338 HEAVEN and HELL §555
Since this is in fact the case, I should like fi rst to describe what love
for oneself is, and then explain that everything evil and false wells up
from this love.556 Love for oneself is intending well to oneself alone, not to oth-
ers except for the sake of oneself—not the church, the country, or any
human community. It is helping them solely for the sake of one’s own
reputation and rank and glory. Unless these can be seen in the services
we offer, we are saying at heart, “What difference does it make? Why
should I? What’s in it for me?” So we forget it. We can see from this
that people who are absorbed in a love for themselves do not love their
church or country or community or any constructive activity. They love
only themselves. Their only pleasure lies in self-gratifi cation; and since
the pleasure that stems from love constitutes human life, their life is a life
of self. A life of self is a life that depends on what we claim as our own,
and in its own right what we claim as our own is nothing but evil.
People who love themselves do love their own as well, their own
being specifi cally their children and grandchildren and more broadly all
who ally with them, whom they call “their own people.” Loving both the
former and the latter is actually loving themselves, because they regard
the others as though they were in themselves, and focus on themselves
in others. These “others” who are claimed as their own include everyone
who praises and reveres and worships them.557 We can gather what love for oneself is like by comparing it to heav-
enly love. Heavenly love is loving constructive activity for its own sake,
or loving for their own sake the worthwhile things we do for our church,
our country, the human community, and our fellow citizens. This is
really loving God and loving our neighbor, since all constructive activi-
ties and all worthwhile actions come from God and are the neighbor
whom we are to love. In contrast, people who love these activities for the
sake of self love them only as slaves who wait on them. It follows that
people devoted to a love for themselves want their church, their coun-
try, the human community, and their fellow citizens to be their servants
rather than wanting to serve them. They station themselves above these
neighbors and put them down. So to the extent that people are devoted
to a love for themselves, they move themselves away from heaven because
they move themselves away from heavenly love.558 a Further, to the extent that we are engaged in heavenly love—which
is loving constructive and worthwhile activities and being moved by
heartfelt pleasure when we provide them to our church, our country,