301. Further, in the light of angelic concepts, which are nonspatial, it is perfectly clear that in the created universe there is nothing living except the Divine-Human One--the Lord--alone, that nothing moves except by life from God, and that nothing exists except by means of the sun from God. So it is true that in God we live and move and have our being.

24. It requires no further explanation to see that the statement that all people who have ever been born since the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell is the consequence of what has been said in the previous chapter, where it was shown that heaven and hell are from the human race. Up to now it has been generally believed that people will not go to heaven or to hell before the day of the Last Judgment, when souls will return to their own bodies so that they can enjoy what are believed to be the peculiar properties of the body. Simple people have been brought to believe this by those who have made a profession of being wise and have enquired into people's inner state. These have had no idea of the spiritual world, but only the natural one, and so no idea of the spiritual man either. They have therefore been unaware that the spiritual man, which everyone has within his natural man, has human form just as the natural man. Neither has it occurred to them that the natural man gets his human form from his spiritual man. Yet they could have seen that the spiritual man acts at will upon every detail of the natural man, who is unable to do anything of himself.

[2] It is the spiritual man who thinks and wills, for the natural man cannot do this of himself. And thought and will are all-in-all to the natural man, for he is acted upon as the spiritual man wills, and he speaks as the spiritual man thinks, so much so that action is nothing but willing and speech is nothing but thinking. For if you take away willing and thinking, speech and action come instantly to a stop. From this it is plain that the spiritual man really is the man, present in every detail of the natural man; so its outward form must be similar, since any part or particle of the natural man not subject to the action of the spiritual is lifeless. However, the spiritual man cannot become visible to the natural man, for the natural cannot see the spiritual, though the spiritual can see the natural. This is in accordance with the rules of order, but the reverse would be contrary to them, since it is possible for the spiritual to influence the natural (and this applies to sight, since it is a form of influence), but not the reverse. The spiritual man is what is called a person's spirit, which is seen in the spiritual world in complete human form and which lives on after death.

[3] Since intelligent people have, as I said before, known nothing about the spiritual world, and thus about a person's spirit, they have therefore got the idea that a person cannot have a personal life until his soul returns to his body and resumes its senses. This is the origin of such empty notions about personal resurrection, for instance, that although bodies have been eaten by worms or fishes or have collapsed into dust, they will by God's almighty power be brought together again and reunited with souls; or that these events will only occur at the end of the world, when the visible universe will come to an end; and many similar ideas, all of which are beyond our grasp and at first sight appear impossible and contrary to God's order. Consequently many people have their faith weakened by these ideas. For those who think wisely can only believe what they to some extent understand; one cannot believe the impossible, that is, what one judges to be impossible. So those who do not believe in life after death use this argument to infer a proof of their negative attitude. However, it may be seen in numerous chapters of HEAVEN AND HELL that people rise again at once after death, and are then endowed with complete human form. These remarks are intended as additional confirmation of the statement that heaven and hell are from the human race; from which it follows that all people who have ever been born from the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell.

6323. The good of love which flows in from the Lord through angels contains all truth, and truth would reveal itself spontaneously if the human being led a life of love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour. This is evident not only from things that obtain in heaven but also from those in the natural order beneath. Since the things in the natural order are observable, let some be brought forward to illustrate the matter.

[2] Animals are propelled by nothing else than the loves and accompanying affections into which they have been created and afterwards born; for every animal is carried in the direction its affection and love take it. That being so, animals also have all the knowledge that ever accompanies that love. For they know from a love resembling the love that belongs to marriage how they are to mate, cattle in one way, birds in another. Birds know how they must build nests, lay eggs and sit on them, how they must hatch chicks and feed them. They know these things without any instruction, solely from a love resembling that which belongs to marriage and from a love for offspring, which loves have all that knowledge implanted in them. Similarly they know which food they must eat and how they must look for it. More than that, bees know how to look for food in flowers of various kinds, and also to gather wax to make cells with, in which first they place their offspring and after that store food. They also know how to make provision for the winter, not to mention many other things. All this knowledge is included in their loves and resides in them right from the start. Creatures are born into that knowledge because they exist in the order which belongs to their true nature and into which they have been created; and as such they are driven by a general inflow from the spiritual world.

[3] If the human being were living in the order into which he was created - that is to say, in love towards the neighbour and in love to the Lord, for these loves are peculiar to the human being - he would be born, pre-eminently over all animals, not only into knowledge but also into all spiritual truths over and all celestial forms of good, thus into all wisdom and intelligence. For the human being is able to think about the Lord and to be joined to Him through love, and so to be raised up to what is Divine and eternal, which animals cannot be. Thus if he were living in his true order he would be governed solely by general influx from the Lord through the spiritual world. But because he is not born into his true order but into one contrary to it, he is born totally without knowledge. This being so, provision has been made so that he can be born again and in that way enter into intelligence and wisdom, in the same measure as he embraces good in freedom, and truth through good.