331. Useful functions for the support of our bodies have to do with its nourishment, clothing, shelter, recreation and pleasure, protection, and the preservation of its state. The useful things created for physical nourishment are all the members of the plant kingdom that we eat and drink, such as fruits, grapes, seeds, vegetables, and grains. Then there are all the members of the animal kingdom that we eat, such as steers, cows, calves, deer, sheep, kids, goats, lambs, and the milk they give, as well as many kinds of bird and fish.

The useful things created for clothing our bodies also come in abundance from these two kingdoms, as do those for our shelter and for our recreation and pleasure, for our protection, and for the preservation of our state. I will not enumerate these because they are familiar, so listing them would only take up space.

There are of course many things that we do not find useful, but these extras do not prevent usefulness. In fact, they enable useful functions to continue. Then there are abuses of functions; but again, the abuse of a function does not eliminate the useful function, just as the falsification of something true does not destroy the truth except for the people who are doing the falsifying.

545. THE LORD CASTS NO ONE INTO HELL; BUT THIS IS DONE BY THE SPIRIT HIMSELF

An opinion has prevailed with some that God turns away His face from man, rejects man from Himself, and casts him into hell, and is angry with him on account of his evil; and with some the opinion goes further, that God punishes man and does evil to him. They confirm themselves in this opinion from the sense of the letter of the Word, where similar things are said, not knowing that the spiritual sense of the Word, which explains the sense of the letter, is wholly different; and consequently that the genuine doctrine of the Church, which is from the spiritual sense of the Word, teaches otherwise, namely, that God never turns away His face from man, and never rejects man from Himself; that He casts no one into hell and is angry with no one. ¹ Everyone, moreover, whose mind is enlightened, perceives this to be true when he reads the Word, from a perception solely from it, because God is Good Itself, Love Itself, and Mercy Itself; and he has a perception that Good Itself cannot do evil to anyone, and Love Itself and Mercy Itself cannot reject man from itself; because this is contrary to the very essence of mercy and love, thus contrary to the Divine Itself. Therefore those who think from an enlightened mind clearly perceive, when they read the Word, that God never turns Himself away from man; and as He never turns Himself away from him He deals with him from goodness, love, and mercy, that is, wills good to him, loves him, and is merciful to him. And from this they see that the sense of the letter of the Word, in which such things are said, has stored up within itself a spiritual sense, and that these expressions, that are used in the sense of the letter in accommodation to man's apprehension and according to his first and general ideas, are to be explained in accordance with the spiritual sense.

Footnotes: