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1114 NOTES TO VOLUME II.
for 1744 are identical with those inculcated by Swedenborg in other
works written by him about that time.
I. Philosophy and Revelation. On the cover of Codex 36 written
by the author between 1736 and 1740 (see Vol. III of Photo-litho
graphed MSS., p. 181), we read as follows : "The more the world is per
fected in the sciences and in learning, the more is it estranged from
God ... We ought not to inquire into the arcana of His nature
in order thereby to acquire an intellectual faith .... The Lord
demands an ignorance of things, full of faith and of His praise ...
wherefore also He addressed Himself to fishermen and shepherds ;
because the rest could not understand anything of the kind." Again
we read in the same place, "That philosophy and its departments,
and the physical sciences seduce us is clear, because they can extend
only to visible and intellectual things, and cannot penetrate to higher
things, which they regard as paradoxical; and hence philosophy be
lieves nothing, because it holds that these things ought to be ex
pressed by what it considers as something."
In the Diary for 1744 we read in agreement therewith : "Natural
reason cannot agree with spiritual reason" (no. 8). "While reading
God’s miracles wrought through Moses, it seemed as if something of
my own understanding was mixed up with it, so that I was not able
to have so strong a faith as I ought. I believed, and yet did not
believe. I was thinking that for this reason angels and God appeared
to shepherds, and not to a philosopher, who allowed his understand
ing to come into play, which at all times would lead him to ask, Why
God brought the wind when He called the grasshoppers together
[Exodus x, 13]; why He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and did not work
directly, with other similar things, which I considered ; and the effect
of which was such, that my faith was not firm. I looked upon the
fire and said to myself, in this case I neither ought to believe that
the fire is, since the external senses are more fallacious than what
God says, which is the Truth itself; I ought rather to believe that
than myself" (no. 26).
"Man [of himself] can know only so much as enters into his
thoughts, and only when it enters also into the actions does he be
come convinced of it" (no. 64).
Other passages explaining the relation of the human understanding
to faith, may be found in Note 165, ix, A.
Swedenborg, however, does not maintain that philosophy per se
is opposed to faith and revealed truth, but only philosophy when it
has become natural, and thus perverted. This appears clearly from
what he says in the Adversaria (Vol. II, no. 914, p. 574) : "Philo
sophy, such as it is at present in human minds, destroys all faith,
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