491. Comparisons can be drawn to illustrate the propositions that God bestowed freedom, not only on every human being, but also on every animal, and indeed an analogous faculty even on inanimate objects, giving each the power to receive it according to its nature; and that God intends good to all, but this is turned into evil by the objects upon which it acts. The atmosphere enables everyone to breathe, and likewise every animal and wild beast, every bird, the owl as much as the dove; it also enables birds to fly. Yet the atmosphere is not to blame for the opportunity given to creatures of contrary nature and character. The ocean affords in itself a home and provides food for every fish; but it is not to blame for one fish swallowing another, or for the crocodile turning its food into poison to kill people. The sun provides light and heat for all, but the objects it acts upon, the various plants on earth, receive them in different ways; a good tree or shrub does so in one way, a thorn or briar in another, and a harmless plant in a different way from a poisonous one.

[2] Rain from the upper levels of the atmosphere falls to the ground everywhere, and the ground supplies water from this source to every tree, plant and grass, each of which uses the water to serve its own needs. This is what is meant by the faculty analogous to free will: the plants freely suck up the water through their openings, pores and passages, which in warm weather stand open, and the earth merely provides moisture and elements, which the plants take up in a manner reminiscent of thirst and hunger. It is much the same with people. The Lord flows in to provide every person with spiritual heat, which is in essence the good of love, and with spiritual light, which is in essence the truth of wisdom. But the way the person receives these depends upon which way he turns, whether to God or to himself. That is why the Lord says where He teaches us about love towards the neighbour:

So that you may be sons of the Father, who makes the sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, Matthew 5:45.

And in another passage He speaks of Him desiring the salvation of all.

510. Every individual comes to the community where her or his spirit was in the world. Each of us, as to spirit, is actually united to some community, either heavenly or hellish, evil people to hellish communities and good people to heavenly ones. (see 438 on the fact that we are brought to our own communities after death.) Spirits are brought there gradually, and ultimately get in. When evil spirits are in the state of their deeper concerns, they gradually turn toward their own communities and eventually face them directly, before this state is completed. When the state is completed, then the evil spirits themselves plunge into a hell where there are people of like mind. To the eye, this plunge looks like someone falling backward headfirst. The reason it looks like this is that such people are in an inverted order. They have loved hellish things and spurned heavenly ones. During this second state, some evil people go in and out of various hells; but they do not seem then to go headlong the way people do when they have been completely undone.

The actual community where their spirits were in the world is shown to them, too, while they are in the state of their outer concerns, so that they know from this that they were in hell during their physical life; but still they are not in the same state as the people who are in hell itself. Rather, they are in a state like that of people in the world of spirits. I will explain later what this state is like compared to that of people in hell.