DLW 253 [3]
. . . faith in
its essence is truth,
and truth is manifold;
and charity is all the work
that a person does
from the Lord in his occupation -
work that a person
then does from the Lord
when he refrains from evils as being sins.
The
case is entirely as stated before,
that the end is everything in the
cause,
and that the end through the cause
is everything in the effect.
The end is charity or good,
the cause is faith or truth,
and the effects
are good works or useful services.
From this it is apparent
that no
more charity can be introduced into works
than that measure of charity
which has been conjoined with truths
that are called truths of faith.
Through these truths
charity enters into works
and gives them their
quality.
DLW 258
Every person is born into
the
faculty of understanding truths,
and this even to the inmost degree
in
which angels of the third heaven dwell.
For the human intellect,
rising
up by a continuous ascent
around the two higher degrees,
receives the
light of the wisdom of those degrees . . ..
Therefore a person can become rational
in the measure of his elevation.
If he is elevated to the third degree,
he becomes rational from the
third degree.
If he is elevated to the second degree,
he becomes
rational from the second degree.
And if he is not elevated,
he is
rational in the first degree.
We say that he becomes rational from those
degrees,
because the natural degree
is the common vessel receptive of
their light.
If a person does not become rational
to the highest level of which
he is capable,
it is because the love which resides in his will
cannot
be elevated in the same way
as the wisdom which resides in his
intellect.
The love which resides in his will
can be elevated only
by
his refraining from evils as being sins,
and afterward by his doing
goods of charity,
or useful services,
which the person then does from
the Lord.
Consequently, if the love residing in his will
is not elevated
at the same time,
then no matter how far the wisdom
residing in his
intellect may ascend,
still it sinks back down again to his love.
Therefore if a person's love
is not elevated at the same time
into the
spiritual degree,
he still is rational only in the lowest degree.
It
can be seen from this
that a person's rationality is in appearance
as
though of three degrees -
a rationality from the celestial degree,
a
rationality from the spiritual degree,
and a rationality from the
natural degree.
It can be seen, too,
that whether a person's rationality
is elevated or not,
still it remains in the person as a faculty
that
can be elevated.
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