321. I have been taught by a great many instances that if non-Christians have lived decent lives, intent on obedience and appropriate deference and in mutual thoughtfulness as their religion requires so that they have acquired a measure of conscience, they are accepted in the other life and are taught by angels about matters of goodness and truth with most sensitive care. Once they have been taught, they behave unpretentiously, intelligently, and wisely and readily accept and absorb truths. This is because no false principles have taken form to oppose truths of faith, principles that would need to be ousted, let alone slanders against the Lord, as is the case for many Christians whose treasured concept of the Lord is simply of an ordinary human being. It is different for non-Christians. When they hear that God became a person here and made himself known in the world, they acknowledge it immediately and revere the Lord. They say that of course God made himself known; after all, he is the God of heaven and earth, and the human race belongs to him. 1
It is a divine truth that there is no salvation apart from the Lord, but this needs to be understood as meaning that there is no salvation that does not come from the Lord. There are many planets in the universe, all full of inhabitants. Hardly any of them know that the Lord took on a human nature on our planet. Still, though, since they do revere the Divine Being in human form, they are accepted and led by the Lord. On this matter, see the booklet Other Planets.
Voetnoten:
1. [Swedenborg's footnote] The difference between the good that non-Christians are engaged in and the good that Christians are engaged in: 4189, 4197. On truths among non-Christians: 3263, 3778, 4190. The deeper levels are not as closed in non-Christians as they are in Christians: 9256. Neither can there be such dense clouds for non-Christians who have lived by their religions in mutual thoughtfulness as there are for Christians who have lived in no thoughtfulness at all, and the reasons this is so: 1059, 9256. Non-Christians cannot profane the holy matters of the church the way Christians can, because they do not know them: 1327-1328, 2051. They are afraid of Christians because of the way Christians live: 2596-2597. The ones who have lived well according to their religious principles are taught by angels and readily accept truths of faith and confess the Lord: 2049, 2595, 2598, 2600-2601, 2603, 2661 [2861?], 2863, 3263.