and words come from their higher mind, which is spiritual, through their
lower mind, which is earthly. (As people generally know, effects come
from our body, while the causes that produce those effects come from
our mind; the cause shapes every aspect of the effect.)
It is obvious that the human mind has been divided in this way from
the fact that people are able to pretend, to flatter, to be hypocritical, or to
playact. They can agree with what someone else is saying and neverthe-
less view it as ridiculous. They do the former in their lower mind, the lat-
ter in their higher one.
These things enable us to see how we are to understand the state- 421
ment that goodwill and good works are two distinct things: wishing peo-
ple well and treating them well. That is, they are formally distinct, like
the mind that does the thinking and willing and the body through
which the mind speaks and acts. In fact, they are essentially distinct as
well, because the mind itself is divided into an inner region that is spiri-
tual and an outer region that is earthly, as I said just above.
Therefore if the things we do come from our spiritual mind, they come
from wishing others well, or goodwill. If, however, they come only from
our earthly mind, they come from a form of wishing others well that is not
genuine goodwill. It can appear to be goodwill in its outer form and yet not
be genuine goodwill in its inner form. Goodwill that exists in an outer
form alone does indeed present the look of goodwill, but lacks its essence.
This point could be illustrated by an analogy with seeds in the
ground. Every type of seed gives rise to a shoot, but those shoots are
either useful or useless, depending on their species. The same is true for
spiritual seed, that is, for truth in the church that comes from the Word.
A body of teaching grows out of this truth—a useful body of teaching if it
is made out of genuine truths, a useless one if it is made out of truths that
have been falsified. The same thing applies to goodwill that is exercised as
the result of wishing our neighbors well, whether we wish them well for
our own sake or for a worldly reason or for the sake of our neighbor in a
narrower or a broader sense. If we wish our neighbors well for our own
sake or for a worldly reason, our goodwill is not genuine. If we wish our
neighbors well for their sake, our goodwill is genuine. See many state-
ments that address these topics in the chapter on faith, especially in the
discussion showing that “goodwill” is benevolence toward others; that
“good works” are good actions that result from benevolence (§ 374 ); and
that goodwill and faith are transient and exist only in our minds unless,
§421 goodwill & good actions 513