93. In the spiritual world you can hear and see what the difference is like between people who believe that everything good comes from the Lord and people who believe that goodness comes from themselves. People who believe that goodness comes from the Lord turn their faces toward him and find a pleasure and a bliss in what is good. In contrast, people who believe that goodness comes from themselves focus on themselves, thinking inwardly that they have earned it. Since they are focused on themselves, all they can feel is a pleasure in their own goodness, and this is not a pleasure in goodness but a pleasure in evil — because what really belongs to us is evil. When pleasure in evil is felt as good, that is hell.
After death, people who have done good in the belief that it came from them cannot accept the fact that everything good comes from the Lord. They mingle with hellish demons and eventually unite with them. However, people who accept this truth are reformed, though the only people who do accept it are the ones who have turned to God during their lives. Turning to God during our lives is nothing but abstaining from evils as sins.
