491. Comparisons can be drawn to illustrate the propositions that God bestowed freedom, not only on every human being, but also on every animal, and indeed an analogous faculty even on inanimate objects, giving each the power to receive it according to its nature; and that God intends good to all, but this is turned into evil by the objects upon which it acts. The atmosphere enables everyone to breathe, and likewise every animal and wild beast, every bird, the owl as much as the dove; it also enables birds to fly. Yet the atmosphere is not to blame for the opportunity given to creatures of contrary nature and character. The ocean affords in itself a home and provides food for every fish; but it is not to blame for one fish swallowing another, or for the crocodile turning its food into poison to kill people. The sun provides light and heat for all, but the objects it acts upon, the various plants on earth, receive them in different ways; a good tree or shrub does so in one way, a thorn or briar in another, and a harmless plant in a different way from a poisonous one.

[2] Rain from the upper levels of the atmosphere falls to the ground everywhere, and the ground supplies water from this source to every tree, plant and grass, each of which uses the water to serve its own needs. This is what is meant by the faculty analogous to free will: the plants freely suck up the water through their openings, pores and passages, which in warm weather stand open, and the earth merely provides moisture and elements, which the plants take up in a manner reminiscent of thirst and hunger. It is much the same with people. The Lord flows in to provide every person with spiritual heat, which is in essence the good of love, and with spiritual light, which is in essence the truth of wisdom. But the way the person receives these depends upon which way he turns, whether to God or to himself. That is why the Lord says where He teaches us about love towards the neighbour:

So that you may be sons of the Father, who makes the sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, Matthew 5:45.

And in another passage He speaks of Him desiring the salvation of all.

158. When I noticed that I had in spirit travelled in the starry sky far outside the solar system (as was evident from the changes of state and what seemed like continuous movement lasting almost ten hours), I at length heard spirits talking in the vicinity of some world, which later on became visible to me. When I approached them, they said after some conversation that they sometimes have visitors from elsewhere, who talk with them about God and confuse their thinking. They also pointed out the route by which they come, which allowed me to realise that they were spirits from our world. When I asked in what way they confused them, they said it was by declaring that one ought to believe in a Divinity divided into three Persons, although they still called them one God. When they investigated the way these visitors thought, their concept was revealed as a Trinity, not continuous, but separate. Some regarded the Trinity as three Persons conversing with one another; others as two Persons sitting next to each other, and the third listening to them and going out from them. Yet they called each Person God, and although they have a different concept of each, they still speak of a single God. They complained bitterly that the visitors confused them by thinking of three but saying one, when in fact one ought to think as one speaks and speak as one thinks.

[2] The spirit with me, who had been a prelate and preacher in the world, was also then investigated, to see what his concept was of one God and three Persons; he pictured three Gods, but joined together to form one. But this threefold unity was represented as invisible, because it was Divine. When this idea was presented, it was perceived that he was only thinking about the Father and not about the Lord, and that his concept of an invisible God was nothing but a concept of nature in its first beginnings. As a result, the inmost level of nature was his Divinity, so that he could easily be brought to acknowledge nature as God. It needs to be known that in the next life anyone's concept of anything is pictured vividly, so that investigation is possible into each person's thought and perception on matters of faith. The concept of God is the principal one in everyone's thinking; for if it is a true one, it is the means which links him with the Divine and consequently with heaven.

[3] Then when these spirits were asked what was their concept of God, they replied that it was not of an invisible God, but God visible in human form. They knew this not only by perceiving it inwardly, but also from the fact that He had appeared to them as a man. They added that if they thought of God as invisible, as some of their visitors did, that is to say, devoid of form and quality, they found it totally impossible to think about God, since anything invisible like this cannot be reduced to a concept one can think about.

On hearing this I was allowed to tell them that they were right to think of God in human form, and that many people from our world have a similar idea, especially when thinking about the Lord. I told them that the ancients too thought like this, and related the stories of Abraham, Lot, Gideon and Manoah and his wife, as they are set forth in our Word. All these saw God in human form, and acknowledged Him whom they saw as the Creator of the universe, calling Him Jehovah; this too came from inward perception. But this inward perception has now been lost in the Christian world, and remains only with simple folk who have faith.