(Note: This article is the third of a four-part series. The first three parts are edited versions of a series of questions by a reader named Rami, and my answers. The original versions appear in the comments section of the recent article, “What is the Unpardonable Sin? Am I Doomed?” The fourth part will be a response to a related Spiritual Conundrum submitted earlier by Rami.)

For Part 2, click here.

In a further follow-up comment on my response to the original question, which formed Part 1 of this article, a reader named Rami said:

Also, I really appreciate the illustrative value of likening our relationship to Divine grace to that of a cup, but I would like to ask a hopefully clarifying question about what it might imply: if a cup turned away from God is analogous to rejecting the goodness that flows from God, does that person necessarily still ‘experience’ that goodness, but just refuses to acknowledge it for what it is? Is there an ‘inner self’ that is always aware of one’s Divine nature and the Divine realities that are constantly at work within it, and a human, worldly, ‘outer self’ that can reject and try to suppress this awareness, making the outer self the only self? If it’s appropriate to look at the human being as composed of two ‘selves,’ is it even possible for the inner/higher self to ever really be closed off to God? Is the cup always filling, only it’s us who choose to not acknowledge this, and allow that goodness to flow upward into our lives and ultimately the lives of others?

Here is my response, originally contained in this comment, but with a major new segment and illustration added:

Hi Rami,

Good question.

The example of the cup is, of course, a simplification of an immensely complex reality. It gives the general idea, and in that way it’s a good example. But it doesn’t tell the whole story.

To get right to it, Swedenborg says that every human being, angel, and spirit (good or evil) has an inmost level, which Swedenborg calls the “soul” when he’s using that term in a technical sense. (He also uses the word “soul” in the more common sense as a synonym for the human spirit as a whole.) About that inmost soul:

• It is in direct communication with God, being the place where we receive our life from God.
• It is beyond our conscious awareness. As I picture it, our inmost soul is the vantage point from which we would look at everything else if our consciousness were raised to the highest level possible for us. And like the eye, it cannot see itself.
• It is beyond our reach or ability to affect, so that it is preserved pure and inviolate in everyone, even the worst devils in hell.
• For evil people and evil spirits, then, it is not corrupted, but rather is closed off from below.
• However, even in evil people and evil spirits, some life from it seeps down through the somewhat porous barrier that closes it off from the rest of the person, which is what makes it possible for us to continue to live, and to have eternal life.

For more on God, forgiveness, freedom, and hell, please click here to read on.