DP 138
(4) No one is reformed in states devoid
of rationality
and freedom.
Now
because the Lord wills
a person's reformation and regeneration
in order
that the person may attain
eternal life or the life of heaven,
and
because no one
can be reformed and regenerated
unless good attaches
itself to his will
so as to be seemingly his,
and truth to his intellect
so as to be seemingly his as well,
and because it is impossible
that
anything become attached to anyone
other than what he does
in the
freedom of his will
in accordance with the reason of his intellect,
it
follows that no one is reformed
in states devoid of freedom and
rationality.
States devoid of freedom and rationality
are of many
kinds,
but they may be assigned in general
to the following:
DP 139 - States of Fear:
No one is reformed in a state of fear
because fear takes
away freedom and reason
or liberty and rationality.
For love opens the
interiors of the mind,
but fear closes them,
and when they have been
closed,
the person thinks but little,
and only about what then presents
itself
to his consciousness or senses.
All fears that invade the mind
have this effect.
DP 140 - States of Misfortune:
No one is reformed in a state of misfortune
if
it is only then that he thinks about God
and implores His aid,
because
it is a coerced condition.
By states of misfortune we mean
states of despair in times of peril,
as
in battles, duels, shipwrecks, falls, fires,
impending or unforeseen
loss of wealth,
or of office and therefore honor,
and other, like
situations.
To think of God only at these times
originates not from God
but from self.
DP 141 - States of Mental Illness:
No one is reformed in a state of mental
illness
because mental illness takes away rationality
and so the freedom
of acting
in accordance with reason.
For the mind is ill and unsound,
and it is a sound mind that is rational,
not an ill one.
Such
illnesses are ones of melancholy,
of spurious and false conscience,
of
various types of delusion,
of grief of heart arising from misfortunes,
of distress and mental anguish
owing to some physical disorder -
conditions which are sometimes
regarded as temptations, but are not.
For
genuine temptations
have spiritual matters as their subjects,
and in
those the mind is wise.
But these illnesses have natural matters
as
their subjects,
and in them the mind is irrational.
DP 142 - States of Physical Illness:
No one is reformed in a state of physical illness
because his reason is
not then in a state of freedom,
since the state of the mind
depends on
that of the body.
. . . A person may, however,
be confirmed in his reformation,
if he was reformed before he fell ill.
DP 143 - States of Ignorance:
No one is reformed in a state of ignorance
because
all reformation
is effected by means of truths
and by a life in
accordance with them.
Therefore people who do not know any truths
cannot
be reformed.
However, if they desire truths
from an affection for them,
they are reformed after death in the spiritual world.
DP 144 - States of Intellectual Blindness:
No one can be reformed
in a state of intellectual blindness, either.
Such people, too, do not know any truths,
and so neither do they lead
a
life in accordance with them.
For the intellect has to teach truths,
and
the will do them,
and when the will does what the intellect teaches,
it
then acquires for itself
a life in accordance with truths.
However,
when the intellect has been blinded,
the will also is obstructed,
and it
does nothing in freedom
in accordance with its reason
except the evil
it has justified in the intellect,
which is falsity.
The
intellect is blinded not only by ignorance
but also by a religion that
teaches a blind faith.
So, too, by the teaching of falsity.
For as
truths open the intellect, so falsities close it.
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