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.

42. The case is the same with love and wisdom, the only difference being that the substances and forms which constitute love and wisdom are not visible to the eyes as the organs of the external senses are. But still, no one can deny that substances and forms constitute those elements of wisdom and love that are called thoughts, perceptions and affections, and that these are not aerial entities flying about or flowing out of nothing, or things abstracted from real and actual substance and form which are the subjects of which they are predicated. For the brain has in it countless substances and forms which are the seat of every interior sense connected with the intellect and will.

All affections, perceptions and thoughts in those substances and forms are not exhalations from them, but are actually and really subjects which emit nothing from them, but simply undergo changes of state in accordance with the incoming stimuli that affect them, as may be seen from the observations above regarding the outward senses. (Regarding the incoming stimuli that affect them, more will be said below.)