Last Judgment (Chadwick) n. 36

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36. I must now say a little about there being no faith if there is no charity. It is assumed that faith exists so long as the church's teachings are believed, so that it is with those who believe. But believing by itself is not faith, only willing and doing what is believed is faith. When the church's teachings are merely believed, they do not enter into the way a person lives, but only into his memory and so into what the external man thinks. They only enter into his way of life when they enter into his will and thus his actions; that is when his spirit is first engaged. For a person's spirit, the life of which is what a person's life really is, is formed by his will, and only by his thinking to the extent that this arises from his will. A person's memory and the thinking which arises from this is merely the entrance through which the introduction is effected. [2] It makes no difference whether you say will or love, since each person loves what he wills and wills what he loves. The will acts as a receiver for love, the intellect, whose function is thinking, as a receiver for faith. A person may know, think and understand many things, but those which are not in harmony with his will or his love he casts away, as soon as he is left alone to reflect on them from the point of view of his will or love. So he also casts them away after bodily life, when he lives in the spirit. As I said shortly before, the only thing which remains in a person's spirit is what has entered into his will or love. All else is after death looked on as foreign, and being no part of his love is thrown out of doors and treated with loathing. [3] The case is different, if a person not only believes the church's teachings drawn from the Word, but actually wills and does them, for then he has real faith. Faith is an affection for truth arising from willing what is true because it is true, for this is the real spiritual element in a person. It is far removed from the natural, which is willing what is true not for its own sake, but to get for oneself glory, fame and gain. If truth is regarded as remote from such considerations, it is spiritual, because it is in essence Divine. So willing what is true because it is true is also acknowledging and loving the Divine; these two things are so closely linked that in heaven they are looked on as one. The Divine which proceeds from the Lord in heaven is Divine truth (see HEAVEN AND HELL 128-132); and those who receive it and make it part of their lives are angels in the heavens. These remarks are intended to make it known that faith is not just believing, but also willing and doing, so there can be no faith if there is no charity. Charity or love is willing and doing.


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