Divine Love and Wisdom (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

Divine Love and Wisdom is the most philosophical of Emanuel Swedenborg's later theological writings--and one that has attracted readers well beyond any religious tradition. Where many of his other writings build from Scripture, Swedenborg relies here on reason, observation, and firsthand experience, an approach characteristic of the Enlightenment spirit of his age. He presents a unified account of reality that ranges across what philosophers would call metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. At the heart of this account is a single claim with far-reaching implications: that divine love and divine wisdom are the substance and form of everything that exists. Love, Swedenborg argues, is our very life--not something we generate on our own, but something we continually receive. He then turns to the nature of God, the purpose of creation, and the relationship between two distinct but connected worlds, the spiritual and the physical. In the spiritual world, he writes, divine love and wisdom appear as a sun, radiating a spiritual warmth and light that correspond to love and wisdom themselves. Everything in creation, from the highest angel to the mineral kingdom, is a vessel for receiving that divine life. God both fills and transcends this creation. The God of Divine Love and Wisdom is universal: utterly loving, present with and within every person on earth regardless of race or religion, and condemning no one. It is this expansive vision--an underlying oneness beneath the visible variety of things--that has drawn readers from many backgrounds. Its central themes left their mark on William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry James, Sr., was so taken by it that he went on to read the whole of Swedenborg, and Charles Peirce and William James derived their American pragmatism from its emphasis on usefulness and practical consequence. Created as a premium edition for readers who want deeper engagement with Swedenborg's thought, this clothbound volume with gold foil stamping features a new introduction by Dr. Marcy Latta, "Swedenborg's Philosophical Theology." Latta guides readers through the book's major themes and situates its arguments within the history of ideas--from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. George F. Dole's translation is accompanied by extensive annotations, cross-references, and indexes prepared by a team of Swedenborg scholars, making this an edition as welcoming to the newcomer as it is useful to the specialist. The New Century Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg is a modern-language, scholarly translation of Swedenborg's theological writings. Its clear, readable style preserves the dignity, variety, and gender-inclusive spirit of Swedenborg's original Neo-Latin, bringing the full range of his thought to life for contemporary readers.