435. The First Step toward Goodwill Is Removing Evils; the Second Step Is Doing Good Things That Are Useful to Our Neighbor

Among teachings on goodwill the following point is primary: the first step toward goodwill is not to do evil to our neighbor. A secondary point is to do good to our neighbor. This is like a doorway to the teachings on goodwill.

As people generally know, evil dwells in the will of every human being from birth. Because all evil targets someone nearby or far away, including the wider community and the country, it follows that hereditary evil is evil against our neighbor on every scale.

On the basis of reason itself we can all see that the less we remove the evil that dwells in our will, the more the good we do is pregnant with that evil, because then evil exists inside the goodness like a kernel in a shell or the marrow in a bone. Therefore although good things that someone does in that state appear to be good, they are nevertheless not good inside. They are like a shiny shell containing a nut that has been consumed by worms. They are like a white almond that has rottenness inside it, so that rotten streaks have crept up to the surface.

[2] Intending evil and doing good are two things that are intrinsically opposite to each other. Evil comes from hatred for our neighbor and good comes from love for our neighbor. Or to put it another way, evil is an enemy to our neighbor and goodness is our neighbor's friend. The two cannot exist in a single mind, that is, there cannot be evil in our inner self and goodness in our outer self. If there were, the goodness on the outside would be like a wound that has been superficially treated, beneath which there lies the pus of an infection. We ourselves would then be like a tree whose roots are unsound; it produces pieces of fruit that outwardly look tasty and beneficial, although inwardly they are rotten and useless. Our good deeds would also be like pieces of rejected slag, superficially polished and beautifully colored, which are offered for sale as precious stones. Briefly put, these good deeds would be like the eggs of an owl mistaken for the eggs of a dove.

[3] It is important to know that the good things people accomplish with the body come from the spirit or the inner self. The inner self is their spirit, which lives after death. Therefore when [evil] people cast away the body that formed their outer self, they are made up of nothing but their own evils. They enjoy these evils and steer away from goodness as a threat to the way they live.

[4] The Lord teaches in many passages that we cannot do good things that are intrinsically good before evil has been removed from us:

Do people gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? A rotten tree cannot produce good fruit. (Matthew 7:16-18)

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but the insides are full of plundering and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, so that the outside may become clean as well. (Matthew 23:25-26)

And in Isaiah,

Wash yourselves. Remove the evil of your actions. Stop doing evil. Learn to do what is good; seek [good] judgment. Then if your sins had been like scarlet, they will become as white as snow. If they had been red as crimson, they will be like wool. (Isaiah 1:16-18)

360. In the preceding sections, I stated that our faith starts out as something earthly, but as we move toward the Lord it becomes spiritual; and the same applies to our goodwill. No one yet knows the difference, however, between earthly and spiritual faith and goodwill. This great mystery needs to be disclosed.

There are two worlds, the physical world and the spiritual world. Each world has a sun. From each sun emanates heat and light. The heat and light from the sun of the spiritual world have an intrinsic life in them from the Lord, who is within that sun. The heat and light from the sun of the physical world, on the other hand, have no intrinsic life in them. Instead they serve as vessels for the two higher forms of heat and light (as instrumental causes usually do for their principal causes) and serve to convey that higher heat and light to people.

It is important to realize, therefore, that the heat and light from the sun in the spiritual world are the source of all that is spiritual. That heat and that light are themselves spiritual as well, because they have spirit and life within them. The heat and light from the sun in the physical world are the source of all physical things. Physical things in and of themselves have no spirit or life.

[2] Now, since faith relates to light and goodwill to heat, clearly if we are in the light and heat that emanate from the sun of the spiritual world, we have a faith and a goodwill that are spiritual. If we are limited to the heat and light that emanate from the sun of the physical world, we are limited to a faith and a goodwill that are earthly.

As spiritual light lies within physical light as if it was in its own vessel or container, and spiritual heat lies within physical heat in the same way, it follows that spiritual faith lies within earthly faith, and spiritual goodwill within earthly goodwill. The two come together with every step we take as we progress from the physical world into the spiritual world. We make this progress as we believe in the Lord, who is the light itself, the way, the truth, and the life, as he himself teaches.

[3] Since this is the case, when we have spiritual faith we clearly also have earthly faith, in that spiritual faith lies within earthly faith, as I just said. And because faith relates to light, it follows that when spiritual faith comes into us our earthly self becomes translucent, so to speak. Our earthly self also becomes beautifully colored, depending on how united our faith is to goodwill. The reason it takes on colors is that goodwill is a glowing red and faith is a shining white. Goodwill glows red with the flame of spiritual fire, and faith shines white with the brilliance of the light from that fire.

Just the opposite happens, however, if we do not have spirituality in our earthly self, but instead have something earthly in our spirituality. This is what happens to people who reject faith and goodwill. For these people, the inner level of the mind, where they go when they are left to their own thinking, is hellish. In fact, although they do not realize it, their thinking comes from hell. The outer level of their mind, from which they operate when they are talking to their friends in the world, may be spiritual in a way, but it is also riddled with things that are like the filthiness of hell. These people are in fact in hell, in the sense that they are in a state that is upside-down compared to the state of the people we were talking about before.