330. Since the goal of creation is a heaven from the human race (and therefore the human race itself), the intermediate goals are everything else that has been created. Because these do relate to us, they focus on these three aspects of us: our bodies, our rational functioning, and, for the sake of our union with the Lord, our spiritual functioning. We cannot be united to the Lord unless we are spiritual; we cannot be spiritual unless we are rational; and we cannot be rational unless we are physically whole. These aspects are like a house, with the body as its foundation, the structure of the house as our rational functioning, and the contents of the house as our spiritual functioning. Living in the house is union with the Lord.

This enables us to see the sequence, level, and focus of the relationship to us of the useful functions that are intermediate goals of creation. That is, they are for the support of our bodies, for the development of our rational ability, and for our acceptance of what is spiritual from the Lord.

1853. That 'you will come to your fathers in peace' means that nothing of the goods and truths will suffer harm becomes clear from the meaning of 'fathers', also of 'coming to one's fathers', as well as of 'peace'. In the internal sense 'fathers' here has the same meaning as daughters and sons taken together. That 'daughters' means goods and 'sons' truths has been shown already in 489-491, 533, 1147, and therefore 'fathers' means those things meant by daughters and sons together. 'Coming to one's fathers' is passing over from the life of the body into the life of the spirit, or from the world into the next life. 'In peace' means that he will have lost nothing, and thus that nothing will suffer harm, for when a person passes into the next life he does not lose any of the things that he possesses as man. He retains and has with him every single thing except the body which has hampered the interior exercise of his capabilities. The fact that here, not death, or passing over to one's fathers, is meant by death, becomes clear from what follows immediately below.