377. (c) Goodwill alone does not produce good actions; even less does faith alone produce them. Good actions are produced by goodwill and faith together. The reason for this is that goodwill without faith is not goodwill, and faith without goodwill is not faith, as I have shown above, 355-358. Goodwill does not exist all alone by itself, and neither does faith. As a result, it cannot be said that goodwill produces any good works on its own or that faith produces any good works on its own.

The situation is similar with the will and the intellect. There is no such thing as a will that exists all alone by itself; it would not produce anything. There is no such thing as an intellect that exists all alone by itself; it would not produce anything either. All productivity comes from both faculties working together; it comes from the intellect in connection with the will. This similarity exists because the will is the home of goodwill and the intellect is the home of faith.

I said, "even less does faith alone produce them," because faith is truth. To live our faith is to put truths into action. Truths enlighten goodwill and the practice of it. The Lord teaches that truths are enlightening when he says, "Those who do the truth come to the light so their works will be revealed, since those works were done in God" (John 3:21). Therefore when we follow truths in our doing of good works, we do good works "in the light," meaning intelligently and wisely.

The partnership between goodwill and faith is like the marriage between a husband and a wife. All their physical offspring are born to both the husband as their father and the wife as their mother. Likewise, all our spiritual offspring are born to goodwill as their father and faith as their mother. Spiritual offspring are concepts of goodness and truth. These concepts allow us to recognize the lineage of whole spiritual families. In fact, in the Word's spiritual meaning "a husband" and "a father" refer to goodness related to goodwill, and "a wife" and "a mother" refer to truth related to faith.

From these parallels it is again clear that goodwill by itself or faith by itself could not produce good works, just as a husband by himself or a wife by herself could not produce children.

The truths that relate to faith not only enlighten goodwill, they also enhance its quality and even nourish it. Therefore if we have goodwill but we have no truths related to faith, we are like someone walking in a garden at night, plucking pieces of fruit from the trees without knowing whether they are beneficial or harmful to eat. Since the truths related to faith not only enlighten goodwill but also enhance its quality, as I said, it follows that goodwill without truths that are related to faith is like pieces of fruit without any juice in them, like parched figs or like grapes after the wine has been pressed out of them.

Since truths nourish faith, as I also said, it follows that if goodwill lacks truths that are related to faith, that goodwill has no more nourishment than we would have from eating a piece of burnt toast and drinking filthy water from a pond.

24. 5. The plurality of gods in ancient times, and nowadays as well, has no other source than a misunderstanding of the underlying divine reality. In 8 above I showed that the oneness of God is written into each human mind at the deepest level, since it is central to all things that flow from God into our souls. It has not yet come down from there into our intellect, however, because we have been lacking concepts we need in order to go up toward God. Each of us needs to make a pathway for God [Isaiah 40:3], meaning we need to prepare ourselves to receive God, and this preparation requires certain concepts.

The concepts we have been lacking are listed below. Their lack has deprived our intellect of the penetration to see that there is one God, that there can be only one underlying divine reality, and that all things in the material world come from that underlying reality.

(a) Until now, no one has known anything about the spiritual world, where there are spirits and angels and where we go after we die. (b) The spiritual world has a sun that is pure love from Jehovah God, who is within that sun. (c) The heat from that sun is essentially love, and its light is essentially wisdom. (d) As a result, everything in that world is spiritual and affects us in our inner selves, forming our will and our intellect at that level. (e) By means of that sun, Jehovah God produced not only the spiritual world and all the countless spiritual things in it, which are substantial, but also the material world and all the countless material things in it, which are physical. (f) Until now, no one has known the difference between "spiritual" and "earthly," or even what "spiritual" essentially means. (g) No one has known that there are three levels of love and wisdom that have been used to structure the angelic heavens. (h) No one has known that the human mind is differentiated into the same number of levels so that we can be lifted to one of the three heavens after death, depending on our life and faith. (i) Lastly, none of the above would be the case for one instant were it not for the underlying divine reality - the Absolute in itself; the First and the Beginning from which all things exist.

Even though these are the concepts we need in order to go higher and recognize the divine reality, they have been lacking until now.

[2] I say that we go higher, but I really mean that we are taken up by God. We have free will; we can use it to gain religious knowledge. When we exercise our intellect and gain religious knowledge from the Word, we smooth a pathway that God can use to come down and lift us up.

The concepts that can lift our intellect higher, and let God take us by the hand and lead us, can be compared to the steps on the ladder that Jacob saw. It was set up on the ground but the top of it stretched into heaven. Angels were climbing up on it and Jehovah was standing above it (Genesis 28:12-13).

When we lack these concepts or reject them with contempt, the situation is quite the opposite. Under these conditions, the reach of our intellect can be compared to a ladder on the grounds of a magnificent mansion, but the ladder extends only to a window on the first floor, where people are staying, and does not reach the windows of the second floor where there are spirits, let alone the windows of the third floor, where there are angels.

If we lack or reject these concepts, we are limited to the atmospheres and matter in nature that we experience with our eyes, ears, and noses. From these sources we get only atmospheric and material ideas about heaven and about God's underlying reality and essence. Thinking on the basis of them, we will never decide anything about whether God exists or not, or whether there is one God or many, much less what the underlying reality and essence of God are like. As a result, in ancient times, and nowadays as well, people have come to believe in a plurality of gods.