each other, and falsity and truth in collision as well. This makes it clear
what “the grinding” or “gnashing of teeth” means in the Word. Teeth cor-
respond to reasoning based on mistaken impressions from our senses.
[ 10 ] (j) The educated and the scholarly who are deeply convinced of
falsities—especially people who oppose the truths in the Word—are
more sense-oriented than others, although that is not how they seem to
the world. People who are sense-oriented are the foremost developers of
heresies.
[ 11 ] (k) For the most part, hypocrites, deceitful people, hedonists,
adulterers, and misers are sense-oriented.
[ 12 ] (l) The ancients had a term for people who debate on the basis of
sense impressions alone and speak against genuine truths in the Word
and the church: they called them serpents of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil.
Sense impressions mean things that impinge on our physical senses and
are experienced by those senses. This point leads to a number of others:
[ 13 ] (m) We are in touch with the world by means of sense impres-
sions and with heaven by means of impressions on our rationality, which
transcend sense impressions.
[ 14 ] (n) Sense impressions supply things from the physical world that
serve the inner realms of the mind in the spiritual world.
[ 15 ] (o) There are sense impressions that feed the intellect: they are var-
ious earthly objects that are labeled “material.” There are sense impressions
that feed the will: they are called the pleasures of the senses and the body.
[ 16 ] (p) Unless our thought is lifted above the level of our sense
impressions, we have very little wisdom. Wise people think above the
level of sense impressions. When our thinking rises above sense impres-
sions, it enters a clearer light and eventually comes into the light of
heaven. From this light we get the awareness of truth that constitutes real
intelligence.
[ 17 ] (q) The ancients knew how to lift their minds above sense
impressions and take their minds away from them.
[ 18 ] (r) If sense impressions have the lowest priority, they help open a
pathway for the intellect. We then extrapolate truths by a method of
extraction. On the other hand, if sense impressions have the highest pri-
ority, that pathway is closed and truths are not visible to us except as if
they were in a fog or in the dark of night.
[ 19 ] (s) For wise people, sense impressions have the lowest priority
and are subservient to things that are deep inside. For unwise people,
singke
(singke)
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