AC 2401 - Our Will, Our Opinions

AC 2401 [1, 2-4]

. . . the mind is elevated when it recedes from evil.

. . . a person cannot be saved
by thinking and speaking what is true,
nor even what is good,
while he wills nothing else,
and from this
his will does nothing else, than evil.
It is the very will of a person that lives after death;
not so his thought,
except that which flows from his will.

As therefore a person is such as his will is,
it is evident what must be
his opinion
of the truths of faith he has learned,
and even taught,
seeing that they condemn him.
So far is he then
from making them the basis of his thoughts,
that he feels a positive aversion for them;
indeed, insofar as he is permitted to do so,
he, like the devil's crew, blasphemes them.
Those who have not been instructed
concerning the life after death
may suppose that it will be easy for them
to receive faith when they see
that the Lord governs the universe,
and when they hear that heaven consists
in loving the Lord and the neighbor;
whereas the truth is
that the evil are as far
from being able to receive faith,
that is, to believe from the will,
as hell is from heaven,
for they are wholly in evil,
and in the falsity derived from it.
That such persons are against the Lord
and against the neighbor,
and therefore against good,
and consequently against truth,
is known and perceived
from their mere approach, or presence.
There is a horrible sphere that exhales
from the life of their will
and of their derivative thought.

If by mere instruction in the other life
it were possible
that people could be brought to believe
and to become good,
there would not be a single person in hell;
for the Lord desires
to raise all without exception to Himself into heaven.
For His mercy is infinite,
because it is the Divine mercy itself,
that is extended toward the whole human race,
and therefore
toward the evil as well as toward the good.