My dissertation for theological school is published and available from lulu.com. Click here to view it. You can also buy it there :) My blog has extracts here.
Archive for the ‘The Sacred’ Category
Dissertation published
Posted in The Sacred, tagged dissertation, holiness, Swedenborg, The Sacred on April 8, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Sanctuary
Posted in The Sacred, tagged atmosphere, God, incense, Oak Arbor, sacred, sanctuary, worship on February 3, 2011 | 4 Comments »
In the fall of 2010 I was doing my internship for Theological School. This internship involved staying and working for 6 weeks in the church society of Oak Arbor, near Detroit, MI. In the middle of this housing community is a newly erected church and school building, built just a few years before, at a [...]
Warriors gather for the ritual
Posted in The Sacred, tagged battle, circle, darkness, holiness, holy, light, sacred, warrior on February 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The gathering of warriors has started. These are spiritual warriors, some know each other, and others are still strangers. I sit in the circle of maybe 8 men. A candle in a glass container is burning on a cardboard box in the middle of the room. We are not really warriors. Some because they are [...]
Trees, degrees and simulations
Posted in The Sacred, tagged Bible, holiness, Jesus Christ, Swedenborg, Truth, Word on August 27, 2010 | 2 Comments »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) Does the literal sense of the Word play a minor role only? Something to be discarded as quickly as possible in the attempt to get to the real meaning and holiness of God’s Word? I would like to relate, at this point, an interesting fact about trees. [...]
Presence and omnipresence
Posted in The Sacred, tagged holiness, Lord, reality, Swedenborg, understanding on August 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) Rev. Stephen D. Cole wrote a paper (presented to the Council of the Clergy in 2003) called The Presence of the Lord and Holy Fear, in which he looked into the question of where and when the Lord can be said to be present. The main question [...]
Immortality
Posted in The Sacred, tagged belief, faith, holiness, immortality, regeneration, spiritual growth, Swedenborg, Truth on August 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) Freedom gives us immortality. This refers to our spirit, not our natural body. Our spirit is already immortal, regardless whether we are good or evil (DP 96.7, 324.3, 324.8). Our will and understanding, whose nature and essential activity at heart are freedom and rationality, are directly from [...]
Humanity
Posted in The Sacred, tagged belief, church, God, holiness, Lord, providence, religion on August 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) When we say we are human we mean that we have a will and an understanding. This is more essential than talking about the design of the human body. The body is called “an obedient servant” (DP 124.2), whereas “the will and the understanding … make up [...]
Holy objects in the Old Testament
Posted in The Sacred, tagged holiness, mystery, understanding on August 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(From my dissertation on The Sacred, 2010) Statement: holiness, or the presence of the Lord, comes through correspondence and is not a quality of material objects themselves. The conclusion at this point is that this is true for all physical objects to which holiness is ascribed. Bread and wine are not holy in themselves, nor [...]
Angels
Posted in The Sacred, tagged Bible, holiness, Lord, The Sacred, Truth on June 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The teachings of Swedenborg have revealed that each person is joined to good and evil spirits all the time. Everybody has at least two angels with him through whom he has communication with heaven, and two evil spirits through whom he has communication with hell. (AC 986.2; see also AC 1277, 2379, 6600; and many [...]
The One Life
Posted in The Sacred, tagged Lord, Swedenborg, The Sacred on May 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) In the Writings of Swedenborg can be found many minor teachings, the so-called tool doctrines, like the teachings on levels and discrete degrees, or the teachings on correspondences. One of these, usually not considered a teaching by itself, is emphasized by Wilson Van Dusen (2003) in a [...]
Relation between holiness and our life
Posted in The Sacred, tagged Swedenborg, The Sacred on April 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) There is a relationship between the spirit of the Lord, which is called the Holy Spirit, and a person’s spirit. It may be obvious, but let’s state it anyway: the Lord’s spirit is holy, but a person’s spirit is, as far as I can determine, never on [...]
The mechanics of external holiness
Posted in The Sacred, tagged God, holiness, Jesus Christ, Lord, religion on April 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) Anyone who is governed by bodily and worldly love, and not at the same time by spiritual or by celestial love, does not have any but evil spirits with him, even when external holiness exists with him. Good spirits cannot in any way be present with such [...]
Holiness of the Word
Posted in The Sacred on March 14, 2010 | 1 Comment »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) When a person reads the Word and considers it holy, then its natural meaning becomes spiritual in the second heaven and celestial in the third. (De Verbo 2) What does it mean to consider the Word holy? Very simply it means to consider that the Word is [...]
