But the moment
these spirits relapsed into themselves, and turned back to the love
of their will, they had no comprehension of truths and affirmed the
opposite. [2] I have also heard certain dwellers in hell saying that
they knew and perceived that which they did to be evil and that which
they thought to be false; but that they were unable to resist the
delight of their love, that is, their will, and that it is their will
that drives their thought to see evil as good and falsity as truth.
Evidently, then, those that are in falsity from evil have the ability
to understand and be rational, but have no wish to; and they have no
wish to for the reason that they have loved falsities more than
truths, because these agree with the evils in which they are. To love
and to will is the same thing, for what a man wills he loves, and
what he loves he wills. [3] Because the state of men is such that
they are able to understand truths if they wish to, I have been
permitted to confirm spiritual truths, which are truths of heaven and
the church, even by reasonings, and this in order that the falsities
by which the rational mind in many has been closed up may be
dispersed by reasonings, and thus the eye may perhaps in some degree
be opened; for to confirm spiritual goods by reasonings is permitted
to all that are in truths.
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