e. Therefore the receptacle called the
understanding is an image of God, and the receptacle called the will is a
likeness of God. Since, then, man was created and formed to be a
receptacle, it follows that he was created and formed that his will might
receive love from God and his understanding wisdom from God. He receives
these when he acknowledges God and lives according to His precepts,
receiving them in lesser or larger measure as by religion he has some
knowledge of God and of His precepts, consequently according to his
knowledge of truths. For truths teach what God is and how He is to be
acknowledged, also what His precepts are and how man is to live according
to them.

[6] The image and likeness of God have not been destroyed in man, but
seem to have been; they remain inherent in his two faculties called
liberty and rationality, of which we have treated above at many places.
They seem to have been destroyed when man made the receptacle of divine
love, namely, his will, a receptacle of self-love, and the receptacle of
divine wisdom, namely, his understanding, a receptacle of his own
intelligence. Doing this, he inverted the image and likeness of God and
turned these receptacles away from God and towards himself. Consequently
they have become closed above and open below, or closed in front and open
behind, though by creation they were open in front and closed behind.
When they have been opened and closed contrariwise, the receptacle of
love, the will, receives influx from hell or from one's proprium; so does
the receptacle of wisdom, the understanding. Hence worship of men arose
in the churches instead of the worship of God, and worship by doctrines
of falsity instead of worship by doctrines of truth, the latter arising
from man's own intelligence, and the former from love of self. Thence it
is evident that religion falls away in the course of time and is ended by
the inversion of God's image in man.

[7] Third: _This takes place as a result of a continual increase of
hereditary evil over the generations._ It was said and explained above
that hereditary evil does not come from Adam and his wife Eve by their
having eaten of the tree of knowledge, but is derived and transmitted
successively from parents to offspring. Thus it grows by continual
increase from generation to generation. When evil increases so among
many, it spreads to many more, for in all evil there is a lust to lead
astray, in some burning with anger