30 HEAVEN and HELL §56
d. Every whole arises from a harmony and agreement of many elements, and otherwise would
have no quality: 457. The whole heaven is a single entity: 457. This is because all the people there
are focused on a single goal, namely, the Lord: 9828.
e. If goodness were the essential characteristic of the church and not truth apart from goodness,
the church would be one: 1285 , 1316 , 2982 , 3267 , 3445 , 3451 , 3452. Further, all the churches consti-
tute a single church in the Lord’s sight because of their quality: 7395 [ 7396 ], 9276.the difference of activity from one community to another—do not cause
harm but bring benefi t, because they are a source of heaven’s perfection.
It is hard to explain this in such a way that it can be grasped without
resorting to expressions usually found in academic circles and using them
to explain how a perfect whole is formed from a variety of elements.
Every perfect whole arises from a variety of elements, for a whole that is
not composed of a variety of elements is not really anything. It has no
form, and therefore no quality. However, when a whole does arise from a
variety of elements, and the elements are in a perfected form in which
each associates with the next in the series like a sympathetic friend, then
it has a perfect quality. Heaven is, then, a single whole composed of a
variety of elements arranged in the most perfect form; for of all forms,
the form of heaven is the most perfect.
We can see that this underlies all perfection from every instance of
beauty, charm, and delight that moves both our senses and our spirits.
Such instances arise and fl ow invariably from a harmonious agreement of
many things that are in sympathetic concord, whether they are together
simultaneously or follow in a sequence. They do not fl ow from a single
unit that lacks plurality. So we say that variety delights, and recognize
that the delight depends on the quality of the variety. We can see from
this, as though in a mirror, how perfection stems from variety in heaven
as well, since things that happen in the natural world offer us a refl ection
of things in the spiritual world.d57 We can say the same of the church as we have of heaven, since the
church is the Lord’s heaven on earth. It also has many components, and
yet each is called a church and is a church to the extent that the qualities
of love and faith rule within it. In it, the Lord forms a single whole out of
the varied elements, and therefore makes a single church out of many
churches.e
Much the same can be said of the individual member of the church
as has been said about the church in general, namely, that the church is