230. [233.] Love
93. From the ideas of spirits flowing into the world of spirits after death, it is possible to know all the ideas they have had regarding God, heaven, love, and faith. Most of them have an idea of God as a kind of cloud or mist, because they have thought that God is a spirit, and they have no other idea of a spirit than that. They have an idea of heaven as being in the sky-some placing it among the stars, all regarding it as existing in the universe-and scarcely any have an idea of it as existing in a person, because they cannot remove the idea of space. The ideas they have of heavenly joy are ones of delight, each thinking of it as the delight of his love, especially the delight of ruling and of living blissfully and continually in the enjoyment of external delights, only a few placing it in the enjoyment of inner delights, without knowing what they are. They have so crude an idea of love that you would call it filthy. They think of it in terms of the delight of a love of adultery. Some of them have no idea of love, because they have not known what love is. They think of mutual love in the same way, some having the idea of an external friendship. In a word, all their ideas of love stem from an idea of lasciviousness. They have no other idea of faith than the accepted one, whose character we described above, an idea which is not an idea of genuine faith, because it is an idea of faith separated from charity, with no knowledge of what charity is. When an angelic idea of God, heaven, love, or faith flows in, they do not perceive it. There is in their minds a kind of dark oblivion, because the light of heaven does not enter. Such is the character of the world today as a result of faith alone; for when faith alone enters and is accepted, no element of truth then is liked. They say, "I know the truths of our church, which are wholly contained in that faith."