{"id":10647,"date":"2015-10-27T19:29:01","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T23:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordstudy.newchurch.org\/?page_id=10647"},"modified":"2015-10-27T19:29:01","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T23:29:01","slug":"spiritual-glossary","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/spiritual-glossary\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Glossary: A Guide to Some Key Terms in Swedenborg"},"content":{"rendered":"
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but it can also be a challenge. It was written in Latin a quarter of a millennium ago, and for the most part translators have been careful to use precise language to express the ideas as correctly as possible. That means that much of the terminology and phrasing is relatively formal and somewhat old-fashioned. On top of that, it's a theology that is complex in its details, despite the marvelous simplicity at its core.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The purpose of the Spiritual Glossary is to help readers understand the terminology and the concepts, both in reading other parts of this site and in reading Swedenborg itself.\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\u00a0SOME POPULAR GLOSSARY ITEMS<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Angels: The thing we were all created to become<\/span><\/h3>\n

Swedenborg<\/a>\u00a0offers a tremendous amount of material on angels. The book Heaven and Hell<\/em>\u00a0offers detailed discussions as it describes heaven<\/a>; Conjugial Love<\/em>\u00a0has much to say about marriage<\/a> and romantic love in heaven; Divine Love and Wisdom<\/em>\u00a0offers insight into how angels in their nature reflect the nature of the Lord<\/a>. So we\u2019ll offer some basics here and recommend those books to those who want more detail.<\/span><\/p>\n

Basically, Swedenborg says that if people in this life open themselves to the Lord, follow the Lord\u2019s teachings and let the Lord change their selfish desires<\/a> into generous loves, they will go to heaven as angels after they die. If they don\u2019t, and instead embrace their selfishness<\/a>, they will go to hell<\/a> as evil spirits.\u00a0Swedenborg\u00a0also says that this is the only source of angels and evil spirits \u2013 they were all once people. There is no separately created race of angels, no fallen angel Lucifer who is now the Devil<\/a>; that belief is based solely on a few lines of misinterpreted scripture.<\/span><\/p>\n

See more...<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

Spiritual: The life of the real you, the one living inside<\/span><\/h3>\n

Is your body \u201cyou\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

It sure doesn\u2019t feel that way, does it? Your body is \u201cyours,\u201d you inhabit it, but the real \u201cyou\u201d is inside, thinking and feeling and aware. \u201cYou\u201d don\u2019t sense \u201cyourself\u201d as something merely physical.<\/span><\/p>\n

Think of it this way: If you cut off your arm, are you still you? Sure. Cut off both arms and both legs, and you're still you (and just as complete a being as ever). Keep going and it's plain that if you could somehow not die, you could lose every part of your body and still be you.<\/p>\n

This is something that has confounded scientists and philosophers for centuries. That feeling is universal, and it\u2019s awfully hard to say it\u2019s not true, but there\u2019s no way to demonstrate it scientifically or to even define its functions in concrete terms philosophically. If you\u2019re not physical, then what are you made of? <\/span><\/p>\n

See more...<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Christianity:\u00a0The true faith, but one lured away from the true path<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cIs it Christian?\u201d That\u2019s one of the first questions many ask when\u00a0they first encounter the ideas offered by Emanuel Swedenborg<\/a>. The answer is simple: \u201cIt depends on what you mean.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Merriam-Webster defines a Christian as \u201cone who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ<\/a>.\u201d Dictionary.com is similar: \u201ca person who believes in Jesus Christ\"<\/span>; and defines the adjective form as \u201cof, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ\u00a0<\/span>or His teachings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Swedenborg teaches that Jesus was the actual embodiment of Jehovah<\/a> himself, the divine soul in a human body<\/a>. It also teaches that his words and acts are not only compelling as literal statements, but are also filled with the infinity of divine truth when understood on a spiritual level<\/a>. That would certainly make the ideas \u201cChristian\u201d according to the dictionary definitions.<\/span><\/p>\n

See more...<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

Faith: A rooted belief that does not need to be blind<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cFaith\u201d is an interesting word. Technically it simply means \u201cbelief,\u201d but it has taken on a thick layer of emotional import in the modern world. That\u2019s certainly true in terms of religion: We could happily entertain intellectual questions about what we believe to be true, but if those questions touch on our \u201cfaith\u201d they suddenly become an \u201cattack.\u201d We also use \u201cfaith\u201d to describe the connection we can feel with God during emotionally charged worship services. This idea filters through to secular uses: When we express \u201cfaith\u201d that our favorite football team can win a game, that\u2019s more of an emotional statement than an intellectual one.<\/p>\n

One reason for that emotional content may be that Christian<\/a> churches adopted the word \u201cfaith\u201d to mean \u201caccepting something as true even though it can\u2019t be seen or understood.\u201d For instance, the idea that God is one, divided into three persons<\/a> without being divided. See more...<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

but it can also be a challenge. It was written in Latin a quarter of a millennium ago, and for the most part translators have been careful to use precise language to express the ideas as correctly as possible. That means that much of the terminology and phrasing is relatively formal and somewhat old-fashioned. On […]<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10397,"parent":0,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10647","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spiritual-glossary","blog-style1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/societies.newchurch.org\/wordstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}