True Christian Religion # 490
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.
Notas de rodapé:
1. Reading secundo for secundum.
Exodus 30
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"You shall make an altar to burn incense on. You shall make it of acacia wood.
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Its length shall be a cubit, and its breadth a cubit. It shall be square, and its height shall be two cubits. Its horns shall be of one piece with it.
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You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top, its sides around it, and its horns; and you shall make a gold molding around it.
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You shall make two golden rings for it under its molding; on its two ribs, on its two sides you shall make them; and they shall be for places for poles with which to bear it.
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You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold.
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You shall put it before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with you.
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Aaron shall burn incense of sweet spices on it every morning. When he tends the lamps, he shall burn it.
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When Aaron lights the lamps at evening, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before Yahweh throughout your generations.
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You shall offer no strange incense on it, nor burnt offering, nor meal offering; and you shall pour no drink offering on it.
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Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once in the year; with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once in the year he shall make atonement for it throughout your generations. It is most holy to Yahweh."
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Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
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"When you take a census of the children of Israel, according to those who are numbered among them, then each man shall give a ransom for his soul to Yahweh, when you number them; that there be no plague among them when you number them.
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They shall give this, everyone who passes over to those who are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary; (the shekel is twenty gerahs;) half a shekel for an offering to Yahweh.
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Everyone who passes over to those who are numbered, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the offering to Yahweh.
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The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when they give the offering of Yahweh, to make atonement for your souls.
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You shall take the atonement money from the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the Tent of Meeting; that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before Yahweh, to make atonement for your souls."
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Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
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"You shall also make a basin of brass, and its base of brass, in which to wash. You shall put it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it.
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Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in it.
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When they go into the Tent of Meeting, they shall wash with water, that they not die; or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
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So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they not die: and it shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his descendants throughout their generations."
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Moreover Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
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"Also take fine spices: of liquid myrrh, five hundred shekels; and of fragrant cinnamon half as much, even two hundred and fifty; and of fragrant cane, two hundred and fifty;
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and of cassia five hundred, after the shekel of the sanctuary; and a hin of olive oil.
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You shall make it a holy anointing oil, a perfume compounded after the art of the perfumer: it shall be a holy anointing oil.
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You shall use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the testimony,
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the table and all its articles, the lampstand and its accessories, the altar of incense,
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the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the basin with its base.
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You shall sanctify them, that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them shall be holy.
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You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and sanctify them, that they may minister to me in the priest's office.
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You shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, 'This shall be a holy anointing oil to me throughout your generations.
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It shall not be poured on man's flesh, neither shall you make any like it, according to its composition: it is holy. It shall be holy to you.
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Whoever compounds any like it, or whoever puts any of it on a stranger, he shall be cut off from his people.'"
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Yahweh said to Moses, "Take to yourself sweet spices, gum resin, and onycha, and galbanum; sweet spices with pure frankincense: of each shall there be an equal weight;
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and you shall make incense of it, a perfume after the art of the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy:
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and you shall beat some of it very small, and put some of it before the testimony in the Tent of Meeting, where I will meet with you. It shall be to you most holy.
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The incense which you shall make, according to its composition you shall not make for yourselves: it shall be to you holy for Yahweh.
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Whoever shall make any like that, to smell of it, he shall be cut off from his people."
