25.⑵世上的生活结束之后，每个人都会活到永远。这一点从以下事实明显可知：那时，他不再是属世的，而是属灵的；与属世人分离的一个属灵人永远保持它的本性，因为人的状态死后无法更改。此外，每个人的属灵层都与神性结合，因为它能思想神性，也能热爱神性，并能被来自神性的一切所吸引，如教会的教导。这意味着它能通过思维和意愿，也就是构成他生命的属灵人的两个官能而被联结于神性。凡如此联结于神性者，就永远不会死，因为神性与它同在，并将它联结于自己。
人就心智而言，也被造为天堂的形式，天堂的形式来自神性本身。这一点可见于《天堂与地狱》一书，那里说明：主的神性构成并形成天堂（7-12，78-86节）；人被造为一个最小形式的天堂（57节）；天堂整体上类似一个人（59-66节）；因此，一位天使拥有一个完美的人的形式（73-77节）；一位天使就是一个属灵方面的人。
此外，我经常与天使们谈论这个话题。令他们大为惊讶的是，在基督教界被誉为聪明并被其他人认为聪明的人当中，有许多人完全拒绝相信自己的不朽，反而相信死后人的灵魂会消散，就像动物的灵魂一样。他们没有意识到人的生命和动物生命之间的区别；人拥有能上升到他自己之上的思维，能思想神、天堂、爱、信，以及属灵和道德的良善，真理等等，因而能被提升到神性本身那里，并通过这一切事物与祂结合。然而，动物无法被提升到自己的属世层之上，以至于思想这些事。因此，死后它们的属灵层无法与它们的属世层分离，以至于像人的属灵层那样凭自己活着。这也是为何一个动物的生命会与它的属世生命一起消散。
天使说，基督教界许多所谓的聪明人之所以不相信自己生命的不朽，是因为他们从心里否认神性的存在，承认自然，而不是神性。那些基于这些前提思考的人不能通过与神性联结而思想任何永恒，因而无法想象人的状态与动物的状态之间有什么不同，因为一旦神性从他们的思维中清除，永恒也就清除了。
此外，天使还声称，每个人里面都有一个生命的至内层或至高层，或说一个至内或至高之物，主的神性最近地流入其中。主从这个至高点安排构成属灵和属世人的其它一切内层，这些内层照着秩序的两个层级而逐层下降。天使称这至内或至高部分为主进入人的门户，是祂在人里面最本质的住所。他们还说，人凭这至内或至高部分而为人，并与缺乏它的动物区别开来；这就是为何与动物不同，人能拥有属于其心智和性情的内层，能被主提升到祂自己那里，能信祂，感受到对祂的爱，能接受聪明和智慧，说话理性。
当我问他们，那些否认神性，否认将人的生命与神性本身联结起来的神性真理之人还能不能活到永远时，他们回答说，这些人也有思考和意愿、因而相信和热爱来自神性的事物的官能，和那些承认神性的人一样；这种思考和意愿的官能使他们同样能活到永远。他们补充说，这种官能就来自刚才所提到的在每个人里面的至高或至内部分。就连地狱里的人都有这种官能，并从中获得推理和出言反对神性真理的能力，这一点在许多地方已经说明。这就是为何每个人都会活到永远，无论他是哪种人。
由于每个人死后都会活到永远，所以天使和灵人不可能想到死亡；事实上，他们压根不知道死亡为何物。因此，当圣言提到“死”时，天使要么理解为诅咒，就是灵义上的死亡，要么理解为生命的延续和复活。说这些事是为了证实，自创世之初以来，所有曾生而为人且已离世者都活着，有的在天堂，有的在地狱。
25. As for the fact that after life in the physical world everyone goes on living to eternity, this follows from the fact that we are then spiritual and no longer earthly, and that the spiritual self separated from the earthly retains its essential nature to eternity because our state cannot be changed after death. 1
Further, everyone's spiritual self is joined to the Divine, since it can think about the Divine, and can also love the Divine and be drawn to everything that comes from the Divine, such as the teachings of the church. This means it can be united to the Divine in its thinking and willing, and these two abilities are the spiritual self and constitute its life. Anything that can be joined to the Divine in this way cannot ever die, because the Divine is present with it and joins it to itself.
[2] For another thing, on the level of our mind we have been created in the form of heaven, and the form of heaven is from the Divine itself, as you can tell from material in Heaven and Hell. See “It is the Lord's Divine Nature that Makes and Forms 2Heaven” (7-12, see also 78-86); material in 57 on the fact that each of us has been created to be a heaven in least form; “The Whole Heaven, Grasped as a Single Entity, Reflects a Single Individual” (59-67); and “Therefore [Every] Angel Is in Perfect Human Form” (73-77). In fact, our spiritual self is an angel.
[3] I have often talked with angels about this, and they have been amazed that if you look at the people in the Christian world who are called intelligent and whom others believe actually are intelligent, you find many who have completely discarded from their faith any idea of immortality in regard to their own life. They believe that the human soul dissipates at death just like the soul of an animal. 3They do not see any difference between the life in humans and the life in animals, namely, that we are able to think of things beyond ourselves such as God, heaven, love, faith, what is spiritually and morally good, what is true, and the like, and in so doing be raised up toward the Divine itself and be joined to it by all these means. Animals, on the other hand, cannot be raised above their own earthly nature to think about things like this, so their spiritual nature cannot be separated from their earthly nature after death 4and live on its own the way our spiritual self can. This is why an animal's life is dissipated when its earthly life is over. 5
[4] Angels told me that the reason many of the so-called intelligent in the Christian world do not believe that their own life will be immortal is that at heart they deny the Divine and credit everything to nature instead; and people who base their thinking on this premise cannot conceive of any eternity through being joined to the Divine. As a result, they cannot conceive of any difference between our state and the state of animals, since once the Divine has been eliminated from their thinking, eternity has been eliminated as well.
[5] Angels have also said that there is within every human an innermost or highest level of life-or an innermost and highest something-where the divine nature of the Lord flows in first and most intimately. From this highest point the Lord arranges the other things within us that make up our spiritual and earthly selves, descending level by level in accord with the way we are designed. The angels called this innermost or highest something the Lord's gateway to us and his quintessential dwelling within us. They also said that this innermost or highest something is what makes us human and distinguishes us from mere animals, which do not have it, and that this is why we, unlike animals, can have our inner levels-our higher and lower mind-raised by the Lord to himself. This allows us to believe in him, be moved with love for him, and be granted intelligence and wisdom and the ability to speak on the basis of reason.
[6] Asked whether people live forever if they deny the Divine and reject divine truths, which are the means by which our lives are united to the Divine, the angels said that such people, just like those who acknowledge the Divine, retain the ability to think and intend and therefore to believe and love the kinds of things that come from the Divine; and that this is the ability that makes it possible for them to live to eternity like everyone else. The angels added that this ability comes to people from that aforementioned innermost or highest something that everyone has. They gave extensive evidence that even the people in hell have this ability, and that it is the source of their ability to argue and speak against divine truths. That is why everyone, regardless of what they are like, lives to eternity.
[7] Since everyone lives forever after death, no angel-no spirit, even-has any thought whatever about death. They do not even know what dying is. So when “death” is mentioned in the Word, angels take it to mean either damnation, which is spiritual death, or else ongoing life and resurrection. 6
All this has been said to make the point that all humans without exception who have been born and have died since the beginning of creation are alive-some in heaven and some in hell.
Footnotes:
1. The assertion that our state cannot be changed after death refers to the particular character we have developed on earth, which determines, among other things, whether we end up in heaven or in hell. Specifically, Swedenborg states that after death our “dominant love” (see New Jerusalem 54-58) remains fixed and unchanging to eternity. For more on what remains permanent in us after death, see Heaven and Hell 470-484; Divine Providence 317-319; Marriage Love 46-48a. By contrast to this permanency in our characters, variations in our mental and emotional life do take place in the afterlife; in fact, an entire chapter of Heaven and Hell (154-161) is devoted to how the states of angels in heaven change in intensity, “like variations of light and shade” (155). [GFD, LSW]
2. The actual chapter title in question omits the words “and Forms” (et formet). [GFD]
3. Which particular thinkers Swedenborg has in mind here cannot be determined; it can only be shown that the idea that the soul ceases to exist after death was in his time readily met with in both ancient and contemporary literature. Enlightenment skeptics delighted in maintaining that Jewish belief-at least before the rise of the sect of the Pharisees in the first century B.C.E.-seemed to deny the survival of the soul. (See, for example, Voltaire's article “Resurrection” in his Philosophical Dictionary, section 1 [= Voltaire [1764] 1962, 449].) This analysis of Jewish belief was based on such Old Testament passages as Ecclesiastes 3:19, 21: “The fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same: as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals. . . . Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth?” (New Revised Standard Version). In Greek and Roman culture, the idea that the soul dies can be traced at least as far back as the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 B.C.E.); see Rist 1972, 119. The most eloquent and sustained argument for this view in ancient literature can be found in book 3 of De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) by Titus Lucretius Carus (see note 1 in Last Judgment 16). In the Christian era, there were a number of significant but disparate thinkers and religious movements that subscribed to the belief that the human soul dies with the body as does the life of an animal; but that unlike the animal soul, the human soul is brought back into existence again at the Day of Judgment. Their versions of this theory are now lumped together under the label of Christian mortalism. This view can be traced in thinkers as divergent as Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Milton (1608-1674), and Richard Overton (flourished 1642-1663). For a discussion of this widespread belief as it is evidenced in England, see Burns 1972; see also Jolley 1998, 382-385, and Thomson 2008, 42-44. [RS, SS, FLS]
4. [Swedenborg note] There is an inflow from the spiritual world into the lives of animals as well, but it is a general one and not an individualized one like that of humans: 1633, 3646. The difference between us and animals is that we can be raised above ourselves toward the Lord, and can think about the Divine, love it, and thereby be joined to the Lord, which gives us eternal life; it is different for animals, which cannot be raised up to such levels: 4525, 6323, 9231.
5. The philosophers of the Enlightenment period were especially intrigued with the question of the difference between animals and humans; ultimately the assertion that there was any difference at all became a shibboleth that distinguished believers from atheists. Descartes had argued in the 1600s that animals were essentially automata (Descartes [1637] 1952, 59), and other philosophers took the next step in this line of thinking, asserting that humans were only a special form of machine; see, for example, the notorious L'Homme machine (The Human Being as Machine [= La Mettrie [1747] 1994]) by the atheist writer Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751). A parallel line of thinking concluded that since animals did not have souls, humans could not possess souls either. Here and in other passages (for example, Secrets of Heaven 4760:2, 5114:5) Swedenborg condemns these trends of thought. He adheres more closely to the classical view, advanced in such writers as Aristotle-for example, in Politics 1332b (= Aristotle 1984, 2114), where he asserts that human beings alone have reason. (For examples of this claim in Swedenborg's works, see Secrets of Heaven 1944:1, 2219:2; Divine Love and Wisdom 351; Divine Providence 74:1, 210:1; Marriage Love 416:3, 438, 455; Revelation Explained [= Swedenborg 1994-1997a] 152:2, 280:1.) Ultimately, Swedenborg insists, animals in this world are, though physically real, still only symbols corresponding to human qualities that exist in the spiritual world (Secrets of Heaven 10042:2). For further discussion of the general topic of animals during the Enlightenment, see Senior 2007 and True Christianity vol. 1 (= Swedenborg [1771] 2006), page 688 note 67. For more on Swedenborg's assessment of animals, see Secrets of Heaven vol. 2 (= Swedenborg [1749-1756] 2013), page 520 note 43. For extended passages in Swedenborg's works on the difference between animals and humans, see Dynamics of the Soul's Domain (= Swedenborg [1740-1741] 1955) part 2, 337-347; The Old Testament Explained (= Swedenborg 1927-1951) 916-921; 1196:2-1202 (where the discussion is continued serially in the later subsections of each section); Marriage Love 151b:3-5; Soul-Body Interaction 15; True Christianity 48:8-13. [SS, JSR, FLS]
6. [Swedenborg note] When death is mentioned in the Word in connection with evil people, angels in heaven take it to mean damnation—which is spiritual death—and also hell: 5407, 6119, 9008. In the Word, “the living” mean people who have devoted themselves to goodness and truth; “the dead” mean people who have devoted themselves to evil and falsity: 81, 290, 7494. When the subject is good people who die, angels understand death to mean resurrection and ongoing life, because then we rise again, continue the life we had, and begin our eternal life: 3498, 3505, 4618, 4621, 6036, 6221.
25. After his life in the world everyone lives for ever. This is evident from the fact that he is then no longer natural but spiritual; and a spiritual person once separated from the natural stays in the same state for ever, since a person's state cannot change after death. Moreover every person's spiritual side is linked with the Divine, since it can think about and also love the Divine, and be acted upon by all the influences coming from the Divine, much as the church teaches. The spiritual side can as a result be linked to the Divine by willing and thinking, the two faculties of the spiritual man which make up his life. Thus a link can be made with the Divine which can never die, for the Divine is present with him and links him to Itself.
[2] Man has also been created so as mentally to be a model of heaven. The form of heaven derives from the Divine itself, as was shown in HEAVEN AND HELL (The Lord's Divine makes and forms heaven, 7-12, 78-86); man was created so as to be a model of heaven on the smallest scale (57); heaven taken all together resembles a single human being (59-66). Hence an angel has a perfect human form (73-77). An angel is a human being in his spiritual aspect.
[3] I have had a number of conversations with angels on this subject. They were extremely surprised that there are very many among those reputed intelligent in the Christian world, and believed to be intelligent by other people, who have totally rejected any idea that their life is not subject to death, but believe that the soul of a human being is dispersed after death like that of an animal. They fail to perceive the difference in the way human beings and animals live. Human beings have thoughts that can rise above themselves, and they can think about God, heaven, love, faith, spiritual and moral good, truths and such matters, thus rising to the Divine itself, and being linked to Him by all these means. Animals, however, cannot rise above their natural level so as to entertain such thoughts. As a result their spiritual side cannot be separated from their natural after death, 1and live on by itself as a human being's can. That too is the reason why an animal's life 2is dispersed together with its natural life.
[4] The angels said that the reason why many so-called intelligent people in the Christian world do not believe their life is immortal is that at heart they deny the existence of the Divine and acknowledge Nature in His place. Those who think from such premises cannot imagine how they can live for ever by being linked with the Divine, and consequently that the condition of human beings is any different from that of animals; for when they banish the idea of the Divine from their thoughts, they also banish that of eternity.
[5] They went on to say that every individual has a highest or most inward degree of life, something highest and inmost on which the Lord's Divinity primarily and most closely acts, and from which He controls the remaining interiors belonging to the spiritual and natural man and arranged in ordered sequence in them. They called this highest or most inward part the Lord's entrance into man and His truest abode with man. It is this highest or most inward part which gives man his humanity and sets him apart from dumb animals, which lack it. This is why men can, unlike animals, have their interiors, which belong to their minds and characters, raised by the Lord to Himself. Thus they can believe in Him, feel love for Him, and receive intelligence and wisdom and speak rationally.
[6] When asked whether those who deny the existence of the Divine and the Divine truths which link a person's life with the Divine Himself none the less live on for ever, they said that these had the ability to think and will, and thus to believe and love what proceeds from the Divine equally with those who acknowledge Him; and that this ability to think and will enables them equally to live for ever. They added that this ability results from that highest or most inward part everyone possesses which was mentioned just above. I have demonstrated at length that even those in hell have this ability, which enables them to reason and speak against Divine truths. This is why every person, irrespective of what sort of person he is, lives for ever.
[7] Because after death everyone lives for ever, no angel or spirit can think about death; in fact, they do not know what it is to die. Whenever therefore death is mentioned in the Word, the angels understand it as damnation, which is death in the spiritual sense, or the continuation of life and resurrection. 3These remarks are intended as confirmation that all people who have ever been born from the beginning of creation, and have died, are alive, some in heaven and some in hell.
Footnotes:
1. The spiritual world exercises an influence on the life of animals too, but this is generalised, not a specific one as in the case of human beings (1633, 3646). The difference between human beings and animals is that human beings can be raised above their own level to the Lord, so as to think about and love the Divine, and thus be linked with the Lord, which confers everlasting life. Animals differ in not being able to be so raised up (4525, 6323, 9231).
2. [Perhaps we should read 'soul' for 'life' here.]
3. When death is mentioned in the Word, it is understood in heaven as meaning the damnation of the wicked; this is spiritual death and also hell (5407, 6119, 9008). Those who possess different kinds of good and truth are called alive, those who possess different kinds of evil and falsity are called dead (81, 290, 7494). When good people are dying, death is understood in heaven as resurrection and the continuation of life, since a person then rises again, continues his life and enters upon everlasting life (3498, 3505, 4618, 4621, 6036, 6222).
25. II. That every man after the life in the world lives to eternity, is evident from this, that man is then spiritual, and no longer natural, and that the spiritual man, separated from the natural, remains such as he is to eternity, for man's state cannot be changed after death. Moreover, the spiritual of every man is in conjunction with the Divine, since it can think of the Divine, and also love the Divine, and be affected with all things which are from the Divine, such as those which the church teaches, and therefore it can be conjoined to the Divine by thought and will, which are the two faculties of the spiritual man, and constitute his life; and that which can thus be conjoined to the Divine, can never die, for the Divine is with it, and conjoins it to Himself. Man is also created to the form of heaven as to his mind, and the form of heaven is from the Divine itself, as may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell, where it has been shown, That the Divine of the Lord makes and forms Heaven (7-12, and 78-86). That Man is created to be a Heaven in the least form (57). That Heaven in the whole complex, has reference to one Man (59-66). That hence an Angel is in a perfect human Form (73-77); an angel is a man as to his spiritual. On this subject moreover, I have often spoken with the angels, who wondered exceedingly, that of those who are called intelligent in the Christian world, and who also are believed by others to be intelligent, there are very many who utterly reject the belief in their own immortality, believing that the soul of man is dissipated at death, just as the soul of a beast is; not perceiving the distinction between the life of a man and the life of a beast; that man has the power of thinking above himself, of God, of heaven, of love, of faith, of good, spiritual and moral, of truths, and the like, and that thus he may be elevated to the Divine itself, and he conjoined by all those things to Him; but that beasts cannot be elevated above their own natural, to think of such things, and consequently that their spiritual cannot be separated from their natural after death, 1so as to live by itself, as man's spiritual can: whence also it is, that the life of a beast ceases on the dissipation of its natural life. The reason why many of the so-called intelligent in the Christian world, have no belief in the immortality of their own lives, the angels declared to be this, that in heart they deny the Divine, and acknowledge nature instead of the Divine; and they who think from such principles, are not able to think of any eternity by conjunction with the Divine, nor consequently, of the state of man as dissimilar to that of beasts, for in rejecting the Divine from thought, they also reject eternity. They declared moreover, that with every man there is an inmost or supreme degree of life, or an inmost or supreme something into which the Divine of the Lord proximately inflows, and from which He disposes all the remaining interiors belonging to the spiritual and natural man, which are successive in both according to the degrees of order. This inmost or supreme they called the Lord's entrance into man, and His veriest dwelling place with him; and they said, that by this inmost or supreme, man is man, and is distinguished from brute animals which do not have it; and that hence it is, that men, as regards the interiors which are of the mind and disposition, unlike animals, can be elevated by the Lord to Himself, can have faith in Him, be affected by love to Him, and can receive intelligence and wisdom, and speak from reason. When I asked them concerning those who day the Divine, and the Divine truths, by which the conjunction of the life of man with the Divine itself is effected, and who yet live to eternity, they replied, that these also have the faculty of thinking and of willing, and therefore of believing and loving the things which are from the Divine, as well as those who acknowledge the Divine, and that by this faculty, they too live to eternity; they added, that this faculty is from that inmost or supreme which is in every man, of which mention was made above; that even those who are in hell have that faculty, and that they derive from it the power of reasoning and speaking against Divine truths, has been shown in many places. Hence it is, that every man lives to eternity, whatever be his quality. Because every man after death lives to eternity, no angel or spirit ever thinks of death; indeed they do not at all know what it is to die; wherefore, when "death" is mentioned in the Word, the angels understand by it either damnation, which is death in the spiritual sense, or the continuation of life and the resurrection. 2These things have been said in confirmation that all the men who have ever been born, and have died, from the beginning of creation, are alive, some in heaven, and some in hell.
Footnotes:
1. There is also an influx from the spiritual world into the lives of beasts, but that it is general, and not special as with man (1633, 3646). The distinction between men and beasts is, that men can be elevated above themselves to the Lord, can think of the Divine, love it, and may thus be conjoined to the Lord, whence they have eternal life; but it is otherwise with beasts, which cannot be elevated to such things (4525, 6323, 9231).
2. When "death" is mentioned in the word, and spoken of the wicked, in heaven are understood damnation, which is spiritual death, and also hell (5407, 6119, 9008). They who are in goods and truths are called "living," but they who are in evils and falsities "dead" (81, 290, 7494). By "death," when spoken of the good who die, resurrection and continuation of life are understood in heaven, for at death man rises again, continues his own life, and advances in it to eternity (3498, 3505, 4618, 4621, 6036, 6222).
25. ((ii.)) Quod omnis homo post vitam in mundo vivat in aeternum, constat ex eo, quod tunc homo spiritualis sit, et non amplius naturalis, et quod spiritualis homo separatus a naturali maneat qualis est in aeternum, nam status hominis non mutari potest post mortem. Praeterea spirituale cujusvis hominis in conjunctione est cum Divino, quoniam id potest cogitare de Divino et quoque potest amare Divinum, et affici omnibus quae a Divino sunt, qualia sunt quae ecclesia docet; proinde conjungi Divino cogitatione et voluntate, quae binae facultates sunt spiritualis hominis et faciunt ejus vitam; quod ita conjungi potest Divino, hoc in aeternum non potest mori, Divinum enim apud eum est, et eum sibi conjungit. Est quoque homo creatus ad formam caeli quoad mentem suam; et forma caeli est ex ipso Divino, ut constare potest in opere De Caelo et Inferno, ubi ostensum est, Quod Divinum Domini faciat et formet Caelum (7-12, 78-86); Quod Homo creatus sit ut sit Caelum in minima effigie (57); Quod Caelum in toto complexu referat unum Hominem (59-66); Quod inde .Angelus sit in perfecta Forma humana (73-77); angelus est homo quoad spirituale suum. De hac re aliquoties etiam locutus sum cum angelis; qui valde mirati sunt, quod ex illis qui in Christiano orbe intelligentes dicuntur, et quoque ab aliis intelligentes esse creduntur, permulti sint, qui a fide sua prorsus rejiciunt vitae suae immortalitatem, credentes animam hominis aeque dissipari post mortem sicut anima bestiae; non percipientes vitae discrimen inter hominem et bestiam, quod homo possit cogitare supra se, de Deo, de caelo, de amore, de fide, de bono spirituali et morali, de veris, et similibus, et sic quod elevari possit ad ipsum Divinum, et Ipsi per omnia illa conjungi; at quod bestiae non elevari supra naturale suum ad cogitandum talia possint, consequenter quod spirituale earum non possit separari a naturali earum post mortem, 1ac vivere per se, sicut spirituale hominis; quae etiam est causa, quod vita bestiae cum vita naturali ejus dissipetur. Quod plures intelligentes, ita dicti, in Christiano orbe non credant immortalitatem suae vitae, dicebant angeli causam, quia corde negant Divinum et pro Divino agnoscunt naturam; et illi qui ex talibus principiis cogitant, non possunt cogitare de aliqua aeternitate per conjunctionem cum Divino, consequenter nec de dissimili statu hominis a statu bestiarum, nam cum Divinum a cogitatione rejiciunt, etiam rejiciunt aeternum. Porro dicebant, quod apud unumquemvis hominem sit gradus vitae intimus seu supremus, seu intimum aut supremum quoddam, in quod Divinum Domini primum aut proxime influit, et ex quo disponit reliqua interiora, quae spiritualis et naturalis hominis sunt, et secundum gradus ordinis apud illos succedunt: hoc intimum seu supremum vocabant introitum Domini ad hominem, ac ipsissimum Illius domicilium apud illum; et quod per hoc intimum seu supremum homo sit homo, et distinguatur a brutis animalibus, quae illud non habent; et quod inde sit, quod homines secus ac animalia possint quoad interiora, quae sunt mentis et animi eorum, elevari a Domino ad Se, possint credere in Ipsum, affici amore in Ipsum, et quod possint recipere intelligentiam et sapientiam, et loqui ex ratione. Ad interrogationem de illis qui negant Divinum, ac Divina vera per quae conjunctio vitae hominis cum ipso Divino, quod usque illi vivant in aeternum, dicebant quod illis aeque facultas sit cogitandi et volendi, proinde credendi et amandi talia quae ex Divino sunt, sicut est illis qui agnoscunt Divinum, et quod illa facultas sit quae facit quod aeque in aeternum vivant; addebant quod ea facultas illis sit ex intimo seu supremo illo, quod cuivis homini inest, de quo supra dictum est; quod etiam illis qui in inferno sunt, sit illa facultas, et quod inde illis facultas ratiocinandi et loquendi contra Divina vera, multis ostensum est. Inde est, quod omnis homo, qualiscunque est, vivat in aeternum. Quia omnis homo post mortem vivit in aeternum, ideo nusquam aliquis angelus, nec aliquis spiritus, cogitat de morte, immo prorsus nesciunt quid sit mori; quapropter cum memoratur in Verbo "mors," intelligitur ab angelis vel damnatio, quae est mors in spirituali sensu, vel continuatio vitae et resurrectio. 2Haec dicta sunt; ut confirmetur quod omnes homines, quotcunque nati sunt a principio creationis, et defuncti, vivant, quidam in caelo, et quidam in inferno.
(EX ARCANIS CAELESTIBUS.)
Footnotes:
1. Quod influxus e mundo spirituali etiam sit in vitas bestiarum, sed communis, non autem specialis, sicut apud hominem (1633, 3646).
Quod discrimen inter homines et bestias sit, quod homines possint elevari supra se ad Dominum, cogitare de Divino, amare illud, sic conjungi Domino, unde ei vita aeterna, aliter bestiae, quae elevari ad talia nequeunt (4525, 6323, 9231)."2. Cum. ""mors"" nominatur in Verbo, ubi de malis, quod in caelo intelligatur damnatio, quae est mors spiritualis, tum infernum ("5407, 6119, 9008).
Quod qui in bonis et veris sunt, dicantur "vivi," qui autem in malis et falsis, "mortui" (81, 290, 7494).
Quod per "mortem," ubi agitur de bonis qui moriuntur, in caelo intelligatur resurrectio et continuatio vitae, quoniam tunc homo resurgit, continuat vitam suam, ac ingreditur aeternam (3498, 3505, 4618, 4621, 6036, 6222).