.] (Swedenborg Foundation 1952, Paragraphs 1-74) New Church Doctrine states that The Last Judgement was followed by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which occurred, not by Christ in person, but by a revelation from Him through the inner, spiritual sense of the Word through Swedenborg.True Christian Religion, paragraphs 753-786 However, he tells us that at this day it is very dangerous to talk with spirits, unless a person is in true faith, and is led by the Lord.Leviticus 19:31Heaven and Hell 249, Arcana Coelestia (Secrets of Heaven) 784, 9438, 10751 Swedenborg argued that it is the presence of that spiritual sense which makes the Word Divine.

For the remaining 28 years of his life, Swedenborg wrote 18 published theological works, and several more which were unpublished. Some followers of the New Church believe that, of his theological works, only those which Swedenborg published himself are fully divinely inspired.See

New Church Doctrine rejects the concept of salvation through faith alone, since he considered both faith and charity necessary for salvation, not one without the other, whereas the Reformers taught that faith alone procured justification, although it must be a faith which resulted in obedience. The purpose of faith, according to New Church Doctrine, is to lead a person to a life according to the truths of faith, which is charity, as is taught in 1 Corinthians 13:13 and James 2:20. However, he made no attempt to found a church.Block, M.B (Holt 1932; reprint Octagan 1968), Chapter 3.]Benz, E. Emanuel Swedenborg. Visionary Savant in The Age of Reason (translated by Goodrick-Clarke (Swedenborg Foundation, 2002, p. 487). A few years after his death – 15 by one estimateCrompton, S. Emanuel Swedenborg (Chelsea House, 2005, p. 76). – for the most part in England, small reading groups formed to study the truth they saw in his teachings.Block, Chapter 3. As one scholar has noted, New Church teachings particularly appealed to the various dissenting groups that sprang up in the first half of the 18th century who were "surfeited with revivalism and narrow-mindedness" and found his optimism and comprehensive explanations appealing.Ahlstrom, S. E. A Religious History of the American People (Yale 1972, p. 483).

In Earths in the Universe, it is stated that he conversed with spirits from Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Venus, the Moon, as well as spirits from planets beyond our solar system.Swedenborg, E. 1758. Also Rotch Edition. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1907, in The Divine Revelation of the New Jerusalem (2012), n. 9-178. From these ‘encounters’ he concluded that the planets of our solar system are inhabited, and that such an enormous undertaking as the universe could not have been created for just one race of people; nor one ‘heaven’ derived from it.Earths in the Universe #2, 4Many heavenly societies were also needed to increase the perfection of the angelic heaven, to fill in deficiencies and gaps in other societies. (Earths in the Universe, # 9 He argued: “What would this be to God, Who is infinite, and to whom a thousand or tens of thousands of planets, and all of them full of inhabitants, would be scarcely anything!”.Arcana Coelestia #6698 Swedenborg and the life on other planets question has been extensively reviewed elsewhere.Simons K. The Swedenborg Project 2007