“It is absolutely the same,” the angel replied. “Faith is nothing but a
formation of goodwill, exactly as speech is nothing but a formation of
sound. In fact, faith is formed from goodwill in the same way that speech
is formed from sound. Up in heaven we even know the mode of forma-
tion, but there is no time to lay that out now.”
The angel added, “When I say ‘faith,’ I mean a spiritual faith whose
life and spirit come solely from the Lord by way of goodwill, since good-
will is spiritual, and faith is spiritual through goodwill. Faith without
goodwill, then, is a mere earthly faith, and mere earthly faith is dead; it
unites itself to mere earthly feelings, which are nothing but cravings.”
[ 4 ] The angels expressed these thoughts in a spiritual way. Spiritual
speech includes thousands of nuances that earthly language cannot
express. In fact, surprising to say, those nuances are not even thinkable
with the ideas of earthly thought.
After the angels had said all this they left. As they were going back to
their own heavens, stars appeared around their heads. When they got far-
ther away from me, they looked as though they were in carriages again,
as before.387 The third memorable occurrence.After those two angels passed out of
my sight, I noticed a garden to my right. It had olive trees, fig trees, lau-
rels, and palm trees planted in an arrangement based on their correspon-
dences. I looked into the garden and saw angels and spirits walking and
talking among the trees.
Just then an angelic spirit looked back at me. (“Angelic spirits” is the
term for people in the world of spirits who are being prepared for
heaven.) The angelic spirit left the garden, walked up to me, and said,
“Do you want to come with me into our paradise? You will see and hear
amazing things!”
I went along. The angelic spirit said to me, “The people you see
here”—and there were many of them—“all have a love for truth and have
the light of wisdom as a result. There is a magnificent building here that
we call the Temple of Wisdom. Yet people are unable to see it if they
believe they have a significant amount of wisdom; they are even less able to
see it if they believe they have a sufficient amount of wisdom; and they are
the least able to see it if they believe their wisdom originates in themselves.
“The reason is that people like this lack the love for real wisdom that
would make them receptive to the light of heaven. Real wisdom consists
in our seeing in the light of heaven that what we know, understand, and
have wisdom about is like a drop compared to the ocean of what we do