AC 5508 - providence, miracles, human freedom

5508 [2,3,5]
. . . everything that befalls or happens,
which in other words is called accidental,
and is ascribed to chance or fortune,
is of providence.
Divine providence works thus invisibly and incomprehensibly
in order that a person may in freedom attribute an event
either to providence or to chance;
for if providence acted visibly and comprehensibly,
there would be danger of a person's believing,
from what he sees and comprehends,
that it is of providence,
and afterward changing into the contrary.
Thus truth and falsity would be conjoined in the interior man,
and truth would be profaned,
which profanation is attended with eternal damnation.
Therefore it is better for such a person
to be kept in unbelief
than to be in faith and then recede from it.
 
Say to this people,
Hearing hear ye, but understand not;
and seeing see ye, and know not.
Make the heart of this people fat,
and make their ears heavy,
and besmear their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and their heart should understand,
and they should turn again, and be healed.
(Isaiah 6:9-10; John 12:40).

It is for this reason also
that miracles do not take place at this day,
for these, like all visible and comprehensible things,
would compel men to believe,
and whatever compels takes away freedom;
when yet all the reformation and regeneration of a person
is effected in his freedom.
That which is not implanted in freedom does not stay.
It is implanted in freedom when the person
is in the affection of good and truth.

That a person at this day ought to believe
what he does not see,
is evident from the Lord's words to Thomas, in John:

Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas,
thou hast believed:
blessed are they who do not see, and yet believe.
(John 20:29)