8944. In the world it is thought that the human being can recognize from the light of natural evidence alone, that is, without revelation, most of what religion involves, such as the beliefs that there is a God, that He is to be worshipped, and also that He is to be loved, and in addition that a person will be alive after death. and many other beliefs dependent on these. However, those beliefs are the products of self-intelligence. Much experience has taught me that of himself a person knows nothing whatever about Divine realities, or about things belonging to celestial and spiritual life; without revelation he knows nothing about them. For a person is born into the evils of self-love and love of the world, and the nature of these is such that they seal off influx from the heavens and let through influx from the hells. This being so, they blind a person and place him in a negative frame of mind about the reality of the Divine, of heaven and hell, and of life after death. This is plainly evident from the learned people of the world, who through study of different branches of knowledge have developed the inferior light of this natural evidence of theirs to a higher degree than others. As is well known, these more than others deny the Divine, acknowledging natural forces instead. Also, when they speak from what is in their heart and not just from doctrine they deny life after death, also heaven and hell, consequently all things that are matters of faith, which they call bonds for the common people. This makes plain what light received from natural evidence without revelation is like. I have also been shown that in the next life many of those who have written books about natural theology, and from the inferior light of their natural evidence have skillfully substantiated the teachings of their Church, deny those same things at heart more than any others, and also deny the Word itself, which they try to destroy completely. For in the next life people's hearts speak. I have also been shown that those same people are unable to receive anything of the influx from heaven, only that from the hells. All this makes plain what light received from natural evidence, without revelation, is like, and therefore what anything that is a product of self-intelligence is like.

[2] But there are two phenomena that might have placed the mind in doubt so far as this matter is concerned. The first is that people in ancient times who were gentiles nevertheless knew that there is a God, that He is to be worshipped, and that a person as to his soul is immortal. The second is that those things are also known by a large number of nations at the present day among whom no revelation exists. But in the case of the ancients, they did not know those things from the inferior light they received from natural evidence but from revelation that spread from the Church even to them. For the Lord's Church had existed since most ancient times in the land of Canaan, 3686, 4447, 4454, 4516, 4517, 5136, 6516. From there such things as belonged to the worship of God spread to the nations round about and also to the neighbouring Greeks, and from the Greeks to the Italians or Romans. From the Church all these nations received the things they knew about a supreme deity, and about the immortality of the soul, which their learned men wrote about.

[3] As regards the nations at the present day who also know of God's existence and of life after death, they have not come to possess that knowledge from the inferior light they receive from natural evidence. They possess it from their religion which has come down to them from ancient times and which was founded on such things as had spread in various ways from the Church, where revelation existed. This happened in the Lord's Divine Providence. Furthermore those among them who from their religion acknowledge God above all things, and from their religion do what charity requires them to do for their neighbour, on receiving instruction in the next life accept the truths of faith and are saved, 258-2604.

3038. 'To your seed I will give this land' means the Divine Truth which belonged to the Lord's Human. This is clear from the meaning of 'seed' as the faith that is an expression of charity, and also those in whom such faith is present, dealt with in 1025, 1447, 1610, 2848 (and since all good and truth of faith are received from the Lord, it is Divine Truth itself that is meant in the highest sense by 'seed'); and from the meaning of 'this land', namely Canaan, as heaven or the Lord's kingdom, dealt with in 1413, 1437, 1607. And as heaven or the Lord's kingdom is meant, it is the Lord's Divine Human itself that 'the land of Canaan' is used to mean in the highest sense. For the Divine itself cannot flow into heaven except through the Lord's Divine Human, which the Lord also made plain in Matthew,

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him. Matthew 11:27.

And in John,

Nobody has ever seen God; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. John 1:18.

'The Son' is the Lord's Divine Human. Anyone who believes that in heaven they worship any other Father than the Lord is much mistaken.