3. If people within the church have ignored the Lord and recognized only the Father and have closed their minds to other thoughts, they are outside heaven. Since they do not receive any inflow from heaven, where the Lord alone is worshiped, they gradually lose their ability to ponder the truth of one thing after another. Eventually they either become speechless or inarticulate. They walk around aimlessly with their arms hanging down loosely as though all the strength had gone from their joints.
On the other hand, people who have denied the Lord's divine nature and have recognized only his human nature (like the Socinians) are also excluded from heaven. They are taken a little way forward to the right and are let down into the depths, which completely separates them from the Christian realm. Then too, there are people who claim to believe in an invisible Divine called the Being of the Universe and reject any faith in the Lord. When they are examined, it turns out that they do not believe in any god at all, since this invisible Divine of theirs is actually like the first principles of nature. This is incompatible with faith and love, because it eludes [actual] thought. 1 These people are banished to the company of those called materialists.
Things happen differently for people who are born outside the church, the ones we call non-Christians. We will discuss them later.
Footnotes:
1. [Swedenborg's footnote] A Divine Being that cannot be grasped in any concept cannot be accepted by faith: 5110, 5633, 6982, 6996, 7004, 7211, 9359 [perhaps 9356], 9972, 10067.
