24.⑴自创世之初以来，所有曾生而为人且已离世者要么在天堂，要么在地狱，这一点从前一章，即天堂和地狱皆来自人类的说明和解释可推知。这是显而易见的，无需解释。迄今为止，人们普遍以为，在最后审判之日，就是当灵魂回到自己的身体，从而享有被认为只属于身体的官能时以先，人不会进入天堂或地狱。许多简单人被那些研究人的内在状态，并妄称智慧的人误导接受了这种信念。这些人根本不思想灵界，只思想自然界，因而不思想属灵人，所以不知道每个人在属世人里面所拥有的属灵人和属世人一样拥有人的形式。因此，他们从来没有想到属世人从他的属灵人那里获得自己的人的形式。然而，他们原本能够看出，属灵人随意作用于属世人的整体和每个细节，而属世人凭自己什么也做不了。
正是属灵人在思考和意愿，因为属世人凭自己无法做到这一点。属灵人的思维和意愿是属世人的全部中的全部；因为属世人照属灵人的意愿行动，也照着属灵人的思维说话，并且如此彻底，以至于行为无非是意愿，言语无非是思维。这是因为若除去思维和意愿，言语和行动为就立刻停止。由此可见，属灵人才是真正的人，它存在于属世人的整体和每个细节中。这意味着属世人是属灵人的一个形像，或说它的外在形式必是相似的，因为属世人的任何部分或粒子，若不从属于属灵人的行为，或说没有属灵人在其中活动，就毫无生命。但属灵人无法被属世人看见，因为属世之物看不见属灵之物，属灵之物却能看见属世之物；这符合秩序，反过来则违反秩序。因此，属灵之物流入属世之物是可能的，反过来是不可能的；这适用于视觉，因为视觉也是流入的。被称为人之灵的，正是属灵人，它在灵界处于完整的人的形式，并且（译注：肉体）死后会继续活着。
由于前面所说的聪明人或大思想者，对灵界一无所知，因而对人的灵一无所知，所以他们获得这种观念：一个人不可能拥有人的生命，或说不可能作为一个人活着，直到他的灵魂回到他的肉体，再次拥有肉体感觉。这就是关于复活的那些虚妄观念的根源，如：肉体虽被虫子或鱼吃光，或化为尘土，却仍将凭神性全能再次被收聚，重新与灵魂结合；这些事只有在世界结束时才会发生，到那时，可见的物质宇宙将要毁灭。还有其它类似观念，所有这些观念都是不可思议的，乍一看就是不可能的，并且违反神性秩序。因此，这些观念逐渐削弱了许多人的信仰，因为那些智慧思考的人无法相信他们完全不明白的东西；一个人无法相信不可能的事，也就是人判断为不可能的事。所以，那些不相信死后生命的人就利用这个论据来支持他们的否认。然而，人死后立即复活，然后被赋予完整的人的形式，这一点可见于《天堂与地狱》一书的许多章节。说这些事是为了进一步证实：天堂和地狱皆来自人类；由此可推知，自创世之初以来，所有曾生而为人且已离世者，要么在天堂，要么在地狱。
24. As for the fact that all people without exception who have been born and have died since the beginning of the creation of the world are either in heaven or in hell, no explanation is needed to see that this follows from what was said and explained in the preceding chapter, namely, that heaven and hell come from humankind.
Until the present time, the most commonly held belief has been that we will not get to heaven or hell before the day of the Last Judgment, when souls will be reunited with their bodies and therefore enjoy the faculties believed to belong exclusively to the body. 1Many ordinary people have adopted this belief on the authority of those who have hypothesized about the nature of what lies within us and have published their supposed wisdom. 2Since these individuals give no thought at all to the existence of a spiritual world, but only consider the earthly one, and therefore do not think in terms of the spiritual self, they have not realized that the spiritual self each of us has within our earthly self is just as human in form as the earthly self is. So even though they are capable of seeing that the spiritual self is active at will throughout the earthly self and in its every detail and that the earthly self does absolutely nothing on its own, it has not crossed their minds that the earthly self gets its human form from the spiritual self.
[2] It is the spiritual self that thinks and wills, since on its own the earthly self cannot do so, and yet the thinking and willing of the spiritual self are vital to the earthly self. The earthly self does what the spiritual self wills, and says what the spiritual self thinks, so completely that there is no action without some will and no speech without some thought. This is because if you take away the thought and the will, the speech and action instantly cease.
We can see from this that the spiritual self is the true self and that it is present in each and every detail of the earthly self. This means that the earthly self is an image of the spiritual self, because any part or particle of the earthly self in which the spiritual self is not active is not alive.
Nevertheless, the spiritual self cannot be visible to the earthly self, because what is earthly cannot see what is spiritual. What is spiritual can see what is earthly, though: this is in keeping with the divine design, but the reverse is not. Therefore there is an inflow from what is spiritual into what is earthly but not the reverse; and this applies to our ability to see, because sight flows in as well. 3Our spiritual self is what is called our spirit; it is visible in the spiritual world in a complete human form, and it lives on after death.
[3] Because the great thinkers have known nothing about the spiritual world and nothing about the human spirit, as already noted, they have embraced the idea that we cannot live as human beings until our souls get back into our bodies and once again have physical senses. This has given rise to ridiculous notions about our resurrection-that even though our bodies have been eaten by worms and fish and have completely disintegrated into dust, they will be put back together again by divine omnipotence and reunited with our souls, and that this will not happen until the end of the world, when the physical universe will be destroyed. There are other similar notions as well, all of which defy comprehension and which the mind immediately recognizes as impossible and in violation of the divine design. So these notions have undermined many people's faith, since anyone whose thinking is based on wisdom cannot believe something that is utterly incomprehensible. There is no such thing as faith in impossibilities-that is, in things that we regard as impossible. 4Furthermore, people who do not believe in life after death use the absurdity of these notions as support for their denial.
Support for the fact that we do rise again immediately after death and that we are then in a complete human form is given in a number of chapters in Heaven and Hell [432-469].
I mention all this as further reinforcement for the idea that heaven and hell come from humankind; and from this it follows that all humans without exception who have been born and have died since the beginning of creation are either in heaven or in hell.
Footnotes:
1. An ancient and common strain of Christian thought taught that resurrection must occur in a material body-or, as it was usually termed, “in the flesh.” A representative selection of exponents of this belief would include such notables as Justin Martyr (around 100-around 165 C.E.), in On the Resurrection (= Justin Martyr 1994, 294-299); Tertullian (around 155 or 160-220), in On the Resurrection of the Flesh (= Tertullian 2001, 545-595); Athenagoras (second century C.E.), in On the Resurrection of the Dead (= Athenagoras 2001, 2:149-162); Cyril of Jerusalem (around 315-around 386), in Catechetical Lecture 18 (= Cyril of Jerusalem 2001, 136-143); Augustine (354-430), for example in the passage that Swedenborg paraphrases in Swedenborg 1976b, 155 (= Augustine's On the Soul and Its Origin, book 4, chapter 14 [or, in other editions, chapter 10] = Augustine 1997, 360); and Thomas Aquinas (1224 or 1225-1274), in Supplement to the Summa Theologiae 70, 79 (= Aquinas 1952, 2:893-900; 2:951-956). (For belief in bodily resurrection among early Christians and the church fathers, see Badham 1976, 47-64; Bynum 1994; Bynum 1995; Vidal 2011, 337-341.) In addition to the theologians of earlier times, Swedenborg may be pointing to the large group of writers from the Enlightenment period who showed a lively interest in the actual mechanics of resurrection; for a survey see Strickland 2010, 163-183, and compare note 2 in Last Judgment 24 below. Strickland cites as examples British writers and treatises now more or less obscure, including John Pearson, An Exposition of the Creed (1676); Humphry Hody, The Resurrection of the (Same) Body Asserted (1694); William Wilson, A Discourse of the Resurrection (1694); Edward Stillingfleet, Fifty Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions (1707); William Lupton, The Resurrection of the Same Body (1711); Henry Felton, The Resurrection of the Same Numerical Body, and Its Reunion to the Same Soul (1733); Winch Holdsworth, A Defence of the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Same Body (1727). Though it seems unlikely that Swedenborg knew of these particular writers and works, they are illustrative of the compelling interest the question of bodily resurrection held during the early modern era. More historically visible proponents of bodily resurrection, well known to Swedenborg, include Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), in On the Truth of the Christian Religion (1639), book 2, section 10 (= Grotius [1639] 1829, book 2, pages 94-97), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), on whose treatment of this topic see the discussion in Strickland 2009, 391-410. Between traditional Christian teachings and the conclusions drawn by most intellectuals in the early modern era, Swedenborg is justified in describing the belief in “resurrection in the flesh” as that which was “until the present time, the most commonly held.” [SS]
2. The Latin here translated “those who have hypothesized about the nature of what lies within us and have published their supposed wisdom” is illis qui professi sunt sapientiam, et inquisiverunt de interiori statu hominis, literally, “those who have made public their wisdom and inquired into the inner state of humankind.” Professi sunt would generally mean “have professed to believe,” but it also can mean to give lectures and thus publicize one's opinions; in Swedenborg's usage it generally carries a strong suggestion of deception. He does not seem to be thinking here of Christian theologians (see note 1 in Last Judgment 24), since in the next sentence, he describes these thinkers as giving “no thought at all to the existence of a spiritual world,” and just two subsections farther on, in Last Judgment 24:3, he says they know “nothing about the spiritual world and nothing about the human spirit.” Yet they seem to be the same scholars who are described in Last Judgment 17 as those whose “teachings about resurrection” are founded on the premise that the soul has no senses unless it is in the body. Thus they must be scholars who in their writings displayed an interest both in “the nature of what lies within us” (as indicated here) and in resurrection in the flesh (as indicated in Last Judgment 24:3). There are in fact a number of Enlightenment figures who demonstrate this combination of interests. A discipline that came to be called empirical psychology emerged during this time (see Vidal 2011); it attempted to understand the soul through its observable effects on the body, and thus, virtually by definition, it required that the soul be linked to, and act through, a material body; see Vidal 2000, 419-421. On the theorizing of these new “psychologists” about resurrection, see specifically Vidal 2011, 333-346. Swedenborg was familiar with the work of a large number of writers who contributed to the emerging discipline of psychology, as is demonstrated by the sources he cites in his Quotations on Various Philosophical and Theological Topics (= Swedenborg 1976b); they include Descartes, Leibniz, George Bernard Bilfinger (1693-1750), and Christian Wolff (1679-1754). The foremost example is John Locke (1632-1704), whom Swedenborg read and even praised at one point in his career (see Dynamics of the Soul's Domain [= Swedenborg [1740-1741] 1955] part 2, 294, where he describes Locke as having “investigated the interior operations of the mind”). On Locke's powerful influence on the general understanding of the soul and mind among the intelligentsia of the era, see Vidal 2011, 15-17; on his contribution to the ongoing conversation about resurrection, see Vidal 2002, 950-952. Whether the conclusions about resurrection drawn by the “psychologists” of the age actually percolated down to “ordinary people,” as Swedenborg asserts here, is another question. [SS]
3. A concise description of the inflow of the mind that accompanies the act of seeing is found in Soul-Body Interaction 1:2: “Specifically, the [divine] design calls for the thinking mind to flow into our sight in accordance with the state imposed on our eyes by the objects of vision, a state that the mind also adjusts to suit itself.” As Swedenborg explains this theory in Secrets of Heaven 994:4, our ability to see in dreams demonstrates that our sight arises from within; he implies there that the eye is only an external, physical apparatus that allows us to see what is physical and material: “We can still see just as well after the body's death as when we were alive in the body, and much better. We simply do not see what is worldly and material but rather what belongs to the other life.” Compare Swedenborg's explanation of the senses in Divine Love and Wisdom 363: “The appearance is that our eye is seeing, but our discernment is seeing through our eye, which is why we ascribe sight to our discernment. The appearance is that our ear is hearing, but our discernment is hearing through our ear. . . . The appearance is that our nostrils smell and that our tongue tastes, but discernment is smelling with its perceptiveness and is tasting as well.” For more on the ability of spiritual eyes to see objects that are earthly or physical, see Other Planets 134 and note 2 in Other Planets 134 there. [GFD, SS]
4. Swedenborg rejected the common religious idea that faith is believing something because the church teaches it, even though we cannot understand it. This he called “blind faith.” Rather, he said that “real faith is simply recognizing that something is so because it is true” (Faith 2). This, he goes on to say, requires that we understand it, or at least can sense within ourselves that it is true. See Faith 1-4; Divine Providence 144; True Christianity 346-347. For an experience in the spiritual world illustrating the principle that faith is a clear understanding of the truth, see True Christianity 508. [LSW]
24. It requires no further explanation to see that the statement that all people who have ever been born since the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell is the consequence of what has been said in the previous chapter, where it was shown that heaven and hell are from the human race. Up to now it has been generally believed that people will not go to heaven or to hell before the day of the Last Judgment, when souls will return to their own bodies so that they can enjoy what are believed to be the peculiar properties of the body. Simple people have been brought to believe this by those who have made a profession of being wise and have enquired into people's inner state. These have had no idea of the spiritual world, but only the natural one, and so no idea of the spiritual man either. They have therefore been unaware that the spiritual man, which everyone has within his natural man, has human form just as the natural man. Neither has it occurred to them that the natural man gets his human form from his spiritual man. Yet they could have seen that the spiritual man acts at will upon every detail of the natural man, who is unable to do anything of himself.
[2] It is the spiritual man who thinks and wills, for the natural man cannot do this of himself. And thought and will are all-in-all to the natural man, for he is acted upon as the spiritual man wills, and he speaks as the spiritual man thinks, so much so that action is nothing but willing and speech is nothing but thinking. For if you take away willing and thinking, speech and action come instantly to a stop. From this it is plain that the spiritual man really is the man, present in every detail of the natural man; so its outward form must be similar, since any part or particle of the natural man not subject to the action of the spiritual is lifeless. However, the spiritual man cannot become visible to the natural man, for the natural cannot see the spiritual, though the spiritual can see the natural. This is in accordance with the rules of order, but the reverse would be contrary to them, since it is possible for the spiritual to influence the natural (and this applies to sight, since it is a form of influence), but not the reverse. The spiritual man is what is called a person's spirit, which is seen in the spiritual world in complete human form and which lives on after death.
[3] Since intelligent people have, as I said before, known nothing about the spiritual world, and thus about a person's spirit, they have therefore got the idea that a person cannot have a personal life until his soul returns to his body and resumes its senses. This is the origin of such empty notions about personal resurrection, for instance, that although bodies have been eaten by worms or fishes or have collapsed into dust, they will by God's almighty power be brought together again and reunited with souls; or that these events will only occur at the end of the world, when the visible universe will come to an end; and many similar ideas, all of which are beyond our grasp and at first sight appear impossible and contrary to God's order. Consequently many people have their faith weakened by these ideas. For those who think wisely can only believe what they to some extent understand; one cannot believe the impossible, that is, what one judges to be impossible. So those who do not believe in life after death use this argument to infer a proof of their negative attitude. However, it may be seen in numerous chapters of HEAVEN AND HELL that people rise again at once after death, and are then endowed with complete human form. These remarks are intended as additional confirmation of the statement that heaven and hell are from the human race; from which it follows that all people who have ever been born from the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell.
24. I. That all who have ever been born men from the beginning of creation, and are deceased, are either in heaven or in hell, follows from those things which have been said and shown in the preceding article, namely, that heaven and hell are from the human race. This is clear without explanation. It has been the common belief hitherto, that men will not come into heaven or into hell before the day of the Last Judgment, when souls will return into their own bodies, and thus to enjoy such things as are believed to belong only to the body. The simple have been led into this belief by men professing wisdom, who have investigated the interior state of man. Because these have thought nothing concerning the spiritual world, but only of the natural world, nor therefore of the spiritual man, they have not known that the spiritual man which is in every natural man, is in the human form, as well as the natural man. Hence it never entered their minds that the natural man draws his own human form from his spiritual man; although they might have seen that the spiritual man acts at will upon the whole, and upon every part of the natural man, and that the natural man of himself does nothing at all. It is the spiritual man who thinks and wills, for this the natural man of himself cannot do; and thought and will are the all in all of the natural man; for the natural man acts as the spiritual man wills, and also speaks as the spiritual thinks, and that so entirely, that action is nothing but will, and speech is nothing but thought, for on the removal of thought and will, speech and action cease in a moment. From this it is evident that the spiritual man is truly a man, and that he is in the whole, and in every part of the natural man, and that therefore their effigies are alike, for the part or particle of the natural man, in which the spiritual does not act, does not live. But the spiritual man cannot appear to the natural man, for the natural cannot see the spiritual, but the spiritual can see the natural; for this is according to order, but the converse is contrary to order; since there is given an influx, and therefore also a sight, of the spiritual into the natural, for sight too is influx, but not the reverse. It is the spiritual man who is called the spirit of man, and who appears in the spiritual world in a perfect human form, and lives after death. Because they who are intelligent have not known anything of the spiritual world, and therefore nothing of the spirit of man, as was said above, they have conceived therefore an idea that man cannot live a man, before his soul returns into the body, and again puts on the senses. Hence have arisen such vain ideas about man's resurrection, namely, that bodies, though eaten up by worms and fish, or entirely fallen to dust, are to be collected again by the Divine omnipotence, and re-united to souls; and that this is not to happen till the end of the world, when the visible universe is to perish; with many more like ideas, which are every one of them inconceivable, and at the first glance of the mind, strike it as impossible, and contrary to Divine order, tending thus to weaken the faith of many; for those who think wisely, cannot believe what they do not in some measure comprehend; and belief in impossibilities is not given, that is, a belief in such things as man thinks to be impossible. Hence also those who disbelieve the life after death, derive an argument in support of their denial. But that man rises again immediately after his decease, and that then he is in a perfect human form, may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell, in many of its articles. These things have been said, that it may be still more confirmed that heaven and hell are from the human race, from which it follows, that all who were ever born men from the beginning of creation, and are deceased, are either in heaven or in hell.
24. ((i.)) Quod omnes quotcunque nati sunt homines a principio creationis, et defuncti, sint in caelo vel in inferno, consequatur ex illis quae dicta et ostensa sunt in articulo praecedente, quod nempe caelum et infernum sint ex humano genere, patet absque explicatione. Communis fides hactenus fuit, quod homines non prius venturi sint in caelum aut in infernum, quam die ultimi judicii, quando animae rediturae sunt in sua corpora, et sic fruiturae talibus quae propria corporis esse creduntur. In hanc fidem adducti sunt simplices ex illis qui professi sunt sapientiam, et inquisiverunt de interiori statu hominis. Hi quia nihil cogitaverunt de spirituali mundo, sed solum de naturali, ita nec de spirituali homine, inde nesciverunt quod spiritualis homo, qui cuivis homini est in naturali, sit aeque in forma humana, sicut naturalis homo: inde nec in mentem eorum venit, quod naturalis homo suam formam humanam trahat ex suo spirituali homine; tametsi videre potuerunt, quod spiritualis homo agat in omnia et singula naturalis hominis ad nutum, et quod naturalis homo prorsus nihil agat a se. Spiritualis homo est qui cogitat et vult, nam hoc naturalis homo ex se nequit; et cogitatio et voluntas est omne in omnibus naturalis hominis, agitur enim naturalis homo sicut vult spiritualis, et quoque loquitur sicut is cogitat, tam prorsus ut actio non sit nisi quam voluntas, et loquela non sit nisi quam cogitatio; nam si aufers hanc et illam, cessat momento et loquela et actio. Ex his patet quod spiritualis homo sit vere homo, et quod sit in omnibus et singulis naturalis hominis; ita quod ejus effigies sit similis, nam pars seu particula naturalis hominis, in qua non agit spiritualis, non vivit. Sed spiritualis homo non potest apparere coram naturali homine, nam naturale non videre potest spirituale, sed spirituale potest videre naturale; hoc enim juxta ordinem est, illud autem contra ordinem, datur enim influxus spiritualis in naturale, ita quoque visus, nam visus etiam est influxus, non autem vicissim. Spiritualis homo est qui vocatur spiritus hominis, et qui apparet in mundo spirituali in perfecta forma humana, et qui vivit post mortem. Quia intelligentes non sciverunt aliquid de spirituali mundo, proinde nec aliquid de spiritu hominis, ut supra dictum est, ideo ceperunt ideam quod homo non vivere possit homo, priusquam ejus anima rediret in corpus, et reindueret ejus sensus; inde ortae sunt tam vanae ideae de resurrectione hominis, quod nempe corpora, etiamsi a vermibus et piscibus exesa, et in pulverem prorsus dilapsa, ex Divina omnipotentia recolligenda essent, et animabus reunienda; et quod hoc non exstiturum sit, quam in fine mundi, quando universam aspectabile interiturum est; praeter plura similia, quae omnia excedunt captum, et quae ad primum intuitum mentis obveniunt impossibilia, et contra Divinum ordinem; et inde quoque fidem plurium infirmant; nam qui ex sapientia cogitant, non credere possunt nisi quod aliquo modo comprehendunt, et fides impossibilium non datur, hoc est, fides talium quae homo cogitat esse impossibilia: inde quoque argumentum negationis desumunt illi, qui non credunt vitam post mortem: sed quod homo statim post. obitum resurgat, et quod sit tunc in perfecta forma humana, videatur in opere De Caelo et Inferno, et ibi in pluribus articulis. Haec dicta sunt, ut adhuc confirmetur, quod caelum et infernum sint ex humano genere; ex quo consequitur, quod omnes quotcunque nati sunt homines a principio creationis, et defuncti, sint in caelo vel in inferno.