# The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained/Chapter13

XIII.—Apparent and Real Truths of Scripture.
The Volume of Revelation, like the volume of nature, abounds in the mere appearances of truth. ​These are very different from the real truths which underlie such appearances, and which require for their discernment the faithful exercise of our best faculties. The most unreasonable and absurd doctrines find some support from the letter of Scripture interpreted without the light of reason, or in the way the natural man is ever inclined to interpret it. All the numerous errors and corruptions which have crept into the church, have sprung from a too literal interpretation of Scripture, or from neglecting to exercise the reason and understanding, and so failing to discover its spirit, or the deeper meaning which lies wrapped up in the letter. Accordingly Swedenborg—after telling us that there is a correspondence between natural and spiritual things like that between body and soul, and that the Sacred Scripture contains a spiritual as well as a natural sense throughout, which cannot be discerned without the exercise of the rational understanding—says:
It is known to all who read the Bible, that the dispositions, feelings and passions of unregenerate men, are not unfrequently attributed to God in the letter of Scripture. He is said to be angry, jealous and revengeful; to hate, punish, tempt and cast into hell. And such is the apparent but not the real truth. The real truth is quite the reverse of this appearance. It is, that God is love, mercy and forgiveness, and that He cannot hate or punish any one. The reason that He sometimes appears to be and to do as the letter represents, is because of the anger, hatred, revenge, and the like, in unregenerate hearts; for every one sees God from and according to his own state. His appearance, therefore, is in perfect correspondence with the states of those to whom He essays to reveal Himself. To the supremely selfish heart ​the Divine Being must ever appear the opposite of what He really is. The appearance is a true appearance, resulting from the opposite state in and from which He is viewed.
We have in the realm of nature many such appearances of truth, which are very different from the real truth. Yet we continue to speak according to the appearance, even after it is known that the language we employ does not express the real but only the apparent truth. For example, we say that the sun rises in the morning and goes down in the evening. Yet we know that this is a fallacy, and that such language, literally interpreted, conveys an idea quite foreign to the real truth. Our reason, along with our knowledge of the solar system, enables us to correct this sensuous appearance, and to see that this apparent upward and downward movement of the sun, is caused by our own and not by the sun's motion—that is, by the diurnal revolution of the earth on its axis.
And the universe is full of such fallacious appearances, which are gradually dissipated as the knowledge of its laws increases. But this can be effected only through the faithful exercise of the reason that God has given us. And why should there not be the same fallacious appearances in the Word as in the works of God?—appearances that can only be dissipated by an increase of spiritual ​knowledge, or a better understanding of spiritual laws, which may be gained from revelation and the faithful exercise of our higher season.