AC 3161 - From Memory to Life

AC 3161 [2]

For it is well known that man is not born rational,
but only into the capacity of becoming rational;
and that he becomes so through memory-knowledges,
namely through knowledges
of many genera and species,
the first of which are means
leading to those which follow next,
and this in order even to the last,
which are knowledges of the spiritual things
of the Lord's kingdom,
and are called doctrinal things.
That these are learned in part from the doctrine of faith,
in part immediately from the Word,
and so in part by the man's own study,
is also well known.
So long as these doctrinal things
are only in the memory,
they are only truths in the form of memory-knowledge;
nor are they yet appropriated to the man as his;
but they are for the first time
appropriated to him when he begins
to love them for the sake of life,
and still more when he applies them to life.
When this is done,
then the truths are raised
out of the natural memory into the rational,
and are there conjoined with good;
and when they have been conjoined,
they are no longer of memory-knowledge merely,
but of the life;
for then the man no longer learns from truths
how he should live,
but lives from them,
and thereby the truths are appropriated to him,
and become of the will.
Thus man enters into the heavenly marriage;
for the heavenly marriage
is the conjunction of good and truth in the rational.
These things the Lord does with men.