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.

Bilješke:

9632. 'And a covering from the skins of badgers above that' means outside that [another mantle], a mantle consisting of truths derived from external good. This is clear from the meaning of 'a covering' as a mantle, as just above in 9630; from the meaning of 'skins' as external truths, dealt with in 9471; and from the meaning of 'badgers' as forms of good, also dealt with in 9471.

Any further explanation of the things which have been stated so far regarding the dwelling-place, the tent over it, and the two coverings over that, can be dispensed with, since they are such as would be scarcely intelligible owing to the lack of proper knowledge. For where that knowledge is lacking there is blindness; thus there is no reception of light nor consequently any concept of the matter. Few if any people know that heaven is represented and thereby described by the dwelling-place, and the external part of it by the tent and its two coverings. The reason why there is no proper knowledge of these things is that scarcely anyone is aware of the fact that heavenly realities are meant by all that is written in the Word, thus that there is an inner meaning or spiritual sense within every detail there. Scarcely anyone knows either that this sense is not apparent in the letter, only from the letter to those who, having learned about correspondences, receive light from the Lord when they read the Word.

[2] Indeed scarcely anyone is aware of the fact that a person governed by the good of love and faith is heaven in the smallest form this can take, or that such a person in respect both of the more internal aspects of his being and of the more external corresponds to heaven, 9276. If these things had been known the learned in the Christian world who have acquired some knowledge regarding the parts of the human body could have received some light of understanding and therefore have had some concept of heaven. They could have discerned which particular realities in heaven are represented by the ark, its mercy-seat, and the cherubs above it; which particular realities by the table on which the loaves of the Presence were laid, the lampstand, and the gold altar for incense; also which particular ones are represented by the dwelling-place, its curtains, boards, and bases, and lastly by the tent and the two coverings over it. For similar things are met with in the human being, in the things with him that are internal and those that are external. They also present themselves in material form in his body; and to these [material parts of his body] the internal things have an exact correspondence. For unless the external things, which belong to the body, had an exact correspondence with the internal ones, which belong to the understanding and the will, there would not be any life in the body, nor thus any actions in accord with them.

[3] Similar things are said to be met with in the tabernacle as in the human being because representatives on the natural level resemble the human form and have the same meaning as the parts of it they resemble, 9496. External things within the human being provide four coverings which surround and enclose all that is more internal; these coverings are what animal skins and actual skins of the body refer to. See what has been mentioned from experience in 5552-5559, 8980, regarding the correspondence of the latter to internal things. The coverings which constituted the roof and sides of the tabernacle provided a similar representation. From all this the understanding may gain some light regarding the forms that heaven takes. Nevertheless that light will be snuffed out with all who have no definite knowledge regarding the things that exist within the human body and at the same time no definite knowledge regarding the spiritual realities belonging to faith and the celestial realities belonging to love, to which those things in the body correspond. Since most people are in the dark, indeed in thick darkness, so far as those realities and human physiology are concerned, owing not only to their lack of knowledge but also to their lack of belief, any further explanation of them has been dispensed with; for as stated above, they would be unintelligible because there is no light of understanding in such matters.