faculties so far as he can be led by them to acknowledge that all truth
and good which he thinks and does are from the Lord and not from
himself._ What reformation and regeneration are has been told just above,
likewise that man is reformed and regenerated by means of the two
faculties of rationality and liberty. Because it is done by those
faculties, something more is to be said of them. From rationality a man
can understand and from liberty he can will, doing each as of himself.
Yet he does not have the ability to will good in freedom and to do it in
accord with reason unless he is regenerated. An evil man can will only
evil in freedom and do it according to his thinking, which by
confirmations he has made to be his reasoning. For evil can be confirmed
as well as good, but is confirmed by fallacies and appearances which then
become falsities; evil so confirmed seems to accord with reason.

88. Anyone thinking from interior understanding can see that the power to
will and the power to understand are not from man, but from Him who has
power itself, that is, power in its essence. Only think whence power is.
Is it not from Him who has it in its full might, that is, who possesses
it in and from Himself? Power in itself, therefore, is divine. All power
must have a supply on which to draw and direction from an interior or
higher self. Of itself the eye cannot see, nor the ear hear, nor the
mouth speak, nor the hand do; there must be supply and direction from the
mind. Nor can the mind of itself think or will this or that unless
something more interior or higher determines the mind to it. The same is
true of the power to understand and the power to will. These are possible
only from Him who has in Himself the power of willing and understanding.

[2] It is plain, then, that the two faculties called rationality and
liberty are from the Lord and not from man. Man can therefore will or
understand something only as if of himself, and not of himself. Anyone