22. It is quite impossible for the natural man to get to know from his reason that God is the very, sole and prime source, called Being and Coming-into-Being in itself, from which everything that exists or comes into being is derived. For the natural man who relies upon his own reason can only attribute these things to nature; for this squares with his own essence, which has had nothing but this idea supplied to it from infancy and childhood. But since man has been created so that he should be spiritual too, because he is destined to live after death, and that life will be among spiritual beings in their world, God has provided the Word, in which He has revealed not only Himself, but also the existence of heaven and hell, in one or the other of which every human being will live to eternity, depending in each case on the way he has lived and at the same time what he has believed. In the Word too God has revealed that He is I am or Being, and the very and sole source which is self-existent, and thus the prime or beginning from which everything comes.
[2] This revelation has made it possible for the natural man to rise above nature, and thus above himself, and see the things which are God's. Yet he can only do this as it were from a distance, although God is present near at hand with every person, for God is in him with His essence. For this reason He is near at hand to those who love Him, and those who love Him are those who live according to His commandments and believe in Him; these people as it were see Him. What is faith but one's spirit seeing that it is so? And what is it to live according to His commandments but to acknowledge Him in practice as the source of salvation and everlasting life? But those whose faith is not spiritual, but natural, (that is, a faith which is mere knowledge) and who therefore live in the same way, they can certainly see God, but do so from a distance, and only when they speak about Him. The difference between the two groups is like that between those who stand in broad daylight, seeing and touching people near them, and those who stand in a thick fog, which prevents them from seeing whether they are people, trees or rocks; [3] or those who live in a city on a high mountain and go about hither and thither and talk with their fellow citizens, and those who look down from that mountain and cannot tell whether what they see are human beings, animals or statues. Rather it is the difference between those who stand upon some planet and see their fellows there, and those who are on a different planet and look with telescopes in their hands towards the first, saying that they see human beings there, when in fact they can only make out land surfaces generally like the bright areas of the moon, and seas as dark patches. Such is the distinction between those who believe and at the same time live a life of charity, seeing in their minds God and what is Divine proceeding from Him, and those who merely have knowledge about these subjects; thus the distinction is as between natural and spiritual men. Those, however, who deny the Divine holiness of the Word, and still carry around the trappings of religion as it were in a sack thrown over the shoulder, fail to see God and merely repeat the word 'God', almost exactly like parrots.
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