237. We call these three degrees of height natural, spiritual, and celestial, as we said above in no. 232.

When a person is born, he comes first into the natural degree, and this grows in him by a continuous progression according to his accumulations of knowledge and the understanding he acquires by means of them, until it reaches the highest point of understanding called rationality.

But still this does not result in the opening of the second degree, which we call spiritual. This degree is opened by a love of useful endeavors in accord with one's intellectual attainments - only by a spiritual love of useful endeavors, a love which is love for the neighbor. This degree may likewise grow by a continuous progression of the degree until it reaches its highest point, and it grows by the accumulation of concepts of truth and good, or of spiritual truths.

[2] But even so, these still do not bring about the opening of the third degree, which we call celestial. Rather this degree is opened by a celestial love of useful endeavors, a love which is love toward the Lord; and love toward the Lord is nothing other than to commit the precepts of the Word to life, the sum of which is to refrain from evils because they are hellish and diabolical, and to do good things because they are heavenly and Divine.

These three degrees are thus progressively opened in a person.