In a word, to separate love and wisdom or goodwill and faith—two
things God is constantly trying to bring together—is comparable to tak-
ing all the redness out of a face so that it becomes as pale as death, or
taking all the whiteness away from the redness so that the face becomes
as inflamed as a firebrand.
Separating love and wisdom is also comparable to breaking a couple’s
marriage bond and turning the wife into a prostitute and the husband
into an adulterer. Love is like a husband, and so is goodwill; wisdom is
like a wife, and so is faith. Their being separated causes spiritual prostitu-
tion and whoring, in the form of falsifying what is true and contaminat-
ing what is good.
It is also important to know that there are three levels of love and 42
wisdom, and therefore there are three levels of life. The human mind is
formed into areas that go with these levels. The life in the highest area
of the mind is the highest level of life. The life in the middle area of the
mind is a lesser level of life. The life in the lowest area of the mind is
the lowest level of life.
These areas in us are opened one after the other. The lowest area of
the mind, where there is the lowest level of life, is opened during child-
hood and adolescence, by means of factual information. The second area
of the mind, where there is a greater level of life, is opened during adoles-
cence and early adulthood, by means of thought that builds on factual
information. The highest area of the mind, where there is the highest
level of life, is opened during early adulthood, middle age, and beyond,
by means of perceiving both moral and spiritual truths.
Another important thing to know is that life in its greatest perfection
is not thinking; it is perceiving truth in the light of truth. The level of
this perception in people can be used to determine what level of life they
have. For example, there are people who, immediately upon hearing
something true, perceive the truth of it. In the spiritual world they are
represented as eagles. Then there are people who do not perceive what is
true, but they do arrive at truth from argumentation based on other
things that are apparent. They are represented as songbirds. There are
people who believe something to be true because it was decreed by a man
in authority. They are represented as jays or magpies.
There are also some who are unwilling and others who are unable to
perceive what is true; they can perceive only what is false. The reason is
that the light they are in is faint and deceptive. In that light what is false
§42 god the creator & creation 61