Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 87

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87. (2) Good does not exist by itself, nor truth by itself, but they are everywhere united. Anyone with any sense who tries to form for himself an idea of goodness, finds he cannot do it without adding something that expresses it and presents it to view. Unless something is added, good is a nameless entity. That which expresses it and presents it to view has to do with truth. Try saying just "good" without at the same time mentioning some particular or other with which it is associated, or define it abstractly, that is, without attaching any additional idea, and you will see that it has no reality, but that it has reality when something is added. If you focus the sight of reason on it, moreover, you will perceive that without any added qualification goodness has no assignable attribute and so no way of being compared, no capacity for being affected, and no character - in a word, no quality. It is the same with truth if it is referred to without a subject. Educated reason can see that its subject has to do with good. [2] Instances of goodness are beyond number, however, and each one rises to its highest point and descends to its lowest point as though along the degrees of a scale, changing its name, too, as it varies in its progression and quality. Because of this it is difficult for any but the wise to see the relationship of goodness and truth to things and their union in them. Nevertheless, it is evident from common sense that good does not exist apart from truth, nor truth apart from good, as soon as it is accepted that each and every thing in the universe relates to goodness and truth, as we showed under the previous heading (nos. 84, 85). [3] That good does not exist by itself nor truth by itself may be illustrated and at the same time attested by various considerations. Take, for example, the following, that there is no essence without a form, and no form without an essence. Good is the essence or being, while truth is what gives form to the essence and expression to the being. Again, in the human being we find will and intellect. Good has to do with the will, and truth with the intellect. The will does not accomplish anything by itself but through the intellect, nor does the intellect accomplish anything by itself but from the will. Or again, in the human being there are two sources of physical life, the heart and the lungs. The heart is unable to produce any conscious or active life without the breathing of the lungs, nor are the lungs able to do so without the heart. The heart relates to good, and the breathing of the lungs to truth. There is also a correspondence between them. [4] Something similar exists in each and every part of the mind and in each and every part of the body in the human being. We do not have the space, however, to present further confirmations here. See instead the same ideas more fully established in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence, nos. 3-26, where these points are explained under the following series of headings:

(1) The universe, together with every created thing in it, comes from Divine love through Divine wisdom, or to say the same thing, from Divine good through Divine truth. (2) Divine good and Divine truth emanate from the Lord as a unity. (3) This unity exists in some sort of image in every created thing. (4) Good is not good except to the extent that it is united with truth, and truth is not truth except to the extent that it is united with good. (5) The Lord does not permit anything to be divided; a person must either be in a state of good and at the same time of truth, therefore, or he must be in a state of evil and at the same time of falsity. Further discussions may be found as well.


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