19. 8. If something is focused on what is both good and true, then it is something; but if it is focused on what is both evil and false, it is not anything at all. Section 11 above shows that whatever is focused on what is both good and true is something, and it follows from this that anything that is both evil and false is nothing. "Being nothing" means having no power, no trace of spiritual life.

People who are focused on what is evil and false together (all of whom are in hell) do have a kind of power among themselves. An evil individual can do harm and in fact does harm in thousands of ways, though it is only from evil that an evil individual can harm evil people. Still, an evil person can do no harm whatever to good people. If that happens (which it sometimes does), it is through the evil one identifying with something evil in the good.

[2] This gives rise to temptations that are attacks by evil people among themselves, resulting in the struggles that enable good people to be freed from their evils.

Because evil people have no power, all hell is a virtual nothing in the Lord's sight, an absolute nothing when it comes to power. I have seen this quite convincingly time after time.

The remarkable thing is, though, that all the evil people believe they are powerful and all the good people believe they themselves are not. This is because evil people ascribe everything to their own power, their own deviousness and malice, and nothing to the Lord, while good people ascribe nothing to their own prudence and everything to the Lord, who is omnipotent.

Another reason anything both evil and false is nothing is that it has no trace of spiritual life. This is why a hellish life is called "death" rather than "life"; so since anything that exists belongs to life, nothing that exists can belong to death.