231. A single evil afflicted not only the earliest church, before the Flood, but also the ancient church, after the Flood, and the Jewish church, and then the new church or the church among non-Jews that came after the Lord's arrival into the world, ¹ just as it afflicts the modern church. It is the evil of not believing the Lord or the Word but trusting oneself and one's senses. The result is an absence of faith, and when faith is absent, so is love for others — a situation that leads to all falsity and evil.

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516. All the teaching there is from doctrine drawn from the Word, and not from the Word apart from doctrine. Christians are taught on the basis of a heavenly doctrine that is in complete agreement with the inner meaning of the Word. The others, like the Muslims and non-Christians, are taught on the basis of doctrines suited to their grasp. These differ from heavenly doctrine only in that spiritual life is taught through a moral life in accord with the good tenets of their own religion, which was the basis of their life in the world.

308. There is also a union of heaven through the Word with people who are outside the church, where the Word is not found; for the Lord's church is everywhere and exists with everyone who acknowledges something divine and lives considerately. People like this are taught by angels after their decease and accept divine truths. ¹ There will be more on this below in its proper chapter, where we discuss non-Christians.

In the Lord's sight, the universal church on earth is like a single individual just as heaven is (as noted above in 59-72). However, the church where the Word is and the Lord is known through it is like the heart and lungs of that person. It is common knowledge that the viscera and members of the whole body get their life from the heart and lungs by various routes. So too the human race that is outside the church where the Word is gets its life in the same way and constitutes the members of that person. Heaven's union through the Word with people who are at a distance can be compared to light that spreads in all directions from a center. The divine light is in the Word, and the Lord is present there with his heaven. People who are far off also receive light from that presence. It would be different if there were no Word, which can be more fully understood by reference to what has been presented above about the form of heaven that determines its gatherings and communications.

Still, this arcanum is understandable to people who are in spiritual light but not to people who are only in natural light. People who are in spiritual light, that is, see quite clearly countless things that people who are in natural light alone either do not see at all or see only as a single vague entity.

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