874. This scene depicts the first stage of regeneration following trial for the people of this church, a stage common to everyone who is being reborn: we imagine that we are doing good deeds and thinking true thoughts under our own power. Because we still cannot see clearly at all, the Lord lets us think this way.

Still, none of the good we do and none of the truth we contemplate while holding this opinion (a mistaken one) is the kind of goodness or truth that makes a part of faith. Nothing that we produce from ourselves can be good, because it is from ourselves — an impure and very unclean source. From an impure and unclean source nothing good can spring, because we are always thinking about how deserving and righteous we are. Some people, as the Lord teaches in Luke 18:9-14, go further and despise others in comparison with themselves. Others do other things just as bad. Self-centered desires add themselves to the mixture, making the exterior look good, although the interior is filthy.

As a consequence, the good that we do at this stage is not the good that belongs to faith. It is the same with the truth that we think. Even if the idea we adopt is absolutely true and is in itself a valid religious concept, nonetheless as long as we adopt it for selfish reasons, it has no religious good within it. Any truth, in order to be theologically true, has to have the good of faith from the Lord within it. That is when it first becomes good and true.

8868. A brief statement must also be made about truths which come from a source other than the Lord. In general they are those which do not have the Lord within them. The truths a person knows do not have the Lord within them when he refuses to accept Him and His Divinity, or else when he does accept Him and yet believes that what is good and true does not begin in Him but in himself, as a result of which he claims righteousness for himself. Nor do those truths have the Lord within them which are taken from the Word, in particular from the sense of the letter there, and interpreted in favour of personal dominion and personal gain. In themselves these are truths because they come from the Word yet they are not truths because they are interpreted wrongly and thereby perverted. Such perversions of them are what the Lord means by the following in Matthew,

If anyone says, Behold, here is the Christ! or There! do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will arise, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead into error, if possible, even the elect. Matthew 24:23-26.

See 3900. And in Luke,

See that you are not led astray. For many will come in My name, saying, I am He; The time is near. Therefore do not go after them. Luke 21:8.

[2] Truths which come from the Lord never cease to be truths from the Lord in their inward form. But truths which do not come from the Lord appear to be truths only in their outward form, not in their inward form - for inwardly they are either empty, false, or evil. To be the truth, truth must have life within it; for truth devoid of life is not the truth of faith with a person, and life comes from no other source than good, that is, from the Lord by way of good. If therefore the Lord is not within truth it is truth devoid of life, and so is not truth. And if there is falsity or evil within it the actual truth with a person is falsity or evil. For what exists inwardly constitutes its essential nature, and also in the next life shines through the outward appearance. From all this one may now see how to understand the explanation that there must be no thought about truths from any source other than the Lord.

[3] Since few know about the nature of truths which are truths in their inward form, and so which have life from the Lord, something will be said from experience regarding them. In the next life when anyone speaks there others perceive plainly what lies concealed in the words he utters, such as whether inwardly it is closed or open, and also what kind of affection there is within it. If there is an affection for good it is inwardly soft, if there is an affection for evil it is inwardly hard; and so on. With the angels of heaven the whole content of what they say is open all the way to the Lord. This is not only clearly perceived to be so but is audible from the softness of their speech, indeed from the particular nature of its softness. From this too what lies concealed inwardly in truths is known, whether it is the Lord or not. Truths which have the Lord within them are truths that have life, but truths which do not have the Lord within them are truths that have no life. Those which have life are truths of faith grounded in love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour. Those which have no life are not truths, because inwardly they have self-love and love of the world in them. In this way spirits or angels in the next life can be told apart, for each individual's possession of truth is determined by the life he leads, that is, by that which reigns universally in him.