904. That 'God spoke to Noah' means the Lord's presence with the member of the Church becomes clear from the internal sense of the Word. The Lord speaks to everybody, for whatever good and truth a person wills and thinks comes from the Lord. With everyone there are at least two evil spirits and two angels. The former activate his evils whereas the latter instill goods and truths. Every good or truth that angels instill is the Lord's; in this way the Lord is constantly speaking to man, though quite differently from one person to the next. To people who allow themselves to be carried away by evil spirits the Lord speaks as though He were not present, or so far away that He can hardly be said to be speaking. But to those who are being led by the Lord, the Lord speaks as one who is quite present. This becomes clear enough from the fact that nobody can possibly think of anything good and true except from the Lord.

[2] The Lord's presence is relative to the state of love towards the neighbour and of faith present in a person. It is in love towards the neighbour that the Lord is present, for He is present in all good, and not so much in so-called faith that is devoid of love. Faith devoid of love and charity is something severed or disjoined. Wherever conjunction exists there has to be a conjoining agency, which is exclusively love and charity. This may become clear to anyone from the fact that the Lord has compassion on everybody, loves everyone, and wishes to make everyone eternally happy. A person therefore who is devoid of the kind of love that leads him to have compassion on others, to love them, and to wish to make them happy, cannot be joined to the Lord because he is not at all like Him, and is in no sense the image of Him. Looking to the Lord by means of that which goes by the name of faith while hating the neighbour amounts not only to standing a long way off, but also to having between himself and the Lord a hell-like chasm into which the person would fall if he wished to go any nearer. For it is hatred towards the neighbour that constitutes that intervening hell-like chasm.

[3] The Lord is present with a person the moment he starts to love the neighbour. It is in love that the Lord is present, and to the extent that a person has love the Lord is present. And to the extent that the Lord is present He speaks to man. No one knows anything other than that he thinks from himself. Yet he possesses not one single idea of thought, not even the shred of an idea, from himself. Rather that which is evil and false he possesses through evil spirits from hell, and that which is good and true through angels from the Lord. Such is influx, the channel by which a person's life comes and by which consequently his soul interacts with the body. All these considerations make clear what 'God spoke to Noah' means. 'Saying to someone' means one thing, as in Genesis 1:29; 3:13-14, 17; 4:6, 9, 15; 6:13; 7:1, while 'speaking to someone' means another. Here speaking to Noah' means His being present, for the subject now is the regenerate person, who has had charity conferred on him.

6325. It is an eternal truth that the Lord rules over heaven and earth, also that no one apart from the Lord is self-existent, consequently that all life flows in - life filled with goodness flowing in from the Lord, life filled with evil flowing in from hell. This is what they believe in the heavens; and when a person shares their belief, which he is able to do when he is governed by good, evil cannot be attached to him or be accepted by him as his own because he knows that it does not originate in himself but in hell. When this is a person's state peace can be granted to him, for he trusts solely in the Lord. Nor can peace be granted to anyone else but those who have that faith springing from charity; for others constantly plunge themselves into anxious cares and evil desires that give rise to feelings of unease. Spirits who wish to govern themselves imagine that that state would amount to a loss of their own will, thus of their freedom, consequently of all delight, thus of all life and its sweetness. They say and imagine this because they do not know the real truth of the matter, which is that one who is led by the Lord enjoys true freedom, and so true delight and bliss. Forms of good and truths are assigned to him as his own; an affection and desire to do good are imparted to him, in which case nothing gives him greater happiness than the performance of useful services; a perception of what is good is imparted to him, also a sensation of it; and intelligence and wisdom are imparted to him. And all these things that he is given feel as though they are his own. For when led by the Lord he is a recipient of the Lord's life. It is well known in the world of learning that a principal cause and an instrumental cause act together as a single cause. Now since man is a form receptive of the Lord's life, he is the instrumental cause, whereas the life from the Lord is the principal cause. This life is felt by the instrumental cause to be its own, when in fact it is not its own.