ot thinking of the
sun's fixity or the earth's revolution. But those who confirm themselves
in the idea that the sun produces the things that appear upon the earth
by means of its heat and light, end by ascribing all things to nature,
even the creation of the universe, and become naturalists and, at last,
atheists. These may continue to say that God created nature and endowed
her with the power of producing such things, but this they say from fear
of losing their good name; and by God the Creator they still mean nature,
and some mean the innermost of nature, and then the Divine things taught
by the church they regard as of no account.

350. There are some who are excusable for ascribing certain visible things
to nature, for two reasons. First, because they have had no knowledge of
the sun of heaven, where the Lord is, or of influx therefrom, or of the
spiritual world and its state, or even of its presence with man, and
therefore had no other idea than that the spiritual is a purer natural;
consequently, that angels are in the ether or in the stars; and that the
devil is either man's evil or if an actual existence, that he is in the
air or the abyss; also that the souls of men, after death, are either in
the interior of the earth, or in an undetermined somewhere till the day
of judgment; and other like things deduced by fancy out of ignorance of
the spiritual world and its sun.

Secondly, they are excusable, because they are unable to see how the
Divine could produce everything that appears on the earth, where there
are not only good things but also evil things; and they are afraid to
confirm themselves in such an idea, lest they ascribe the evil things
also to God, and form a material conception of God, and make God and
nature one, and thus confound the two.

For these two reasons those are excusable who have believed that nature
produces the visible world by a power implanted in her by creation. But
those who have made themselves atheists by confirmations in favor of
nature are not excusable, because they might have confirmed themselves
in favor of the Divine. Ignorance indeed excuses, but does not remove,
falsity - which has been confirmed, for such falsity coheres with evil,
thus with hell. Consequently, those same persons who have confirmed
themselves in favor of nature to such an extent as to separate the Divine
from nature, regard nothing as sin, because all sin is against the Divine,
and this they have separate