heard it. Indeed they asserted that they could but did not will to be
able to do so, for then they could not will what they did will, namely,
evil from enjoyment in the lust of it. I have often heard such
astonishing things in the spiritual world. I am fully persuaded therefore
that every man has liberty and rationality, and that every man can attain
true liberty and rationality if he shuns evils as sins. But the adult who
has not come into true liberty and rationality in the world can never do
so after death, for the state of his life remains to eternity what it was
in the world.

VI. IT IS A LAW OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE THAT MAN SHALL REMOVE EVILS AS SINS
IN THE EXTERNAL MAN OF HIMSELF, AND ONLY SO CAN THE LORD REMOVE THE EVILS
IN THE INTERNAL MAN AND AT THE SAME TIME IN THE EXTERNAL

100. Anyone can see from reason alone that the Lord who is good itself
and truth itself cannot enter man unless the evils and falsities in him
are removed. For evil is opposed to good, and falsity to truth, and two
opposites cannot mingle, but as one approaches the other, combat arises
which lasts until one gives way to the other; what gives way departs and
the other takes its place. Heaven and hell, or the Lord and the devil,
are in such opposition. Can anyone reasonably think that the Lord can
enter where the devil reigns, or heaven be where hell is? By the
rationality with which every sane person is endowed, who cannot see that
for the Lord to enter, the devil must be cast out, or for heaven to
enter, hell must be removed?

[2] This opposition is meant by Abraham's words from heaven to the rich
man in hell:

Between us and you a great gulf is fixed, so that those who would cross