Philosophy of Religion

Divine Providence

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Emanuel Swedenborg

1764

A sustained meditation on how an omnipotent, loving God can govern all things without destroying human freedom — the problem that defines much of Swedenborg's mature theology. His resolution is precise: providence operates not through force or compulsion but through the management of what Swedenborg calls the internal and external of the will. God orders the loves and thoughts that arise in consciousness while leaving the person free to follow or resist them. The work defends a thoroughgoing providentialism — nothing happens by chance — while insisting that this leaves genuine freedom intact, because freedom consists not in the absence of determination but in acting from one's own love.