which relate to the feeling embodied in one animal, and some to the feel-
ing embodied in another. Therefore images of the angels’ feelings take
shape in that way. There will be more on this topic in the part of this
chapter on creation [§§ 75 – 80 ].
From all this the truth becomes clear that the purpose of creation was
[to provide for] an angelic heaven from the human race—humankind as
a resting place for God to inhabit. And this is why human beings were
created as forms of the divine design.67 Before creation, God was love itself and wisdom itself. That love and
that wisdom had a drive to be useful. Without usefulness, love and wis-
dom are only fleeting abstract entities, and they do indeed fly away if
they do not move in the direction of usefulness. The two prior things
without the third [love and wisdom without usefulness] are like birds fly-
ing across a great ocean that eventually become worn out, fall into the
ocean, and drown.
God created the universe so that usefulness could exist. Therefore
the universe could be called a theater of useful functions. Because we, the
human race, are the principal reason for creation, it follows that
absolutely everything else was created for our sake. All aspects of the
divine design have been brought together and concentrated in us so that
God can perform the highest forms of useful service through us.
Without usefulness as a third party, love and wisdom would be as
unreal as the heat and light of the sun would be if they had no effect on
people, animals, and plants. That heat and that light become real by
flowing into things and having an effect on them.
Another set of three things that follow in order is purpose, means,
and result. The learned world knows that a purpose is nothing unless it
has reference to an efficient cause or means; and the purpose and the
means are nothing unless there is a result. We can of course contemplate
a purpose and the means of accomplishing it purely in our minds, but we
still do so only for the sake of the result that the purpose intends and that
the means make possible.
Likewise with love, wisdom, and useful service. Useful service is what
love intends and what it occasions through the means. When useful serv-
ice results, love and wisdom take on a real existence. In that useful service,
they set up a place for themselves to live and stay, and there they rest as if
they were at home. We are that way ourselves when God’s love and wis-
dom are in us and we do something useful. The reason we were created