Metaphysical Christianity Explained

Metaphysical Christianity

How is this approach different from Traditional Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Traditional Swedenborgianisms, and most other Christian sects?

The first step is to set aside the literal, historical, natural interpretations of the Bible. The Bible is properly understood when it is interpreted as a spiritual parable. Emanuel Swedenborg is a mystical visionary, a metaphysical philosopher, and he is the premier Bible interpreter. His systematic interpretation method is called the Science of Correspondence, and it is based on the metaphysical philosophy know as Idealism, which understands the collective and individual reality to be caused by and inseparable from consciousness.

Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality, including existence, objects and their properties, possibility and necessity, space and time, change, causation, and the relation between matter and mind. It is one of the oldest branches of philosophy.

“The New Church” and other “Swedenborgian” churches are demonstrably not “metaphysical” in as much as they mostly ignore the metaphysical aspect of Swedenborg’s teaching. Generally, these groups stick with conventional dualist/physicalist paradigms, even though Swedenborg is clearly an idealist. Repeatedly, and emphatically stating throughout his writings on spiritual topics, that the physical, phenomenal universe is simply a representative out birth of the higher “spiritual” level of reality.

Swedenborg wrote extensively on the topic of the spiritual origin of all disease. Obviously he did this because the topic is extremely important. The issue of physical suffering must addressed in any metaphysical system, because it is the embodiment of evil, bringing into question God’s character due to His complicity. On an individual level, when we suffer from ill health, it has a massive impact on our spiritual state, and it must be resolved immediately, before we can proceed with our existence.

In the Gospel accounts, Jesus seems to spend more time healing the crowds of followers than teaching them. With Jesus, healing and teaching goes hand in hand. He also transmitted His ability as a healer to his disciples, and declared that if anyone truly believes, he will demonstrate it through healing others. Metaphysical healing is a major component of Metaphysical Christianity.

Metaphysical Christianity seeks to understand Jesus Christ as our inner, ever-present source of spiritual light, and cultivate a conscious relationship with the Divine Spiritual Light as our Lord and Savior. We should increasingly recognize the Divine Presence in our daily life, which we can do by establishing a sound metaphysical philosophy. This should include knowledge of cause and effect, the mind-body relation, the nature of spacetime. Consciousness is the source and support of every aspect of phenomenal reality, so we should strive to achieve an enlightened state of consciousness to become able to perceive/experience the Divine presence, which animates each of us.

Metaphysical Christianity has a strong focus on the state of the mind and emotions. The individual’s “spirit” is the co-existing interaction of the heart and mind, or the will and intellect. These two components are the essential foundation of our human identity. We are spiritual beings clothed with a physical body. We are meant to attain individual spiritual freedom, and the ability to rationally control emotional states.

Christ’s kingdom is not of the world. This means it exists in our higher levels of consciousness, experienced as higher states; but we are not called out of the world, meaning we must engage with external conditions, challenging us with living “as in heaven, so upon the earth.” We are attempting to rationally interpret and optimize our experience in life as disciples of Christ (universal spiritual truth).

Next we will consider one of the primary doctrines of Christianity, the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The traditional interpretation is to say this is the statement of “three persons of God” - i.e. each is a separate person, and yet there is one God. This is rationally absurd - each Infinite being negates the possibility of the other two. There cannot be three Infinites in co-existence. The correct approach is to understand Father, Son, and Holy Spirit metaphorically as three aspects of one God.

Swedenborg’s approach to the Trinity interprets the Father, as the Divine Essence, the Son, as the Divine Manifestation , and the Holy Spirit as the Divine Power as received in creation - the Divine Proceeding. In the Gospels, we can see The Divine Manifesting as the person Jesus, within whom is the Trinity, (Col. 2:9) Abstractly, or spiritually speaking, we can think of the Trinity of Love, Wisdom and Use, similarly: Ends, Cause, and Effect.

It is rational to see that these three: Love, Wisdom and Use must be a dynamic, unified presence in our lives if we are to be united with the Divine, and be “saved.”