Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 281
Extracts from Arcana Coelestia
Respecting Knowledges
Man ought to be fully instructed in knowledges and cognitions, since by
means of them he learns to think, afterwards to understand what is true and
good, and finally to be wise (n. 129, 1450, 1451, 1453, 1548, 1802).
Knowledges are the first things on which the life of man, civil, moral, and
spiritual, is built and founded, and they are to be learned for the sake of use
as an end (n. 1489, 3310).
Cognitions open the way to the internal man, and afterwards conjoin that
man with the external in accordance with uses (n. 1563, 1616).
The rational faculty has its birth by means of knowledges and cognitions
(n. 1895, 1900, 3086).
But not by means of cognitions themselves, but by means of affection for
the uses derived from them (n. 1895).
[2] There are knowledges that give entrance to Divine truths, and
knowledges that do not (n. 5213).
Empty knowledges are to be destroyed (n. 1489, 1492, 1499, 1581).
Empty knowledges are such as have the loves of self and of the world as an
end, and sustain those loves, and withdraw from love to God and love toward
the neighbor, because such knowledges close up the internal man, even to the
extent that man becomes unable to receive anything from heaven (n. 1563,
1600).
Knowledges are means to becoming wise and means to becoming insane
and by them the internal man is either opened or closed, and thus the
rational is either enriched or destroyed (n. 4156, 8628, 9922).