AC 3175 - What It Takes to Become a Person

AC 3175 [1, 2-3]

No person is ever ever born into any truth,
not even into any natural truth --
as that he should not steal, should not kill,
should not commit adultery, and the like;
still less is he born into any spiritual truth --
as that there is a God,
and that he has an internal which will live after death.
Thus of himself a person knows nothing
that relates to eternal life.
A person learns both these kinds of truth;
otherwise he would be much worse than a brute animal;
for from his hereditary nature
he loves himself above all
and desires to possess all things in the world.

. . . unless a person is rational, he is not a person;
and therefore according to
the quality and the measure of a person's rational,
such is the quality and the measure of the person.
A person cannot possibly be rational
unless he possesses good.
The good whereby a person surpasses the animals,
is to love God,
and to love the neighbor;
all human good is from this.
Into this good truth must be initiated and conjoined,
and this in the rational.
Truth is initiated into good and conjoined with it
when a person loves God and loves his neighbor,
for then truth enters into good,
inasmuch as good and truth mutually
acknowledge each other,
all truth being from good,
and having respect to good as its end and as its soul,
and thus as the source of its life.