1. THE FAITH OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW CHURCH

A statement of faith, set out in both universal and particular terms, is placed at the beginning to serve as a preface to the book which follows, to be like a doorway leading into a church, and a summary presenting in a short compass what follows at more length. It is called the faith of the new heaven and the new church, because heaven, where the angels are, and the church among men form a single unit, just as the internal and external sides of the personality make up a single individual. This is why a member of the church who possesses the good of love which arises from the truths of faith, and possesses the truths of faith which arise from the good of love, is, so far as the interiors of his mind are concerned, an angel of heaven. Therefore too after dying he comes into heaven, and there enjoys happiness depending upon how far the good and truth are linked. It should be known that in the new heaven, which is at the present time being established by the Lord, this statement of faith serves as its preface, doorway and summary.

14. (vii) ANY PERSON WHO DOES NOT ACKNOWLEDGE GOD IS EXCOMMUNICATED FROM THE CHURCH AND DAMNED.

The reason why a person who does not acknowledge God is excommunicated from the church is that God is everything to the church and the Divine truths, which we call theology, are what make it a church. Consequently to deny God is to deny everything to do with the church; and it is this very denial which excommunicates a person, so that it is not God but the person who excommunicates himself. The reason why he is damned is that by being excommunicated from the church he is also excommunicated from heaven. For the church on earth and the heaven of angels act as one, like the internal and the external, or the spiritual and the natural in the case of a person. Man was created by God so as to have his internal in the spiritual world and his external in the natural world. Thus he was created a denizen of either world in order that the spiritual, which is heavenly, should be planted in the natural, which is worldly, just as a seed is planted in the ground, and he might thus become steadfast and enduring to eternity.

[2] A person who by denying God has excommunicated himself from the church, and thus from heaven, has shut off his internal man in respect of the will, and so in respect of the love which gives him pleasure. For a person's will is the receiver of his love and becomes its dwelling-place. But he cannot shut off his internal man in respect of the understanding, for if he could do this he would cease to be a human being. But the love in his will makes the higher regions of the understanding foolish with false notions, so that the understanding becomes as it were shut off from the truths which have to do with belief and the kinds of good which have to do with charity; thus he becomes more and more opposed to God and at the same time the spiritual side of the church. Thus he is cut off from communion with the angels of heaven, and by this exclusion he brings himself into communion with the satans of hell, and thinks exactly like them. All satans deny God and have foolish ideas about the spiritual side of the church, and a person who is linked with them does likewise.

[3] When this person is under the guidance of his spirit, which is when he is left to himself at home, he allows his thoughts to be guided by the pleasures of evil and falsity which he has conceived and brought to birth in himself. He then thinks that God does not exist, or that He is a mere word resounding from pulpits, to oblige the common people to obey the laws of the land, on which the community depends. He also thinks that the Word, which makes ministers keep harping on God, is a collection of visions or a mere compilation, the holiness of which has been established by authority. He regards the Ten Commandments or the catechism as a book, which when it has been worn out through handling by children, can be thrown away. For it laid down that parents are to be honoured, one is not to kill or go whoring, not to steal or bear false witness; and does not everyone know these same rules from the code of civil law? He thinks of the church as a mere congregation of the simple, the gullible and the weak-minded, who fancy they see what they do not. He regards human beings, and he includes himself among them, as animals; and his life after death as no different from that of an animal after death.

[4] This is how his internal man thinks, however differently the external man speaks. As said before, every man has an internal and an external: the internal, which is called the spirit, is what makes him human, and this lives on after death, while the external, which allows him to play the hypocrite by a show of morality, is buried. Then he is damned, because he denied God. Everyone is in his spirit associated with people like himself in the spiritual world, and is so to speak one with them. I have often been allowed to see the spirits of people still alive, some of them in communities of angels there, and others in communities of hell. I have been allowed to talk with them for days, and I was astonished to find that the person, who was still alive in the body, knew nothing at all of it. This experience made it clear that those who deny God are already among the damned, and after death are gathered to their own kind.

24. (v) THE PLURALITY OF GODS IN ANCIENT TIMES, AS WELL AS TODAY, WAS ENTIRELY THE RESULT OF A FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THE DIVINE BEING.

It was shown above (8) that the oneness of God is inwardly impressed upon the mind of every person, since this idea forms the core of all the influences from God which affect the soul of man. But the reason why it has failed to come down into men's understanding is the lack of the pieces of knowledge which a person should have to enable him to climb up to meet God. For everyone needs to prepare the way for God, that is, to prepare himself to receive God, and pieces of knowledge are the means to this end. The following are the missing pieces of knowledge which prevent the understanding from penetrating to the point at which it can see that God is one and there can only be a single Divine Being, who is the source of all natural phenomena.

(1) The fact that no one up to now has known anything about the spiritual world, the home of spirits and angels, and the place where every person comes after death.

(2) Equally, that the spiritual world possesses a sun, which is pure love from Jehovah God, who is in its midst.

(3) That from that sun radiate heat, which is in essence love, and light, which is in essence wisdom.

(4) That as a result everything in that world is spiritual, working on the internal man and making up his will and understanding.

(5) That Jehovah God has given rise by this sun of His not only to the spiritual world and all the innumerable spiritual and substantial things in it, but also to the natural world with all the innumerable natural things in it, which are composed of matter.

(6) That up to now no one has known the difference between the spiritual and the natural, nor what the spiritual is in essence.

(7) Nor that there are three degrees of love and wisdom, which form the basis of the arrangement of the heavens of angels.

(8) That the human mind is divided into the same number of degrees, to enable it after death to be lifted into one of the three heavens, depending upon the way a person has lived and at the same time what he has believed.

(9) And finally that not a jot of all this could have come into being except from the Divine Being which is God in itself, and thus the first principle and beginning from which everything comes. These pieces of knowledge have up to now been missing, yet it is through them that a person must climb up and get to know the Divine Being.

[2] We say that a person climbs up, but it must be understood that it is God who lifts him up. A person has a free choice in acquiring knowledge; and he seems to get this for himself from the Word by means of the understanding, and thus smooths the path for God to come down and lift him up. The pieces of knowledge which enable the human understanding to climb, while God holds it in His hand and guides it, can be compared to the steps of the ladder seen by Jacob, which was set up on earth so that its top reached heaven and angels climbed up by means of it, and Jehovah stood above it (Genesis 28:12-13).

It is quite different when those pieces of knowledge are lacking, or a person treats them with contempt. Then the lifting of the understanding can be compared to a ladder erected from the ground to a first floor window of a magnificent palace, where men live, but not to the second floor windows where the spirits are, much less to the third floor windows where the angels are. The result is that such a person cannot escape from the atmospheres and material objects of the natural world, which occupy his eyes, ears and nose. From these he cannot help acquiring atmospheric and material ideas about heaven and the Being and Essence of God. Thought along these lines does not allow a person to make up his mind at all about God, whether He exists or not, or whether there is one God or several; much less, what His Being and Essence are like. It was this which led to the plurality of gods in ancient times, and still does to-day.