primary as there is between something superior and something inferior.
In fact, if you are willing to believe it, there is as much difference as there
is between the minds of spirits who live up high in this world and the
minds of spirits who live down low.
“What is primary constitutes the head and the torso, so to speak.
What comes from it constitutes the legs down to the soles of the feet.
“First of all, however, we should define goodwill and faith. Goodwill
is a loving desire to do what is good for our neighbor on account of God,
salvation, and eternal life. Faith is thought that is based on confidence in
God, salvation, and eternal life.”
[ 6 ] “I grant you your definition of faith,” the delegate said, “and I
also grant that goodwill is that loving desire to act on account of God,
because it is acting on account of his commandments; but it is not acting
on account of salvation and eternal life.”
After this agreement and disagreement, the wise man from the city
said, “Surely desire or love is primary, and thought comes from it.”
The dragon’s delegate said, “I deny that.”
The wise man replied, “You cannot deny it! People do their thinking
based on some love. Take away the love: can they think anything at all? It
is exactly the same as taking the sound out of speech. If you take away
the sound, can you say anything at all? In fact, sound comes from a desire
related to some love, and speech comes from thought, since love makes
the sound, and thought speaks.
“Another example is a flame and light. If you take away the flame,
the light ceases to exist. It is the same with goodwill and faith, since
goodwill relates to love and faith relates to thought. Surely you can
understand, then, that the primary thing is the most important ingredi-
ent of the secondary thing, as in the case of flame and light.
“It is clear from this that if you don’t make the primary element pri-
mary, you don’t have the secondary element either. If you take faith,
which belongs in the second place, and put it in the first place, in heaven
you will look just like someone upside down, whose legs are up in the air
and whose head is down below, like acrobats that walk on the palms of
their hands. And since that is how you appear in heaven, your good
actions, your acts of goodwill, are like the kinds of things acrobats do
with their feet because their hands are not available. Your goodwill is
earthly, not spiritual, because it is upside-down.”
[ 7 ] The delegate comprehended this—all devils can understand truth
when they hear it. They just cannot retain it, because their desire for evil,
§388 faith 473