103. Brief Analysis

The reason why there is no way to simultaneously hold the views of the new church and the views of the former church (that is, the modern-day church) regarding faith is that the two positions do not overlap by a third or even a tenth.

In Revelation 12 the faith of the former church is portrayed as a dragon (see §§87– 90 above) and the faith of the new church is portrayed as a woman clothed with the sun, who had a crown of twelve stars on her head. The dragon persecuted her and spewed water like a flood at her in an effort to carry her away by it. These two views cannot coexist in the same city, much less in the same household or the same mind. If they were to come together, the only possible outcome would be that the woman would be constantly exposed to rage and insanity from the dragon, and would constantly fear that the dragon would devour her son. After all, we read in Revelation 12 that the dragon stood before the woman, when she was about to give birth, in order to devour her child. After the woman gave birth, she fled into the wilderness (Revelation 12:1, 4, 6, 14– 17).

The faith held by the former church is a faith of the night; human reason has no experience of it at all. This is why we are told that we are to hold our intellect under obedience to faith. In fact, we do not even know whether it is within us or outside of us. The human will and human reason have nothing to do with it.

For that matter, goodwill, good works, repentance, the law of the Ten Commandments, and a number of other things that actually exist in the human mind have nothing to do with it (see §§79, 80, 96, 97, 98). The faith of the new church, however, forms a partnership and a marriage covenant with all the things just mentioned. As a result, this faith lives in the warmth of heaven; and because it does, it also lives in heaven’s light. It is a faith of the light.

A faith of the night and a faith of the light cannot live together any more than an owl and a dove can live together in one nest. The owl would lay its eggs there, and the dove would lay its eggs. After incubation, both sets of chicks would hatch, and then the owl would tear apart the dove’s chicks and feed them to its chicks. (Owls are voracious.)

The faith of the former church cannot live with the faith of the new church because the two are completely incompatible. The faith of the former church is descended from the idea that there are three gods (see §§30– 38 above); the faith of the new church, though, is descended from the idea that there is one God. And because the two are completely incompatible as a result, it is inevitable that if they lived together in us they would collide and cause so much conflict that everything related to the church would be destroyed in us. We would fall into such a state of spiritual madness or else spiritual unconsciousness that we would hardly know what the church was or whether such a thing even existed.

Consequently, people who are deeply committed to the faith of the old church are incapable of embracing the faith of the new church without endangering their own spiritual lives, unless they have first rejected the teachings of the former faith one by one and have uprooted that former faith along with all its live offspring and unhatched eggs (meaning tenets). What these tenets are like has been shown earlier in this work, especially in §§64– 69.

111. 2. It is impossible to incorporate one person’s goodness into another person. The evidence for this can be seen if it is laid out in the following order. (a) Every one of us is born with evil. (b) We are brought into goodness by going through the process of being regenerated by the Lord. (c) Our regeneration is occasioned by our believing in the Lord and living by his commandments. (d) Therefore one person’s goodness cannot be transferred and incorporated into and credited to another person.

(a) Every one of us is born with evil. The church is well aware of this. The church tradition holds that this evil is something we inherit from Adam; in actual fact, though, it comes from our parents. Each of us derives a particular nature from our parents, which takes the form of certain tendencies. Both experience and reason teach that this is true. Similarities to parents are obvious in the faces, characters, and behaviors of their children and also grandchildren. As a result, families are widely recognizable, and we can even discern certain characteristics of their lower minds. Therefore the evils that the parents have become involved with are passed down to subsequent generations in the form of a tendency to engage in those evils. This is the origin of the evils we are born with.

(b) We are brought into goodness by going through the process of being regenerated by the Lord. The Lord’s words in John 3:3, 5 make it clear that there is a process of regeneration and that if we do not undergo this process we cannot come into heaven. In the Christian world it is impossible to miss that the process of being regenerated is a process of being purified from evils and beginning a new life. Reason is able to see this as well, provided it accepts that every one of us is born with evil, and that evil cannot be washed or wiped away with soap and water as if it were dirt, but can be washed away by our recovery of wisdom.

(c) Our regeneration is occasioned by our believing in the Lord and living by his commandments. For the five principles of regeneration, see §§43, 44 above. The following are taken from that list: We must abstain from doing things that are evil — they belong to the Devil and come from the Devil. We must do things that are good — they belong to God and come from God. We must turn to the Lord so that he can lead us to live this way.

You should all take the time to consider whether goodness could possibly become ours in any other way; and without goodness, we have no salvation.

(d) Therefore one person’s goodness cannot be transferred and incorporated into and credited to another person. It follows from what has just been said that the process of regeneration is what makes our spirits new, and that this process is occasioned by our believing in the Lord and living by his commandments.

Surely everyone can see that this process of being made new can occur only over time, much the way a seed takes root, grows into a tree, and comes to full maturity in stages. People who think differently about the process of being regenerated and made new know nothing about the human condition. They also do not realize that evil and good are complete opposites, and that what is good can only be implanted to the extent that evil has been removed. They are also not aware that as long as we are involved in evil we have an aversion to any goodness that is truly and intrinsically good. Therefore if one person’s goodness were to be transferred and incorporated into another person who was devoted to evil, it would be like throwing a lamb in with a wolf or tying a pearl to a pig’s snout. Clearly, then, it is impossible to incorporate one person’s goodness into another person.