DP 100
Everyone can see from reason alone
that the Lord, who is good itself and truth itself,
cannot enter into a person
unless the evils and falsities in him are put away.
For evil is opposed to good, and falsity to truth,
and two opposites can never be commingled.
Rather, when one approaches the other,
a combat ensues,
which lasts until one gives way to the other,
and the one that gives way,
goes away, and the other takes its place.
In such an opposition are heaven
and hell,
or the Lord and the devil.
Can anyone reasonably suppose
that the Lord can enter where the devil reigns?
Or that heaven and hell can exist together?
Who does not see
from the rationality granted to every sane person
that for the Lord to enter,
the devil must be cast out?
Or that for heaven to enter,
hell must be removed?
DP 101 [2-3]
. . . what a person thinks in spirit in the world,
he does after his departure from the world
when he becomes a spirit.
In the spiritual world,
the world every person comes into after death,
no one asks what your faith was
or what your doctrine was,
but what your life was like,
whether it was of this character or that.
The reason is that people there know
that the character of a person's life
determines the character of his faith,
indeed the character of his doctrine.
For it is the life that forms for itself its doctrine,
and that forms for itself its faith.
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