98. I have stated [73] that everyone has the ability to intend called freedom and the ability to discern called rationality, but it needs to be clearly understood that these abilities are virtually instinctive in us. They are what make us human.

As I have already explained [97], it is one thing to act freely and rationally and another thing to act in true freedom and with true rationality. Only people who have allowed themselves to be regenerated by the Lord can act in true freedom and with true rationality. Others act freely and in keeping with a kind of thinking that they shape into an image of rationality. Still, everyone can attain to true rationality, and through that rationality to true freedom, except people who are born feebleminded or terribly dense. There are many reasons why people do not do so, reasons I will be disclosing later. For now, let me simply mention the kinds of people who cannot be given true latitude or true freedom, and true reason or true rationality, and the kinds of people who have great difficulty.

[2] Real freedom and real rationality are impossible for people who are born feebleminded or who have become so, as long as they remain feebleminded. Real freedom and real rationality are impossible for people who are born dense and dull or who have become so through idleness or some sickness that distorts or shuts down the deeper levels of the mind, or else through a love for bestial living.

[3] Real freedom and real rationality are impossible for people in the Christian world who resolutely deny the Lord's divine nature and the holiness of the Word and who maintain this denial decisively all the way to the end of their lives. This is what "the sin against the Holy Spirit" means, the sin that is not forgiven in this age or in the age to come (Matthew 12:31-32).

[4] Real freedom and real rationality are also impossible for people who attribute everything to the material world and nothing to Divinity and who make this a part of their faith by arguments based on visual evidence, because they are atheists.

[5] Real freedom and real rationality are difficult for people who have to a large extent convinced themselves of false religious principles, because people who convince themselves of false principles are denying true ones. If they have not convinced themselves, though, they can [have true freedom and rationality] no matter what their religion is. On this point, see the material collected in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 91-97.

[6] Little children and youths cannot attain to true freedom and rationality until they reach the age of maturity, because the deeper levels of our minds are opened only gradually. In the meanwhile they are like seeds in unripe fruit that cannot sprout when they are planted.