SOURCE: Dole, George F. and Robert H. Kirven. “Key Concepts in Swedenborg's Theology.” In A Scientist Explores Spirit: A Compact Biography of Emanuel Swedenborg with Key Concepts of Swedenborg's Theology, pp. 66-79. New York, N.Y. and West Chester, Pa.: Swedenborg Foundation, 1992.

In the following essay, Dole and Kirven elucidate key ideas in Swedenborg's religious thinking concerning God, humanity, love, and his theory of correspondence which they explain have as their foundation the concepts of “distinguishable oneness” and the reality of spirit.

In paragraph 172 of his last published work, True Christian Religion, Swedenborg wrote, “Anyone who reads the Athanasian Creed with open eyes can see that nothing less than a trinity of gods was understood by the participants in the Council of Nicea, who brought forth that creed like a stillborn infant.” Yet beginning at paragraph 55 of an earlier work, The Doctrine of the Lord, he had written...