71. It Is a Law of Divine Providence That We Should Act in Freedom and in Accord with Reason

It is generally recognized that we have a freedom to think and intend whatever we wish but not a freedom to say whatever we think or to do whatever we wish. The freedom under discussion here, then, is freedom on the spiritual level and not freedom on the earthly level, except to the extent that the two coincide. Thinking and intending are spiritual, while speaking and acting are earthly.

There is a clear distinction between these kinds of freedom in us, since we can think things that we do not express and intend things that we do not act out; so we can see that the spiritual and the earthly in us are differentiated. As a result, we cannot cross the line from one to the other except by making a decision, a decision that can be compared to a door that has first to be unlocked and opened.

This door stands open, though, in people who think and intend rationally, in accord with the civil laws of the state and the moral laws of society. People like this say what they think and do what they wish. In contrast, the door is closed, so to speak, for people who think and intend things that are contrary to those laws. If we pay close attention to our intentions and the deeds they prompt, we will notice that there is this kind of decision between them, sometimes several times in a single conversation or a single undertaking.

I mention this at the outset so that the reader may know that "acting from freedom and in accord with reason" means thinking and intending freely, and then freely saying and doing what is in accord with reason.

545. THE LORD CASTS NO ONE INTO HELL; BUT THIS IS DONE BY THE SPIRIT HIMSELF

An opinion has prevailed with some that God turns away His face from man, rejects man from Himself, and casts him into hell, and is angry with him on account of his evil; and with some the opinion goes further, that God punishes man and does evil to him. They confirm themselves in this opinion from the sense of the letter of the Word, where similar things are said, not knowing that the spiritual sense of the Word, which explains the sense of the letter, is wholly different; and consequently that the genuine doctrine of the Church, which is from the spiritual sense of the Word, teaches otherwise, namely, that God never turns away His face from man, and never rejects man from Himself; that He casts no one into hell and is angry with no one. ¹ Everyone, moreover, whose mind is enlightened, perceives this to be true when he reads the Word, from a perception solely from it, because God is Good Itself, Love Itself, and Mercy Itself; and he has a perception that Good Itself cannot do evil to anyone, and Love Itself and Mercy Itself cannot reject man from itself; because this is contrary to the very essence of mercy and love, thus contrary to the Divine Itself. Therefore those who think from an enlightened mind clearly perceive, when they read the Word, that God never turns Himself away from man; and as He never turns Himself away from him He deals with him from goodness, love, and mercy, that is, wills good to him, loves him, and is merciful to him. And from this they see that the sense of the letter of the Word, in which such things are said, has stored up within itself a spiritual sense, and that these expressions, that are used in the sense of the letter in accommodation to man's apprehension and according to his first and general ideas, are to be explained in accordance with the spiritual sense.

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