39. Verse 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things, living creatures; and let birds fly above the earth, upon the face ¹ of the expanse of the heavens.

After the great lights have been kindled and lodged in the internal man, from which the external man receives its light, a person starts to live for the first time. Till then he can hardly be said to have lived, for he had imagined that the good he had done he had done from himself, and the truth he had uttered he had spoken from himself. And since man functioning from himself is dead - there being nothing in him that is not evil and false - therefore whatever he brings forth from himself is not living. So true is this that of himself he is incapable of doing any good deed that is in itself good. The fact that man cannot begin to think about good or to will it, and so cannot do good, unless the Lord is the source, is clear to everyone from the doctrine of faith, for the Lord says in Matthew,

He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. Matthew 13:37.

Nor can good come from anywhere else than the one fount itself of all good, as yet again He says,

Nobody is good but one, God. Luke 18:19.

[2] Nevertheless when the Lord is revitalizing a person, or regenerating him, He does allow him, to begin with, to imagine that good and truth originate in himself, for at that point a person cannot grasp anything else, or be led to believe and finally perceive, that all good and truth come from the Lord alone. As long as he held the former opinion his truths and goods were comparable to 'a tender plant', then 'a plant bearing seed', and after that 'a fruit tree', which are inanimate. But once he has been brought to life by love and faith and believes that the Lord is at work in every good deed he does and in every truth he utters, he is compared first to creeping things from the water and to birds which fly above the earth, and then to beasts, all of which are animate and are called 'living creatures'.

Footnotes:

10064. 'And you shall sprinkle the blood over the altar round about' means the uniting of Divine Truth to Divine Good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the blood', when it refers to the sacrifice and burnt offering, as Divine Truth, dealt with above in 10026, 10033; and from the meaning of 'the altar' as that which is representative of the Lord in respect of Divine Good, dealt with in 9964. When the words 'Divine Good' are used Divine Love is also meant. For all good belongs to love; indeed whatever people love they perceive to be good and therefore also call it good. But all truth belongs to faith; for whatever people believe they perceive to be and also call the truth. From this it follows that the things which compose the human understanding belong to faith and those that compose the will belong to love; for a person's understanding is dedicated to receiving truths that belong to faith and his will to receiving forms of good that belong to love. The character therefore of a person's understanding is determined by that of the truths which compose it and by that of his belief in them; and the character of a person's will is determined by that of the forms of good which constitute it and by that of his love of them. In the contrary sense there is a love of evil and belief in falsity, and also a will and understanding consisting of these. But the character of the understanding is determined by that of the falsity which composes it and by that of the belief in this falsity; and the character of the will is determined by that of the evil which constitutes it and by that of the love of this evil. The fact that a will consisting of evil and an understanding consisting of falsity come from hell, and that they constitute hell with a person, is self-evident, for they are the opposites of an understanding consisting of truth and a will consisting of good, which come from heaven and originate in the Lord, and so which constitute heaven with a person.