Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 1757

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

1757. THAT INTELLECTUAL FAITH IS A MERE MATTER OF THE MEMORY. I spoke with certain souls who, in the life of the body, supposed that they had faith, or that an intellectual faith would save, or was of a saving nature [salvifica], nor were they willing to recede from the theory they had established to themselves, that faith alone saved, from which it would follow that the quality of the life is of no consequence, as is the opinion of many. It was given me to say to them that such a faith is by no means saving, that it is not really faith, because the life shows of what kind of faith they are possessed, and that such a faith is a mere matter of the memory, producing nothing, whereas the life of faith is love from the Lord. When I read the passage in Mark 12:28, where a certain scribe inquires what is the first or chief commandment, [I asked them the same question,] because the scribe believed the same thing, but yet only intellectually, and not in his life, for it is said that he tempted Jesus. It was then given them to perceive that such a faith was a mere cognition, which is far from saving, unless it so works as to cause a man to love his neighbor as himself.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church