Rational Scientific Theories from Theism

Spirituality Approach to Theistic Science

Permanent Spiritual Growth?

What do we really want to know?

Many of us want to know how we may achieve permanent spiritual changes. In this way, we can have spiritual growth, what Swedenborg calls regeneration.

Can there be Permanent Spiritual Changes?

We may experience elevation, insights and ecstacies – even to the Infinite – but it does not seem to last: we always come down again to our selves. Are we changed?  Do Near-Death Experiences change us for the good? How do we grow with permanent effect?

Permanent spiritual growth, according to Swedenborg, comes from

Spiritual Life in Us:

Permanent spiritual growth occurs after you
freely resist temptation by means of truths.

Reasons for this

Permanent spiritual growth, according to Swedenborg, comes from

NOT from any one of the following things by itself:

belief (faith),
personal acceptance of vicarious atonement,
obedience,
knowledge, even of truths (wisdom),
good intentions or love,
suffering,
elevated, expanded, rotated, vibrated (etc) consciousness,

Swedenborg gives reasons for all these claims..

Are the above ideas common knowledge? Or are they esoteric? We may intuitively agree with the above principles. But Swedenborg gives reasons for them all. Let us follow these reasons, and see what must be in the ‘science of consciousness’ for these principles to hold.

For more details within Theistic Science, see especially the later discussion on regeneration.