928. The meaning of what human hearts fabricate is evil from their youth as the fact that the volitional side of the human mind is completely evil is established by the statements just above; what the heart fabricates has no other meaning.
We think that we have a will to do good, but we are wholly mistaken. When we do good, it is not our will but a new will that is the Lord's — and so the Lord himself — that moves us to do so. By the same token, when we think and speak what is true, the source is a new intellectual capacity coming out of the new will and so the Lord again. People who have been reborn are entirely new people, formed by the Lord, so they are said to be created anew. 1
Footnotes:
1. The phrase "created anew" here may be an allusion to 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15. [LSW]
