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.

Footnotes:

511. Was cast into the sea, signifies into the natural man. This is evident from the signification of the "sea," as being the knowledge [scientificum] in general which is in the natural man, consequently the natural man in respect to its knowledge there (See above n. 270, 342). This is the signification of "sea," because "water" signifies truth, and truth in the natural man is called knowledge [scientificum]; but truth itself is in itself spiritual, and in the spiritual man makes one with the affection of truth, for it is a form of affection there; consequently so far as this affection with its form is therefrom in the knowledges that are in the natural man, so far the knowledges contain in themselves truths, and are true knowledges; for the knowledges of the natural man, viewed in themselves, are not truths, but only containing vessels of truth, therefore "vessels" in the Word signify knowledges.

[2] That the "sea" signifies the natural man can be seen from passages in the Word cited above (n. 275, 342, which makes clear that the "sea" in reference to its water signifies knowledge [scientificum] in general, while the "sea" in reference to its waves signifies disputation and reasoning, which are maintained by knowledges; and as both knowledges and reasoning are in the natural man, therefore the "sea" signifies the natural man itself. But the state of the natural man is wholly in accordance with the affection of man's love. When spiritual affection, that is, affection of good and truth for the sake of good and truth, is dominant in man, and when this affection flows in through the spiritual into the natural man, then the natural man is a spiritual-natural man, for it is subordinate and subject to the spiritual, and as they thus act as a one, both are in heaven. But so long as a merely natural affection is dominant in man, there is in the natural man no truth, but everything therein is knowledge [scientificum] not true, it is dead knowledge and false knowledge, for the reason that the knowledges therein then conjoin themselves with affections merely natural, all of which spring from the loves of self and of the world, while truths themselves, because in themselves they are spiritual, conjoin themselves only with spiritual affections, as has been said above. When truths conjoin themselves with affections merely natural, they are no longer truths but falsities, for affection merely natural falsifies truths. Conjunctions of truth with affections merely natural correspond to whoredoms and adulteries of various kinds, and in the spiritual sense are meant in the Word by various kinds of whoredoms and adulteries. There are conjunctions of the truths of the Word with the love of self and the world that correspond to these.

[3] That the "sea" signifies the natural man with the things that are in it is also from correspondence; for in the spiritual world seas appear in various places, especially about the outmost boundaries where spiritual societies or heaven itself ends. There are seas there because in the boundaries of heaven and beyond them those dwell who have been merely natural men, and these appear there in deep places, where they have their abodes; the natural men there, however, are not evil, but the evil natural men are in the hells. The seas there seen also make evident what those are who are in them, especially from the color of the waters, as verging towards darkness or clearness; if towards darkness those therein are sensual spirits, who are the lowest natural, and if towards clearness those therein are the interior natural. But the waters of the seas that are over the hells are dense, black, and sometimes ruddy; and the infernal crew therein appear like snakes and serpents, and like such monsters as are in seas.