184. You can clearly tell that a trinity of gods dwells in the minds of Christians - although out of shame they would never say so - by the way many of them ingeniously demonstrate that three are one and one is three. They use various phenomena in plane geometry, solid geometry, arithmetic, and physics, as well as folding pieces of clothing and pieces of paper. Like a bunch of clowns, they horse around with the divine Trinity.

Their clowning is like people's eyesight when they have a fever: they see one object, be it a person, a table, or a candle, as three objects, or three objects as one. It is like the trick people play by softening wax in their fingers and pressing it into different shapes. First they make a three-sided shape to show the trinity; then they make a ball to show the unity, and they say, "Isn't the substance one and the same?"

Truly, though, the divine Trinity is like the pearl of great price [Matthew 13:46]. Dividing the Trinity into persons is like cutting a pearl into three parts: it completely destroys the pearl.

373. 8. Goodwill and Faith Come Together in Good Actions

Every action that we take contains our whole self with the full measure and quality of our mind or our essential nature. Our "mind" means our love and our desire and the thoughts that come from them. These form our nature and our life in general. If we look at a person's actions in this way, they are like mirrors of the person.

This can be illustrated by a comparison with wild and domesticated animals. A wild animal is a wild animal, and a domesticated animal is a domesticated animal, in everything it does. A wolf is a wolf in everything it does. A tiger is a tiger in everything it does. A fox is a fox in everything it does. A lion is a lion in everything it does. The same goes for a sheep or a goat in all its actions. It is the same for us, except that our quality is determined by our inner self. If we are wolves or foxes inside, everything we do is inwardly wolfish or foxlike. The opposite is true if we are inwardly like a sheep or a lamb. Nevertheless, the inner quality that is present in everything we do is not necessarily apparent in our outer self, because our outer self can turn in different directions around our inner self, although our inner self remains nonetheless hidden within it. The Lord says, "Good people bring what is good out of the good treasure in their heart, and evil people bring what is evil out of the evil treasure in their heart" (Luke 6:45). He also says, "Every type of tree is known by its fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes or gather grapes from a bramble bush" (Luke 6:44).

After we die it becomes very obvious to us that everything that comes from us has the nature of our inner self, since we are then living as our inner self and no longer as our outer self.

When the Lord, goodwill, and faith dwell in our inner self, then there is goodness within us, and all the work that comes from us is good. This point will be demonstrated in the following sequence.

a. "Goodwill" is benevolence toward others; "good works" are good actions that result from benevolence.

b. Goodwill and faith are transient and exist only in our minds unless, when an opportunity occurs, they culminate in actions and become embodied in them.

c. Goodwill alone does not produce good actions; even less does faith alone produce them. Good actions are produced by goodwill and faith together.

Now I will take up these points one by one.