aken away (as they are with every man after
death), man rejects from them even the faith that there is a God.
(A.E., n. 952.)

So far as a man resists his own two loves, which are the love of ruling
from the mere delight in rule and the love of possessing the goods of
the world from the mere delight in possession, thus so far as he shuns
as sins the evils forbidden in the Decalogue, so far there flows in
through heaven from the Lord, that there is a God, who is the Creator
and Preserver of the universe, and even that God is one. This then
flows in for the reason that when evils have been removed heaven is
opened, and when heaven is opened man no longer thinks from self but
from the Lord through heaven; and that there is a God and that God is
one is the universal principle in heaven which comprises all things.
That from influx alone man knows and as it were sees that God is one, is
evident from the common confession of all nations, and from a repugnance
to think that there are many gods.

Man's interior thought, which is the thought of his spirit, is either
from hell or from heaven; it is from hell before evils have been
removed, but from heaven when they have been removed. When this thought
is from hell man sees no otherwise than that nature is god, and that the
inmost of nature is what is called the Divine. When such a man after
death becomes a spirit he calls anyone a god who is especially powerful;
and also himself strives for power that he may be called a god. All the
evil have such madness lurking inwardly in their spirit. But when a man
thinks from heaven, as he does when evils have been removed, he sees
from the light in heaven that there is a God and that He is one. Seeing
from light out of heaven is what is meant by influx. (A.E., n. 954.)

When a man shuns and turns away from evils because they are sins he not
only sees from the light of heaven that there is a God and the God is
one, but also that God is a Man. For he wishes to see his God, and he
is incapable of seeing Him otherwise than as a Man. Thus did the
ancients before Abraham and after him see God; thus do the nations in
lands outside the church see God from an interior perception, especially
those who are interiorly wise although not from knowledges; thus do all
little children and youths and simple well-disposed adults see God; and
thus do the inhabitants of all earths see God; for they declare that
what is invisible, since it does not co