13. 6. If there were not one God the universe could not have been created or maintained. We can infer the oneness of God from the creation of the universe, because the universe is a work connected together as one thing from beginning to end, all dependent on one God as the body depends on its soul. The universe was designed to allow God to be omnipresent, keep every detail of it under his supervision, and maintain it perpetually as one entity, that is, preserve it. This is why Jehovah God says he is "the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega" (see Isaiah 44:6; Revelation 1:8, 17); and why he says elsewhere that he makes all things, stretches out the heavens, and extends the earth by himself (see Isaiah 44:24).

This vast system called the universe is a work connected as one thing from beginning to end because God had a single purpose in creating it: an angelic heaven populated by the human race. All the things that make up the world are means of fulfilling that purpose, because someone who intends an end result also intends the means to achieve it.

[2] If we view this world as a work containing the means of fulfilling the aforementioned purpose, we can see the created universe as a work connected together into one thing; and see that this world is a complex structure of useful functions arranged and prioritized for the sake of the human race, the source of the angelic heaven.

Divine love cannot intend anything other than that people should forever have the blessings of its divineness. Divine wisdom cannot produce anything other than useful things that are means of fulfilling that purpose.

Upon examining the world with this universal idea in mind, every wise person is capable of grasping that there is one Creator of the universe and that his essence is love and wisdom. For this reason every single thing in this world is of benefit to us; if it seems of no direct benefit, at least it is of indirect benefit. The fruits of the earth and the animals benefit us with food and also with clothing.

[3] Among the marvels of this world is that the lowly insects called silkworms clothe with silk and magnificently adorn both women and men from queens and kings down to maids and butlers. And the lowly insects called bees supply wax for the lamps that give churches and royal courts their splendor.

Some people examine certain aspects of the world in isolation rather than looking at everything as a chain from purposes through intermediate means to results. Therefore those people cannot see that the universe is the handiwork of one God. The same is true for people who do not see creation as the product of divine love acting through divine wisdom. Neither group is able to see that God dwells in individual useful things because he dwells in the purpose behind them. Yet everyone who has some purpose is also involved in the means of achieving it, because deep within every one of the means lies the purpose as the force that drives and guides it.

[4] Some do not view the universe as the handiwork of God and the home of his love and wisdom, but view it instead as a product of nature and as the home of the sun's heat and light. They close the higher levels of their mind toward God and open the lower levels of their mind toward the Devil. In the process, they take off their humanity and put on the nature of a wild animal. It is not just a belief of theirs that humans are like animals; they themselves actually become like animals. They become as crafty as foxes, as fierce as wolves, as deceptive as leopards, as savage as tigers; or they take on the nature of crocodiles, snakes, horned owls, or night birds. In the spiritual world they even look like these wild animals from a distance. Their love for evil takes these shapes.

499. This point should also be illustrated through comparisons, as follows.

No creation could have taken place unless some free choice existed in all things that were created, both animate and inanimate. If animals lacked free choice in earthly matters, they would have no ability to choose the food that was the most nourishing for them, and would not be able to reproduce or protect their offspring; so there would be no animals.

If the fish in the sea or the crustaceans on the sea floor had no freedom, there would be no fish or crustaceans. Likewise, if every little insect had no freedom, there would be no silkworms producing silk, no bees producing honey or wax, no butterflies playing with their partners in the air, feeding on the nectar in flowers, and representing our blessed state in the breezes of heaven after we, like caterpillars, have shed our old skin.

[2] Unless there were something analogous to free choice in the soil of the ground, in the seed planted in it, in every part of the tree that germinates from that seed, in its fruits, and again in new seeds, there would be no plants. Unless there were something analogous to free choice in every type of metal and stone, whether noble or base, there would be no metal, no stone, not even a grain of sand. Each of these things freely absorbs ether, exhales its own natural emanation, casts off particles that have broken down, and integrates new particles into itself. This activity results in the magnetic field that surrounds a magnet, the iron field that surrounds iron, the copper field that surrounds copper, the silver field that surrounds silver, the golden field that surrounds gold, the stony field that surrounds stone, the nitrous field that surrounds niter, the sulfuric field that surrounds sulfur, and the fields of various kinds that surround each type of particulate matter on earth. In the case of every seed, these fields penetrate its inmost parts and supply materials for its growth. Without exhalations from every little grain of dust in the earth, the seed would not begin or continue in the process of germination. How else could the earth penetrate into the very center of a seed that has been sown, bringing in water and solid particles, except through materials given off by what surrounds the seed? Take, for example, "a grain of mustard seed, which is the least of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is bigger than all other plants and becomes a large tree" (Matthew 13:32; Mark 4:30-32).

[3] If all created things have been endowed with freedom, then, each according to its own nature, why would we humans not have free choice according to our nature, which is that we are to become spiritual? This is why we have been granted free choice in spiritual matters from the womb even to our last moment in this world, and afterward to eternity.