Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence | Page 2

has its laws, and in which impersonal forces are
governed by laws, that the Creator of all should pursue laws in His
concern with the lives of conscious beings? To fit a world of laws must
not the divine care have its laws, too? Adjustment of thought about
divine providence to scientific thought is not the overriding necessity,
for scientific thought must keep adjusting to laws which it discerns in
the physical world. In consonance, religious thought seeks to learn the
lawful order in the guidance of the human spirit.
Do not each and all things in tree or shrub proceed constantly and
wonderfully from purpose to purpose according to the laws of their
order of things? Why should not the supreme purpose, a heaven from
the human race, proceed in similar fashion? Can there be anything in its
progress which does not proceed with all constancy according to the
laws of divine providence? (n 332)
Respecting the laws of providence, it is to be noted that there are more
laws than those, five in number, which are stated at the heads of as
many chapters in the book. Further laws are embodied in other chapters.
At n. 249(2) we are told that further laws were presented in nn. 191-213,
214-220, and 221-233. In fact, at n. 243. there is a reference to laws
which follow in even later chapters. In nn. 191-213 the law, partly
stated in the heading over the chapter, comes to full sight particularly at
n. 210(2), namely, that providence, in engaging human response, shall
align human prudence with itself, so that providence becomes one's
prudence (n. 311e). In nn. 214-220 the law is that providence employ
the temporal goals of distinction and wealth towards its eternal goals,
and perpetuate standing and wealth in a higher form, for a man will
then have sought them not for themselves and handled them for the use
they can be. To keep a person from premature spiritual experience, nn.
221-233, is obviously a law of providence, guarding against relapse and
consequent profanation of what had become sacred to him.
The paradox of divine foreknowledge and human freedom, regularly
discussed in studies of providence, receives an explanation which
becomes more and more enlightening in the course of the book. The
paradox, probably nowhere else discussed, of man's thinking and

willing to all appearance all by himself, and of the fact that volition and
thought come to him from beyond him, receives a similar, cumulative
answer. The tension between the divine will and human self-will is a
subject that pervades the book; to that subject the profoundest insights
into the hidden activity of providence and into human nature are
brought. On the question, "Is providence only general or also detailed?"
the emphatic answer is that it cannot be general unless it takes note of
the least things. On miracle and on chance conclusions unusual in
religious thought meet the reader. The inequalities, injustices and
tragedies in life which raise doubts of the divine care are faced in a
long chapter after the concept of providence has been spread before the
reader. What would be the point in considering them before what
providence is has been considered? Against what manner of providence
are the arguments valid? A chapter such as this, on doubts of
providence and on the mentality which cherishes them, becomes a
monograph on the subject, as the chapter on premature spiritual
experience, with the risk of relapse and profanation, becomes a
monograph on kinds of profanation.
Coming by revelation and by a lengthy other-world experience on
Swedenborg's part (in which he learned of the incorrectness of some of
his own beliefs, nn. 279(2), 290) the book, like others of his,
nevertheless has for an outstanding feature a steady address to the
reason. The profoundest truths of the spiritual life, among them the
nature of God and the laws and ways of providence, are not beyond
grasp by the reason. Sound reason Swedenborg credits with lofty
insights.
Divine Providence is a book to be studied, and not merely read, and
studied slowly. By its own way of proceeding, it extends an invitation
to read, not straight through, but something like a chapter at a time. In a
new chapter Swedenborg will recall for the reader what was said in the
preceding chapter, as though the reader had mean-while laid the book
down. The revelator proceeds at a measured pace, carries along the
whole body of his thought, and places each new point in this larger
context, where it receives its precise significance and its full force. It is
an accumulation of thought and not a repetition of statements merely

that one meets. "What has been written earlier cannot be as closely
connected with what is written later as it will be if