This simile is also a perfect parallel because love, and therefore goodwill,
glows red in the spiritual world due to the fire of the sun there, while truth,
and therefore faith, shines white because of the light of that sun. Therefore
goodwill that is separate from faith can be likened to a face that is blazing
red with pimples, and faith that is separate from goodwill can be likened to
the pale white face of a corpse.
Faith that is separate from goodwill can also be likened to the paraly-
sis of one side of the body, or hemiplegia. As it progresses, people die
from it. It can also be likened to Saint Vitus’s or Saint Guy’s dance, which
befalls people who have been bitten by a tarantula. These victims have a
rationality comparable to that of people who have faith without good-
will. In both cases they dance with a fury and think of themselves as
being alive, but in fact they have no more ability to focus their reasoning
and think about spiritual truths than someone lying in bed being
crushed by a suffocating nightmare.
This provides adequate support for two of the topics in this chapter—
the earlier one that faith without goodwill is not faith; goodwill without
faith is not goodwill;and that neither of them is living unless it comes from
the Lord[§§ 355 – 361 ]; and the current one, that the Lord, goodwill, and
faith form a unity in the same way our life, our will, and our intellect form a
unity; if we separate them, each one crumbles like a pearl that is crushed to
powder[§§ 362 – 367 ].
7
The Lord Is Goodwill and Faith within Us;
We Are Goodwill and Faith within the LordPeople of the church are in the Lord and the Lord is in them. This is clear 368
from the following passages in the Word:
Jesus said, “Live in me and I [shall live] in you.I am the vine and you are
the branches. Those who live in me and I in thembear much fruit.”
(John 15 : 4 , 5 )
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me and I in them.
(John 6 : 56 )
On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me
and I am in you.(John 14 : 20 )§368 faith 439