490. It is plain from the first chapter of Genesis that everything created by God was good. It says there that 'God saw that it was good' (verses 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), and at the end 'God saw everything that He made, and behold, it was very good' (verse 31). It is also plain from man's primeval state in paradise. Evil, however, arose from man, as is plain from Adam's second ¹ state, that is, after the fall, by his being expelled from paradise. It is clear from these facts that if free will in spiritual matters had not been given to man, God Himself, and not man, would have been the cause of evil; in this case God would have created both good and evil, and it is wicked even to think that God created evil too. The reason why God did not create evil, since He bestowed on man free will in spiritual matters, and never puts any evil into his mind, is that He is good itself, and in good God is omnipresent, continually urging and demanding to be received. Even if He is not received, still He does not go away. For if He did, man would instantly die, or rather dissolve into non-existence, since man gets his life, and the continued existence of all he consists of, from God.

[2] Evil was not created by God but introduced by man, because man turns the good which continually flows in from God into evil, by turning away from God and turning towards himself. When this happens, the pleasure given by good remains, but it now becomes the pleasure given by evil; for without an apparently similar pleasure being left man would cease to live, since it is pleasure which makes up the vital principle of his love. These two pleasures are still diametrically opposed, though a person is unaware of this so long as he lives in the world. After death, however, he will know this and indeed feel it plainly, for then the pleasure given by the love of good is turned into heavenly blessedness, but the pleasure given by the love of evil into the torments of hell. These arguments prove that everyone is predestined to heaven, and no one to hell; but it is the person who commits himself to hell by misusing his free will in spiritual matters. As a result he embraces the ideas wafted from hell, since, as was said above, everyone is held mid-way between heaven and hell, so that he can be in equilibrium between good and evil, and consequently have free will in spiritual matters.

फुटनोट:

98. They are very humble in their worship, for they regard themselves as worthless in this respect. They worship our Lord, and acknowledge Him as the One and Only God. The Lord actually appears to them from time to time in the form of an angel, that is, as a man; and then His Divinity shines out from His face, and affects their minds. The inhabitants also speak with spirits, when they are old enough; the spirits teach them about the Lord, how He should be worshipped, and how they ought to live.

Whenever anyone wants to mislead the spirits from there, seducing them from their belief in the Lord, or from their self-abasement before Him and from uprightness of life, they say they want to die. Then there are to be seen in their hands small knives, with which they seem intent on striking their chests. On being asked why they do this, they reply that they would rather die than be taken away from the Lord. The spirits of our world sometimes make fun of them on this account, and heap insults on them for behaving like that. But then they reply that they are perfectly well aware that they are not killing themselves, but that this is merely an appearance arising from their intention, which makes them prefer death to being prevented from worshipping the Lord.