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Download the pdf - Swedenborg Foundation

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10 DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM §232425perhaps simply from <strong>the</strong> tone of <strong>the</strong>ir voice in your ear. This enables usto see that all <strong>the</strong> elements of human reason unite and center on <strong>the</strong>oneness of God.There are two reasons for this. The first is that in its own right, ourvery ability to think rationally is not our own property. It is a property ofGod within us. Human rationality in general depends on this fact, andthis general property causes our reason more or less spontaneously to see<strong>the</strong> oneness of God. The second is that through our rational ability ei<strong>the</strong>rwe are in heaven’s light or we draw from it some general quality of itsthought, and <strong>the</strong> all-pervading element of heaven’s light is that God isone.This is not <strong>the</strong> case if we have used our rational ability to skew ourlower understanding. In this case we still possess <strong>the</strong> ability, but by <strong>the</strong>distortion of our lower abilities we have steered it off course, and our rationalityis not sound.We may not be aware of it, but we all think of an aggregation of peopleas a single individual. So we understand right away when someonesays that monarchs are <strong>the</strong> head and that <strong>the</strong>ir subjects are <strong>the</strong> body, orwhen someone says that this or that individual has some particular rolein <strong>the</strong> body politic, that is, in <strong>the</strong> realm. It is <strong>the</strong> same with <strong>the</strong> spiritualbody as with <strong>the</strong> civil. The spiritual body is <strong>the</strong> church, whose head is <strong>the</strong>Divine-Human One. We can see from this what kind of person a churchwould look like under this construct if we were to think not of one Godas creator and sustainer of <strong>the</strong> universe but of many gods instead. Wewould apparently be envisioning a single body with many heads on it—not a human being, <strong>the</strong>n, but a monster.If we were to claim that <strong>the</strong>se heads have a single essence that made<strong>the</strong>m all one head, <strong>the</strong>n <strong>the</strong> only possible image would be ei<strong>the</strong>r of a singlehead with many faces or of many heads with one face. In our perception,<strong>the</strong>n, <strong>the</strong> church would look grotesque. In fact, one God is <strong>the</strong>head, and <strong>the</strong> church is <strong>the</strong> body that acts at <strong>the</strong> bidding of <strong>the</strong> head andnot on its own, as is true of us as well.This is also why <strong>the</strong>re is only one monarch per realm. More than onewould pull it apart; one holds it toge<strong>the</strong>r.It would be <strong>the</strong> same in <strong>the</strong> church that is spread throughout <strong>the</strong>world, which is called a communion because it is like a single body undera single head. It is recognized that <strong>the</strong> head governs <strong>the</strong> body beneath itselfat will. The head is after all <strong>the</strong> locus of our discernment and our volition,and <strong>the</strong> body acts at <strong>the</strong> behest of our discernment and volition to<strong>the</strong> point that <strong>the</strong> body is pure obedience. The body is incapable of do-

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