What It Means to Shun Evils "As Sins"

Throughout the Heavenly Doctrines we are told to shun evils as sins. I've wondered for a while what exactly it means to shun evils “as sins” and so I was excited to find a passage that explains it.

Everyone is able to live according to the 10 commandments; and he who is wise does so live as a civil man, as a moral man, and as a natural man. And yet he who does not live according to them as a spiritual man cannot he saved; since to live according to them as a spiritual man means to so live for the sake of the Divine that is in them, while to live according to them as a civil man means for the sake of justice and to escape punishments in the world; and to live according to them as a moral man means for the sake of honesty, and to escape the loss of reputation and honor; while to live according to them as a natural man means for the sake of what is human, and to escape the repute of having an unsound mind. All laws, civil, moral, and natural, prescribe that one must not steal, must not commit adultery, must not kill, must not bear false witness; and yet a man is not saved by shunning these evils from these laws alone, unless he also shuns them from spiritual law, thus unless he shuns them as sins. (Apocalypse Explained 948:4)

What We Need to Know About the Lord's Coming

I'm currently learning a lot in a fascinating theological school class about what the Lord did while He was in the world but even though we read a lot in the Heavenly Doctrines and read papers by people who have studied various topics extensively and also spend a long time discussing things we still regularly run into things that are beyond our ability to understand. As a result I find it helpful to keep passages like Arcana Coelestia 1676:2-3 in mind.

He to whom it has not been given to know heavenly arcana, may suppose that there was no need of the Lord's coming into the world to fight against the hells, and by means of temptations admitted into Himself to vanquish and conquer them, when they might have been subjugated at any time by the Divine Omnipotence, and shut up in their hells; but that still the fact is really so, is a certain truth. To unfold the arcana themselves merely as to the most general things would fill a whole work; and it would also give occasion for reasonings about such Divine mysteries as human minds would not comprehend, however fully they might be unfolded; and most people would not desire to comprehend them.

Therefore it is sufficient for men to know, and, because it is so, to believe, that it is an eternal truth that unless the Lord had come into the world and subjugated and conquered the hells by means of temptations admitted into Himself, the human race would have perished; and that otherwise those who have been on this earth even from the time of the Most Ancient Church could not possibly have been saved.

The Sense of Touch

Two passages used to support the idea that couples should not kiss or hold hands before marriage are Conjugial Love 210 (“the special sense of conjugial love is the sense of touch,”) and Arcana Coelestia 3573 (kissing means “a uniting and joining together resulting from affection”). Theolog Coleman Glenn provides good perspective on this.

Conjugial Love 210 in context is just saying that touch is specifically connected to marriage, not that it is only appropriate for marriage. And Arcana Coelestia 3573 is actually about a son kissing his father. In our culture, it's true that kissing is almost always a romantic thing, and I think most of the kissing that takes place between boyfriends and girlfriends SHOULD be saved for later - but I like cultures where kissing is just a show of ANY kind of affection, even between people of the same sex.

My thoughts on touch before marriage mostly comes from general teachings and my experience rather than particular passages. Basically, it seems to me that a lot of physical affection before marriage takes away some amount of freedom, because it links a couple in a special, exclusive way, which makes it harder for either of them to look around at other people.

In addition to this, though, I think a lot of physical touch makes a person (and maybe this particularly applies to men?) unable to see the relationship as clearly, since it can bring his/her mind down to a lower level. I can think of a passage to support this one: Conjugial Love 305:2.

That number is specifically talking about betrothed people, and I'm fairly sure “physical conjunction” refers to sex, but the principle is the same: things that come from a natural, physcial desire get in the way of a proper progression of conjugial love.

How Much Do We Need to Understand to Believe?

In theological school today we had a good discussion of how much we need to understand something before we can believe it. Arcana Coelestia 1072 says that

[Spirits] who are in the faith of charity do not reason about the truths of faith, but say that the thing is so, and also as far as possible confirm it by... sense and memory, and analysis of reason; but as soon as anything obscure comes... which they do not perceive, they defer it, and never suffer such a thing to bring them into doubt, saying that there are but very few things they can apprehend, and therefore to think that anything is not true because they do not apprehend it, would be madness.

Doctrine of Faith 2, on the other hand, says,

Faith itself is an acknowledgment that a thing is so, because it is true. For he who is in real faith thinks and speaks to this effect: “This is true, and therefore I believe it.” .... Moreover, if he does not comprehend a thing to be true, he says: “I do not know whether this is true or not; and therefore I do not yet believe it. How can I believe what I do not comprehend? It may possibly be false.”

Doctrine of Faith 3 helped us understand that what's necessary to believe something is not so much a complete understanding of it but a sight that it is true.

Spiritual truths... are as capable of being comprehended as natural truths; and although the comprehension of them may not be clear, still when they are heard they fall so far within the perception of the hearer that he can discern whether they are truths or not; and this is especially the case with those who are affected by truths.

The Need to Start With General Truths

In the New Church we can often get focussed on trying to figure out the details of the internal sense of the Word. I recently ran across Arcana Coelestia 865:1-2 which explains that before we're regenerate we need to understand and apply the general truths from the literal sense first before we can have any chance of understanding the finer details.

[The spiritual man] can know nothing of the truth of faith except from what is revealed in the Word, where all things are stated in a general way[.] [G]enerals are but as the spots of a cloud, for every general comprehends in it thousands and thousands of particulars, and each particular thousands and thousands of singulars, all generals being illustrated by the singulars of the particulars. These have never been so revealed to man, because they are both indescribable and inconceivable, and so can neither be acknowledged nor believed in; for they are contrary to the fallacies of the senses in which man is, and which he does not easily permit to be destroyed. ...

For example: that true marriage is that of one man with one wife.... The spiritual man, who knows this from the Word of the Lord, acquiesces in it, and hence admits as a matter of conscience that marriage with more wives than one is a sin; but he knows no more. The celestial man however perceives thousands of things which confirm this general, so that marriage with more wives than one excites his abhorrence.