592. If the Lord were not in control of both the heavens and the hells, there would be no equilibrium; and if there were no equilibrium, there would be no heaven or hell. Absolutely everything in the universe, everything in both the natural world and the spiritual world, is constituted by an equilibrium. Any rational person can grasp this. Let one side outweigh the other, with no resistance offered, and will not both be destroyed? This is what would happen in the spiritual world if the good did not react against the evil and constantly suppress its rebellions. Unless the divine power, and nothing else, did this, heaven and hell would perish, and the whole human race along with them. I refer to the "divine power and nothing else" because the selfhood of every angel, every spirit, and every one of us is nothing but evil (see above, 591). This means that no angel or spirit can ever resist the evil influences that are constantly breathed out of the hells since we all incline toward hell because of our self-concern. We can see from this that if the Lord alone were not in control of both the heavens and the hells, there would be no salvation for anyone.

Not only that, all the hells act in unison because the evil energies of the hells are all interconnected the way the good energies are in the heavens; and nothing but the only divine power can resist all the countless hells acting in concert against heaven and everyone there. That one divine power emanates from the Lord.