There is, for everyone, a crossroads when it comes to spiritual things, a basic decision to be made. Are you going to believe in the Lord and in spiritual reality? Or are you only going to believe what you can see, touch, feel and otherwise "know" from your own mind? The Writings say those who choose the latter course are closing themselves off from the truth, because by definition spiritual reality cannot be seen, touched, felt or otherwise "known" through purely human means. That's what it means to eat "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," and it leads to spiritual death – which is being cut off from the goodness and truth the Lord wishes to bestow on us.

The people of the Most Ancient Church were in a state of love to the Lord, and had been invited to gather all the wisdom and knowledge flowing from that love – the fruit of all the other trees. But they had to accept the Lord as the source, had to accept that He existed, had to accept that He was infinite and beyond their finite understanding. To think otherwise – to think that through their own minds they could explain the Lord – would be to put themselves above him, and lead them into evil.

It's worth noting that this was not a call for people to shut down their minds. The fruit of the other trees represents an incredible bounty of exploration, learning and wonderment. And we're not called on to shut down our minds today; the Lord gave us our intellectual faculties for a reason. To let the Lord in, though, we have to accept the unprove-able idea that He is love itself and reality itself, and see all other knowledge in that light.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 126-132, 127, 128-134, 129, 0130)

To “generate” something is to create it, and that idea underpins the meaning of a “generation” of people -- it is a group that was created together, at roughly the same time, from the same parents or group of parents. On a spiritual level, we can be “generators” by using what we know from the Lord to create ideas of how to be good, and also to create good actions based on those ideas -- what the Writings call things of faith and things of charity. In general, then, a “generation” in the Bible represents the spiritual ideas and activities created by a church -- with a “church” being anything from an individual believer to a group lasting thousands of years. “Generation” can also pick up specific meanings from context. For instance, when the Bible says the people of Israel were captive in Egypt for four generations, it means a state of temptation based on the meaning of “four.” When paired with “eternity,” meanwhile, “generations” represents ideas and actions surrounding love of serving others, with “eternity” representing things springing from love of the Lord. Finally, “generations and generations” is used in the Bible to represent forever.