Church of the Holy City

True Adult Innocence

True Adult Innocence
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
September 18, 2011

Ezekiel 34:11-15 Mark 10:13-16 Psalm 19

This Sunday I would like to reflect on the subject of innocence. We immediately think of children when we consider innocence, and for that reason, I chose the New Testament passage in which Jesus praises children. And for an Old Testament reading I selected a passage from Ezekiel in which God says, “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep.” Being led by God, as we will see, is an essential aspect of heavenly innocence, so the Ezekiel passage treats directly of innocence, and does so as well by the use of the most innocent of animals, the sheep. But in Swedenborg’a theology, true innocence is an adult property. Not only can adults be innocent, like children, only adults are capable of true innocence. Swedenborg calls this adult innocence the innocence of wisdom.
Innocence is a very difficult quality to describe. We know it when we see it, but to describe just what it is isn’t very easy. Swedenborg acknowledges this,
Not many people in our world know what innocence is or what its quality is . . . It is, of course, visible to our eyes–something about the face and the voice and the gestures, especially of infants–but still we do not know what it is (HH 276).
But it is a quality that is imperative for our regeneration. This is why Jesus singles out little children and says, “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15). I would emphasize the phrase, “Like a little child.” We need to be like little children, not children themselves. Salvation is like the state of children. And this likeness to children is that elusive quality of innocence.
Swedenborg contrasts the innocence of children with the innocence of wisdom, which adults have. He says, surprisingly, that children do not possess real innocence. This is because they are not yet their own persons. They do not have a rational mind of their own. And all of our spirituality must be freely chosen according to our best understanding–or, in other words, according to adult rationality. So Swedenborg says,
The innocence of infancy, or of little ones, is not real innocence . . . because they do not have any internal thought–they do not yet know what good and evil are (HH 277).
Some may quibble with this passage and say that children know very well what it is to be good and bad. But I think that what Swedenborg means here is that children do not weigh options, consider choices, and decide on their best course of action. Children are spontaneous and unreflective. Furthermore, for the most part their understanding of good and bad is almost entirely what their parents tell them–not what they, themselves, have reasoned out on their own. The innocence of wisdom, however, is a property of an adult mind. It is chosen by the adult intellect and according to principles that an adult lives by. The exact age when a child attains the stage of rationality can be debated by child psychologists. For Swedenborg, it would be around late teen years.
The innocence of wisdom is real innocence because it is internal, being a property of the mind itself and therefore of our will and our consequent understanding (HH 278).
When Swedenborg does set himself the task of describing innocence, it is all in reference to a person’s relationship to God. Innocence is the acknowledgement that all the good a person does, and all the good things a person enjoys are from God. Innocence is the realization that God is the source of everything spiritual, and everything heavenly. This is the polar opposite of self-centeredness. It is God-centeredness.
Because they love nothing more than to be led of the Lord, and attribute all things they have received to Him, they are removed from self-centeredness, and as far as they are removed from self-centeredness, so far the Lord flows in (278).
When self-centeredness is removed, then a person desires the good things of heaven, which are love for God, of love of truth, and love for the neighbor. These qualities, these good things of heaven, then compose the person’s character and they are all acknowledged as coming from God, not from the self.
People in a state of innocence do not take credit for anything good, but ascribe and attribute everything to the Lord. They want to be led by Him and not by themselves, they love everything that is good and delight in everything that is true because they know and feel that loving what is good–that is, intending and doing good–is loving the Lord, and loving what is true is loving their neighbor (HH 278).
The most crucial point about adult innocence is this attribution of everything good to God. This, as I have said, is also a removal from self-centeredness. What makes this point so crucial is that only when God is acknowledged as the source of everything good, can a person open up to God’s influx. When we see and fully accept that all good is from God, then we are lifted out of what Swedenborg calls proprium. Proprium is a difficult concept, and it makes sense to import that Latin word into English since I don’t think that there is an English word that covers all that proprium means. Those who have been through spiritual growth can identify what proprium is. It is that sense of self, that self-driven action, that self-centered complex of desires, it is all that is self with a small “s”. Proprium is the source of everything evil in us. Spiritual rebirth, then, is to be lifted out of this psychological complex of self-orientation, and into a psychological complex that is God centered. Salvation, or the heavenly loves that save us, all come from God. In Heaven and Hell Swedenborg begins by saying that the Divine of the Lord is what makes heaven. Heaven is what proceeds from God. And when we have God in us, we have heaven in us. God is all the goodness, happiness, innocence, and joy that make heaven. When we have those qualities in us, we are in heaven. So this is why it is so crucial to acknowledge that God is the source of everything good. It lifts us out of proprium, and to the extent that we are lifted out of proprium God flows in, and all of heaven with Him. This is what Swedenborg means when he says, “as far as they are removed from self-centeredness, so far the Lord flows in” (HH 278). He says this again in another place. He says that the highest angels, “are separated from what is of themselves, so that they live as it were in the Lord” (HH 280). They live in the Lord. Or put another way, the Lord lives in them.
I don’t mean to diminish the innocence of children entirely. We all feel that God and the highest angels are close to little children. Try reading the Bible to a little child. The unconditional love that a child gives his or her parents comes straight from God. And children play together in a mutual charity that emulates that of angels filled with love for the neighbor. It is in this state of childhood that many of our feelings for God are born. These early feelings of love remain with us and are a dwelling place for God in our hearts. But children can’t lay claim to this innocence. And it sadly fades with the onset of maturity.
When an adult is in innocence, he or she desires nothing more than to be led by God, not by proprium, just as a little child is led by their parents. Swedenborg writes, “They want to be led by Him and not by themselves” (HH 278). Again, “they love nothing more than to be led by the Lord, and attribute all things they have received to Him” (HH 278). But let us not confuse this with being gullible or incapable of independent thought. In fact, those who are in true adult innocence are the wisest of people or angels. This is because they are filled with God. And God is Infinite Love and Infinite Wisdom. Innocent people indeed appear at time to be simple, but their good nature leads them to do and love everything that is Godly and good. This is what wisdom consists in.
They appear simple in outward form, and before the eyes of angels of the lower heavens they seem like children, thus as little ones, and also as not very wise, although they are the wisest of the angels of heaven (HH 280).
Since they ascribe all they have to God, God’s wisdom can flow into them and they are given spiritual perception and intelligence that far surpasses worldly intelligence. So Swedenborg writes of the truly innocent,
These for the most part appear simple in outward form, but they are wise and prudent inwardly. These are those who are meant by the Lord, “Be as prudent as serpents, and simple as doves (Matt. 10:16) (HH 278).
Those who receive more and more of God’s Infinite Love and Wisdom and who attribute everything to God become like children, but, as Swedenborg says, wise children,
Innocence attributes nothing of good to itself, but ascribes all good to the Lord, and because it thus loves to be led by the Lord, and from this is all reception of good and truth, from which is wisdom therefore a person is created so that . . . when he become old [he] becomes again like a child, but a wise child (HH 278).
I would emphasize here that a person who ascribes everything to God receives what is good and what is true in a preeminent sense. This would make their spiritual wisdom very great, indeed. There is a remarkable passage in Heaven and Hell about truly innocent people. The channels to God are so open, they can actually receive intuitive messages directly from God,
Divine truth, which they hear either immediately from the Lord of mediately from through the Word and preaching, they receive directly in the will and do it, and thus commit it to life (HH 280).
So the truly innocent can receive instruction directly from God, and as they ascribe everything to God they receive more than others God’s Infinite Wisdom. Also, the innocent immediately apply what they know to their lives, and have it written on their hearts and minds. This means that they would make the best choices and decisions in their lives, and that is what intelligence means.
As we know when we are around little children, and sometimes when we are in a spiritually healthy community, we can feel a wonderful bliss. This bliss can also come in prayer, in meditation, and especially when we are reading the Bible devoutly. This bliss is the state of innocence and its pure, heavenly enjoyment. I will conclude this reflection on innocence with a remarkable passage from Heaven and Hell,
Because innocence is the inmost in all the good of heaven, it so affects the mind of one who feels it–as on the approach of an angel of the inmost heaven–that he seems to himself to be no longer his own, and hence to be affected and as it were carried away with such a delight that every delight of the world appears to be nothing in comparison. I say this from having felt it (HH 282).

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