763. It is part of the divine design that things proceed from beginning to end; this is both a pattern overall and a pattern in smaller increments within the overall pattern. This design allows for the variety of all things, and this variety allows there to be qualities of all kinds. The quality of anything is more perfectly assessed through its contrast to things that are somewhat its opposite and things that are very much its opposite.

Darkness allows us to appreciate what a wonderful thing light is, and coldness allows us to appreciate what a wonderful thing heat is. Likewise (as everyone surely recognizes), falsity allows us to appreciate what a wonderful thing truth is, and evil allows us to appreciate what a wonderful thing goodness is.

What would color be if only white existed, and black did not? The quality of the other colors would be poorer if there were no way to darken them.

What is sensation without contrast? And what is contrast without the existence of things that are opposites? Our eyesight is dimmed by whiteness alone, but is brought to life by colors - such as green, for example - that are darkened by a measure of blackness. Our ear grows deaf to a single note that constantly assaults our organs of hearing; the ear is stimulated, though, by notes in various different harmonic relationships.

[2] What is beauty if there is no ugliness to serve as a contrast? This is why some paintings highlight and bring to life the beauty of a young woman by including an ugly image beside her.

What are joy and delight apart from their contrast with what is miserable and unpleasant?

Surely we all become deranged if we constantly think the same idea and never interrupt it with a variety of other notions that tend in different and even opposite directions.

The same is true of the spiritual qualities offered by the church. The opposites of these qualities relate to evil and falsity. Evil and falsity are not from the Lord, though; they come from us. We have free choice, and we can exercise that choice to serve either a good purpose or an evil purpose. Falsity and evil are like the dark and the cold. The sun does not cause the dark or the cold; it is the earth's turning away that causes them. And yet without that turning away, there would be no day, there would be no year, and therefore there would be nothing and no one on this planet.

I have been told that the churches and all their varying approaches to goodness and truth - provided their goodness has something to do with loving the Lord and their truths have something to do with faith in him - are like all the different gems on a monarch's crown.