New Church Life November/December 2017 | Page 44

new church life: november/december 2017 auxiliary studies. Liberation of thought springing up in the wake of the Reformation led people to question many of the things taught in the medieval world. The limiting dominion of Catholic thought was gradually broken, and over the next centuries human understanding would grow exponentially, both outward into the universe and inward into the human body. The mysteries of science slowly revealed themselves, philosophy asked new questions, and explored new ways of answering them. It was as if shackles had been cast off, and people could move with a freedom never experienced before. Of course, not everyone experienced this; there was still vast ignorance, pain and cruelty in the world, for true faith and charity could no more exist in the wake of Luther’s teaching than it did in the Catholic Church. But the building blocks of the Last Judgment and the New Church were slowly being formed. When New Church historians consider Martin Luther and the Reformation in the light of the Heavenly Doctrine, it becomes clear that he set into motion events that would make the Last Judgment and the formation of the New Church possible. Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses did not arrest the decline of the church. The work Brief Exposition makes it clear that when the dust settled there was little major difference in doctrine before and after the Reformation. The Reformation may not have restored the Church, but slowed down the decline until all the other pieces needed for the New Church were in place. One can compare this to an airplane coming in to land, but being put into a holding pattern, circling the airport until its turn to land arrives. The Heavenly Doctrine could not have been written if the Bible was still withheld from people; it could not have been published where there was no freedom of religious thought in at least some countries in Europe. It could not have contained the many scientific references if they had not been discovered. These things did not exist during Luther’s life, yet they were in place, at a sufficient level to reveal a rational teaching of truth so that when Swedenborg was well schooled in them, he could begin his work. When New Church historians consider Martin Luther and the Reformation in the light of the Heavenly Doctrine, it becomes clear that he set into motion events that would make the Last Judgment and the formation of the New Church possible. 510