Read also part one: Black and white.
We live in a universe that is expanding, growing. We are part of this universe. We are expanding and growing too. That is the basis for our life, and the reason we are here. There is no set goal, no finish line that God has designed that we need to reach. It is an open-ended growth.
To live we need to grow. You know that for a plant or a tree. If they don’t grow, no matter how little, they die.
Now comes the jumping point: to grow requires resistance, stepping stones, spring boards, wanting something that is not yet. Growth needs contrast. Without contrasts there are no choices. Without contrast we cannot know that there is more than we already have.
Another word for contrast, historically, is… evil.
Heaven and Hell 537 – Swedenborg
There is a balance between heaven and hell. However, it is not the kind of balance that occurs between two people who are fighting physically, with one just as strong as the other. Rather it is a spiritual balance, one of the false against the true and the evil against the good. This is the spiritual balance that provides us with our freedom for thinking and intending.
This is the world of contrast we live in, every day, inside of us and outside of us. Freedom is not an optional property of human life.
It is at the heart of being human.
