246 HEAVEN and HELL §423
with other people. So it is something we can talk and argue about and
even something we can imitate with our affections and behavior.424 Our ability to think from our intellect and not at the same time from
our will is provided us so that we can be reformed, for we are reformed
by means of truths; and truths, as already noted, are matters of intellect.
We are actually born into total evil as far as our wills are concerned,
wishing well to no one but ourselves; if we wish well to ourselves alone,
we are delighted when harm comes to others, especially when it is to
our advantage. We actually want to channel everyone else’s assets to our-
selves, whether those assets are high rank or wealth, and are happy to
the extent that we succeed. To correct and reform this kind of intent,
we are given the ability to understand things that are true and to use
them to control the evil urges that well up from our will. This is why
we can think true things from our intellect and talk about them and do
them even though we cannot think them from our will until we have
changed in nature, so that on our own, that is, from the heart, we intend
them and do them. When we have this nature, then the things we think
from our intellect are matters of our faith and the things we think from
our will are matters of our love. This means that faith and love are now
united within us, just as intellect and will are.
425 To the extent that truths of the intellect are united to good things
of the will, then, or to the extent that we intend and therefore do truths,
we have heaven within us, because as already noted the union of the
good and the true is heaven. However, to the extent that false elements
of intellect are united to evil elements of will, we have hell within us,
because the union of the false and the evil is hell. Still, to the extent that
truths of intellect are not united to good elements of will, we are in the
halfway state. Almost all of us nowadays are in a state in which we know
things that are true and think about them on the basis of our information
and also from our intellect. We act on either a lot of them or a few of
them or none of them or act contrary to them because of our love of evil
and consequent trust in what is false. So in order that we may gain either
heaven or hell, after death we are fi rst taken to the world of spirits, where
either the union of the good and the true takes place for people who are
to be raised into heaven, or the union of the evil and the false for people
who are to be cast into hell. This is because no one in heaven or in hell
is allowed to have a divided mind, to understand one thing and intend
something else. What we intend we understand and what we understand
we intend. Consequently, anyone in heaven who intends what is good
understands what is true, and anyone in hell who intends what is evil