Excerpt from Emanuel Swedenborg's, The True Christian Religion ...

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

Iacchus, do I take this correctly that Swedenborg thinks the Fifth Church should be looking for a corporeal, visible form of God, in the flesh so to speak?

I believe He's dispensing with notion of the Holy Trinity being three separate entities -- which, is none other than the mind (Father), body (Son) and soul (Holy Spirit) of the One God. And, that in effect Jesus was God Himself in the flesh.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

<Conjunction with an invisible God is like a conjunction of the eye's vision with the expanse of the universe, the limits of which are invisible; it is also like vision in mid-ocean, which reaches out into the air and upon the sea, and is lost. Conjunction with a visible God, on the other hand, is like beholding a man in the air or on the sea spreading forth his hands and inviting to his arms. For all conjunction of God with man must be also a reciprocal conjunction of man with God; and no such reciprocation is possible except with a visible God ...>

"for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:18)

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Once you find your way, you're there.

Well that's kind of how I look at it. However, Jesus did appear in the flesh and, according to many Jesus was God Himself, and I think this is what Swedenborg is acknowledging.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

This is where he talks about the FOURTH Church, and as you say:But then we have:Fifth Church, visible God.Man is "natural" (visible?), God is Man, God is visible.It sure sounds like in the Fifth Church, which you say is the present day Church, God will become visible to us so we can form a conjunction with Him which we couldn't when He was invisible.

When Jesus appeared in the flesh He called Himself the Son of God, so at that time it wasn't really understood that He was God Himself which, is why we had to contend with the Holy Trinity for so long. So in effect by dispelling the notion of it, as being three separate entities, and are in indeed three aspects of the same God, only then does it allows us to acknowledge God in the flesh, which would have been Jesus Christ. So he really isn't saying any more than this, that the Fifth Church entails acknowledging Jesus Christ as God who, has already manifested Himself in the flesh. So in that sense it doesn't require that He appear a second time (in the flesh), because He has already made Himself visible to us.

I don't know, does that make any more sense?

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

Which is better, Christ appearing before our eyes, or Christ appearing in our hearts?

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Once you find your way, you're there.

Except how would we know (other than the way we acknowledge God) if He didn't first appear in the flesh? Whereas by the act that He did appear, only illustrates how much more He really cares.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

A theophany, a manifestation of God, is self-evident.

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Once you find your way, you're there.

Theophany? What's that, a personal revelation? If so, then I would agree with you, because you aren't going to understand who Jesus Christ is except through a personal revelation.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

Exactly, which is why he isn't needed in the flesh. IMO, Christ is a living spirit who never was and always is.

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Once you find your way, you're there.

I notice you refer to Christ, but not to Jesus. Is this part of your belief in the Christ as an embodiment of an idea as a personal theosophy, rather than as Jesus the man, Yeshua the rabbi, or Jesus the Son of God?

In my view, Christ is a living spirit, Y'shua (Jesus) was a prophet. We are all children of God.

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Once you find your way, you're there.

This is all just misunderstood theology.

There are many practical reasons for saying that God is not a body. Yet we affirm Christ as God. This is the Christian Mystery, that God can be infinte and take human form.

Modern Theology has it that God is infinite understanding. In man we have a spark of divinity in that we have partial understanding. If the real is what is intelligible, then an infinite understanding must understand the totality of the real. But understanding, as we see it in man, involves not only understanding and judging, but self consciousness of oneself understanding and judging. Therefore an infinite understanding would understand itself and at the same time everything that exists, and not only understand, but judge to actually exist, thus accounting for their actual existence. This all has its roots in Aquinas, and even as far back as Aristotle.

Christ, as I see it, is the inevitable expression of that infinite understanding. Any understanding must neccessarily be capable of expression. As all of our expressions involve actions and events, moments in our lives, the expression of an infinite understanding must be a human life. As humans have this spark of the divine, and alone among creatures can build a foundation upon which to make reality intelligible, (the appropriation of ones own intelligence and creation of events based on this), an expression of infinite understanding would be a human person, with an eternal soul.

So Christ is God. He made flesh, as a neccessary expression of God. this is what Swedenborg means when he talks about
An understanding is not complete unless it involves expression.

However, the reason for theological views on the Trinity is that, while an expression may be concrete, it is not a separate thing from the understanding. It is both the end point and result of a dynamic process of insight, reflection and judging. An infinite understanding may be expressed in an concrete, historical human life, but it is still the end point of an infinite process of insight, reflection and judgement which includes the entire universe.

Of course, this suggests that, as an expression of eternal intellect, Christ must have the ability to act eternally. This is resolved in the notion that the life of Christ is merely one part of the paradigmatic human expression of infinite understanding, which operated through the human intellect and reached its final expression in Christ.

So, Christ is a human person. But he's also one aspect of an infinte intelligence, which understands and expresses everything. Thus, theologians say that, although God is three persons, He's only one nature. The nature of rationality; which has three major stages, each of which can be thought of metaphorically as "persons", or Consciousness's"

It's as simple as that.

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"Thoroughly understand what it is to understand, and not only will you understand the broad lines of all there is to be understood but also you will possess a fixed base, an invariant pattern, opening upon all further developments of understanding."

is it not that christ wasa just one person who managed to accomplish what we are all here to do? Namely, become one with god, the universe, or whatever you choose to call it. The idea is not to worship anything, but to become that which is worshiped. By that, i do not mean that anyone should have others worshihp them, but that union of mind, body, will, spirit, and heart is what our souls exist to do. this is so that we can truly appreciate oneness with the god-head that we would not be able to do if we had never been separated from it. In fact, we never were truly separated from it, but could not recognize this.