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:

150. (Verse 18) And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write. That this signifies to those of the church with whom the internal and the external, or the spiritual and natural man make one, is evident from the things written to this angel understood in the internal sense, where the subject treated of is the conjunction of the internal or spiritual man with the external or natural man, or those of the church with whom they are conjoined. Every man has an internal and an external; his internal is called the spiritual man, and the external is called the natural man. When a man is born, the external or natural man is first opened; and afterwards, as he grows up and advances towards perfection in intelligence and wisdom, the internal or spiritual man is opened. The external or natural man is opened by means of those things that a man derives from the world, but the internal or spiritual man is opened by means of those things that he derives from heaven; for the external or natural man is formed for the reception of those things that are in the world, but the internal or spiritual man, for the reception of those things that are in heaven. The things which are in the world, for the reception of which the external or natural man is formed, have reference in general to whatever pertains to civil and moral life; but the things which are in heaven, for the reception of which the internal or spiritual man is formed, have reference, in general, to all that pertains to love and faith.

[2] Because these two, the internal and external, pertain to man, and each is to be separately opened by its own means, it is evident, that unless the internal is opened by its own means, a man must remain merely natural, and that in this case his internal must remain closed. But those with whom the internal is closed, do not belong to the church; for the church is formed in man by communication with heaven, and communication with heaven is not granted to man unless his internal be opened by its own means, which all, as said above, have reference to love and faith.

It is moreover to be observed, that, with the man of the church who is regenerated by the Lord by means of the truths that are called truths of faith, and by a life according to them, the internal and external, or spiritual and natural man, are conjoined, and that this is effected by correspondences. (What is the nature of correspondences, and thence the nature of the conjunction which is thereby effected, is evident from what is shown concerning them in Arcana Coelestia, and from the extracts from that work in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 261.)

[3] Now because man does not become a member of the church before his internal or spiritual man is opened and is conjoined with the external or natural man, therefore those within the church in whom this conjunction is effected, are now treated of. For, as said above (n. 20), by the seven churches are not meant seven churches, but all those in general who belong to the Lord's church. Hence, in writing to the angel of each church, the subject treated of is those things that constitute that church; in the present case, therefore, or in what is said to the angel of the church of Thyatira, the internal and external man are treated of, and the conjunction of both in those who are within the church. (But inasmuch as it has been hitherto unknown that these two principles actually pertain to man, and that they are to be opened and conjoined in order that man may become a member of the church, and as these things cannot be described in a few words, they may be seen treated of more at large in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 36-53, and 179-182.)