35. Man has two inherent powers of will and understanding. When the understanding is governed by the will they then constitute one mind and so one life; for what a person in that case wills and does he also thinks and intends. But when the understanding is at variance with the will, as it is with people who claim to have faith and yet live otherwise, then a mind previously one is split in two. One half seeks to transport itself into heaven, while the other inclines towards hell. And because the will is what accomplishes everything, the whole man would rush straight into hell unless the Lord took pity on him.

2291. The nature of their tender understanding was also shown to me when I have been praying in the words of the Lord's Prayer. At such times they flowed into the ideas comprising my thought from their own understanding, which was so tender that they understood scarcely anything more than the meaning of the words. Yet their ideas present in that tender understanding were capable of being opened even to the Lord, that is, even from the Lord; for the Lord flows in best of all into young children's ideas, from things that are inmost, since nothing as yet has closed their ideas, as is the case with adults. No false assumptions have been adopted to prevent an understanding of truth, nor a life of evil to prevent the reception of good, and so to becoming wise.