Philosophy of Religion

True Christian Religion

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Emanuel Swedenborg

1771

Swedenborg's final and most comprehensive work, completed in his eighty-third year and published months before his death. It is a systematic theology of what he called the New Church — not a denomination but a spiritual dispensation — covering the nature of God, the Trinity, the Scriptures, faith, charity, free will, repentance, regeneration, baptism, and the Eucharist. The work is notable for its explicit critique of both Catholic sacramentalism and Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, which Swedenborg considered the central theological error of his age. It remains the primary reference point for the Church of the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian Church), founded after his death.