Spiritual Experiences (Odhner) n. 209

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209. About a Spiritual property on the plane of nature, and the fact that religious truths can be preached by an earthly-minded person What we are calling a spiritual property on the plane of nature is that element within the light of nature that gives people the ability to reason in general, even about spiritual and heavenly matters, and about religious truth, and also to preach and persuade regarding them, even if it is an earthly-minded person. It should be noted that [with such,] these are matters of the memory, which are brought forth by a native perspicuity, and this from various motives and desires, both short and long range. The spiritual property that endows an earthly person with the ability to reason is something spiritual that does not have the heavenly within it, because if it had, then it would come forth from what is heavenly, thus from the genuine source, that is from Love, thus from God the Messiah. However, one may think of this spiritual element as being encompassed by the heavenly, because without the heavenly element, no ability to reason can exist.


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