906. The symbolism of you and your wife as the church can again be seen from the series of ideas, as can the symbolism of your sons and sons' wives with you as truth, and a goodness bound up with truth, in those people. The symbolism of you as people in the church is obvious, and the symbolism of a wife as the church, of sons as truth, and of sons' wives as the goodness bound up with truth has been shown many times before [§§668, 742, 769-770]. So there is no need to tarry over it here.

668. The fact that the sons are truth and the wives goodness was also shown earlier, at Genesis 5:4 [§§489-491]. That verse spoke of sons and daughters but this one speaks of sons and their wives, because wives are the good connected with truth.

No truth would ever come into being if something good or pleasurable did not exist for it to grow out of. Goodness and pleasure have life in them, but truth does not have any life besides that which it gains from goodness and pleasure. It is from these that truth forms and sprouts. The same applies to faith (a matter of truth), which comes from love (a matter of goodness). Truth is like light. No light exists that does not come from the sun, that is, flame; this is the source from which light develops.

Truth is simply the form of goodness, and faith is simply the form of love. Truth develops out of goodness according to the quality of the goodness, and faith develops according to the quality of love or charity.

This, then, is the reason for the mention of a wife and wives, symbolizing the good connected with truth. For the same reason, the next verse says that two of each, a male and a female, were to enter the ark. Unless good is attached, no regeneration occurs.