Description

Emanuel Swedenborg came of age with the rise of modern science and the waning of religious orthodoxy. As a theistic scientist he was at odds with the naturalism of his colleagues, and as a mystical theologian he was equally at odds with orthodox Christianity. Yet his accomplishments in science and spirituality did much to improve the lot of both: his scientific discoveries are capable of informing twenty-first-century physics and biology, and the spiritual principles he discovered are sufficiently comprehensive to support a model inclusive of both. His method is as useful today as it was in his time. To support this claim, Intelligent Default applies Swedenborg’s science, spirituality, and method to a present-day problem in the natural sciences: the evolution of organic forms. Using Swedenborg’s doctrines of influx, degrees, forms, correspondence, and others, which combine to produce a comprehensive model of spiritual causation, new light is shed on this perennial problem: natural forms are not “designed,” nor do they appear by accident. Every organic form is a “default setting,” as it were, established according to parameters inherent in matter, in response to environmental conditions, but dependent on reciprocal, functional interaction with a spiritual cause as well. These parameters are analogically reflective of the divine human form, manifesting itself in continual creation.