SOURCE: Lang, Bernhard. “Glimpses of Heaven in the Age of Swedenborg.” In Swedenborg and His Influence, edited by Erland J. Brock et al., pp. 309-38. Bryn Athyn, Penn.: Academy of the New Church, 1988.

In the following essay, Lang argues that Swedenborg was largely responsible for the shift in the eighteenth century from the “theocratic” scholastic model, in which Christians focused on the divine, to an “anthropocentric” model that emphasizes the human element, and that he gave the new model its most intellectually satisfying and emotionally relevant form.

If Christians believe in an eternal life after death, it should not be surprising to see them form, over the centuries, a variety of conceptions and images of the world beyond. A look at these images reveals a basic tension or polarity between two models. The first and historically earlier model finds its classical expression in medieval scholasticism. According to a...