57. * prised, that mortals live in such great blindness, and this just because of their philosophy and learning, as they call it, which lead them into dense ignorance. For they are unaware that there are four human faculties, and do not know how to distinguish the human soul from their reasoning mind, and not even from the soul of brute animals. They even might, just because of the philosophy of their minds, come into such blindness that they would hardly know how to distinguish the human soul from the soul of the lowliest insects, or even, finally, from the soul of inanimate objects, and of plant life, seeing similar reproductive processes there. So it is saddening that at this day, they imagine they are living in such great light in matters of understanding, when yet it is a darkness so thick that none could be thicker. As a result, as soon as they consult any philosophy, they fall into the worship of nature and are turned backward, and the proper order becomes so distorted that belief becomes null, thus almost irreparable, unless all their philosophy is first shaken from their minds. So there must be a belief opposite to their own state of mind - which is not the case, for a spiritual knowledge must come first. One must know what is to be believed, and that something is there that can be believed. For belief is not possible without knowledge of these matters. That would be a believing without the understanding and reason, which is not human. [Soul; Wild animal (Beast); Blind; Ignorance; Philosophy] 2768. Without a knowledge of those human faculties, there is no knowledge of what takes place in every society, smaller and larger, in the entire globe, in the Church of God the Messiah, in the Kingdom Itself of God the Messiah. For the Kingdom of God the Messiah will be just like a human being in most perfect order, from the innermost to the outermost parts, having all the human faculties. The state of this Kingdom of God the Messiah, thus the state of Heaven, is absolutely not known, not in the least respect, without spiritual knowledge of what the human being is like per se, and what when reformed. Without it, therefore, one cannot grasp, and thus cannot believe, anything at all about how we are reformed, that is, regenerated, created anew, made righteous, and so brought back into perfect order for our level, from the distorted order in which and into which we are born.