nd punishment of
existence--is to be subjected to the world of nature; to be veiled from
God; to be brutal and ignorant; to fall into carnal lusts; to be absorbed
in animal frailties; to be characterized with dark qualities, such as
falsehood, tyranny, cruelty, attachment to the affairs of the world, and
being immersed in satanic ideas. For them, these are the greatest
punishments and tortures.

Likewise, the rewards of the other world are the eternal life which is
clearly mentioned in all the Holy Books, the divine perfections, the
eternal bounties and everlasting felicity. The rewards of the other world
are the perfections and the peace obtained in the spiritual worlds after
leaving this world, while the rewards of this life are the real luminous
perfections which are realized in this world, and which are the cause of
eternal life, for they are the very progress of existence. It is like the
man who passes from the embryonic world to the state of maturity and
becomes the manifestation of these words: "Blessed, therefore, be God, the
most excellent of Makers."(155) The rewards of the other world are peace,
the spiritual graces, the various spiritual gifts in the Kingdom of God,
the gaining of the desires of the heart and the soul, and the meeting of
God in the world of eternity. In the same way the punishments of the other
world--that is to say, the torments of the other world--consist in being
deprived of the special divine blessings and the absolute bounties, and
falling into the lowest degrees of existence. He who is deprived of these
divine favors, although he continues after death, is considered as dead by
the people of truth.

The logical proof of the immortality of the spirit is this, that no sign
can come from a nonexisting thing--that is to say, it is impossible that
from absolute nonexistence signs should appear--for the signs are the
consequence of an existence, and the consequence depends upon the
existence of the principle. So from a nonexisting sun no light can
radiate; from a nonexisting sea no waves appear; from a nonexisting cloud
no rain falls; a nonexisting tree yields no fruit; a nonexisting man
neither manifests nor produces anything. Therefore, as long as signs of
existence appear, they are a proof that the possessor of the sign is
existent.

Consider that today the Kingdom of Christ exists. From a nonexisting king
how could such a great kingdom be manifested? How, from a nonexisting sea,
can th