329. We can tell what a useful function is from the goal of the creation of the universe. The goal of the creation of the universe is to bring about an angelic heaven; and since an angelic heaven is the goal, so is humanity or the human race, since that is where heaven comes from. It follows, then, that everything that has been created is an intermediate goal, and that the functions are useful in the sequence, on the level, and in the specific way that they relate to humanity, and through humanity to the Lord.

1630. Spirits are highly indignant that men have no conception of the life of spirits and angels, or that men imagine that they dwell in a state of obscurity, which must be very miserable, and that they are so to speak in an empty void, when in fact they live in the strongest light, can enjoy all good things with every one of their senses, so much so that they are able to perceive them most intimately. There were also certain souls recently arrived from the world who, on account of the assumptions they had adopted there, had brought with them the idea that such things did not exist in the next life. They were therefore taken into angels' homes, where they talked to them and saw those things. When they resumed they said they perceived that it was true and that such things were indeed a reality, and that they never had nor could have believed it during their lifetime. They also said that these things belonged inevitably among the wonderful things people do not believe because they do not have any conception of them. As however this is an experience of the senses, although of the interior senses, they are told this, that they still ought not to doubt the reality of things merely because they do not have any conception of them. Indeed, they are told, if they believed nothing except that of which they have some conception, they would believe nothing concerning things of an interior nature, still less those of eternal life. Here lies the reason for the insanity of our own times.