274.* _A doubt may be raised against divine providence in that it has not been known before that a man lives as a human being after death and that this has not been disclosed before._ It has been unknown because with those who do not shun evils as sins the belief lies hidden that man does not live after death. It is of no moment therefore to them whether one says that man lives after death or will rise again on the day of the last judgment. If belief in resurrection happens to visit one, he tells himself, "I shall fare no worse than others; if I go to hell I shall have the company of many and also if I pass to heaven." Yet all in whom there is any religion have an implanted recognition that they will live as human beings after death. Only those infatuated with their own intelligence think that they survive as souls but not as human beings. * So numbered in the Latin original. It may be seen from the following that anyone in whom is any religion has an implanted recognition that he lives after death as a human being: 1. Who thinks otherwise when he is dying? 2. What eulogizer, mourning the dead, does not exalt them to heaven and place them among the angels conversing with them and sharing their joy? Some men are deified. 3. Who among the common people does not believe that when he dies, if he has lived well he will enter a heavenly paradise, be arrayed in white, and enjoy eternal life? 4. What priest does not speak so to the dying? And when he speaks so he believes it, provided he does not think of the last judgment at the time. 5. Who does not believe that his little ones are in heaven and that after death he will see his wife, whom he has loved? Who thinks that they are spectres, still less souls or minds hovering in the universe? 6. Who contradicts when something is said about the lot or state of those who have passed from time into eternal life? I have told many what the state or lot of various persons is and have never heard anyone protest that their lot is not yet determined but will be at the time of the judgment. 7. When one sees angels in paintings or statuary does he not recognize them as such? Who thinks then that they are bodiless spirits or airy entities or clouds, as do some of the erudite? 8. Papists believe that their saints are human beings in heaven and others elsewhere are; so do Mohammedans of their dead; more than others Africans do, and many other peoples do. Why then do not Reformed Christians believe it, who know it from the Word? 9. Moreover, as a result of the recognition implanted in everyone, some men aspire to the immortality of renown. The recognition is given that turn in them and makes heroes and brave men of them in war. 10. Inquiry was made in the spiritual world whether this knowledge is implanted in all men; it was found that it is in a spiritual idea attached to their internal thought, not in a natural idea attached to their external thought.