1. Every Religion Is a Way of Life, and Its Life Is the Doing of Good

Everyone with any religion knows and acknowledges that someone who lives right is saved, and that someone who does not live right is damned. For he knows and acknowledges that someone who lives right, thinks right, not only about God, but also about the neighbor; but not so someone who does not live right.

A person’s life is his love, and what a person loves he not only freely does, but also freely thinks. We say therefore that his life is the doing of good, because doing right accompanies his thinking right. If these two do not go together, they do not constitute a person’s life.

But this we will show in the following pages.

42. Insofar as Someone Refrains from Evils as Being Sins, So Far He Has Faith and Is Spiritual

Faith and life are two distinct things, like thinking and acting; and because thinking is a function of the intellect, and acting a function of the will, it follows that faith and life are two distinct things, like intellect and will. Someone who knows the distinction between intellect and will also knows the distinction between faith and life. And someone who knows how the intellect and the will go together also knows how faith and life go together. Therefore we must first say something about the intellect and the will.