10318. CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST.
THE DOCTRINE OF CHARITY AND FAITH*
Without a revelation from the Divine, man cannot know anything about eternal life, nor indeed anything about God, and still less about love to Him and faith in Him. For man is born into mere ignorance, and afterward has all things to learn from what is of the world, from which he must form his understanding. He is also born hereditarily into all evil that belongs to the love of self and the love of the world. The delights from these loves reign continually, and prompt to such things as are diametrically contrary to the Divine. From this then it is that from himself man knows nothing about eternal life; and therefore there must needs be a revelation from which he may know this.
* Here concerning the Word. [Reviser.]
