177. No one can be regenerated, unless he is acquainted with those things which belong to the new life, that is, to those which belong to spiritual life. The things that belong to the new life, that is, to spiritual life, are the truths which are to be believed, and the goods which are to be done: the former belong to faith, and the latter to charity. No one can know these things from himself; for a man apprehends only those things which strike his senses: from these things he has procured for himself a light which is called natural lumen; by means of which he sees only what belongs to the world and to himself, but not what belongs to heaven and to God. These latter things he has to learn from revelation - as, for instance, that the Lord who is God from eternity, came into the world to save the human race; that He has all power in heaven and on earth; that the whole of faith and charity, and thus all truth and good, are from Him; that there is a heaven and a hell; and that a man lives to eternity in heaven if he has done good, but in hell if he has done evil.