84. 1. Goodness and truth are universal in creation, and are therefore in all created things, but they are present in their created vessels according to each one's form. Goodness and truth are universal in creation because they both exist in the Lord God the Creator. Indeed, they are the Lord, for He is Divine good itself and Divine truth itself.
But this falls more clearly within the perception of the understanding and so into some mental concept if instead of good we say love, and if instead of truth we say wisdom. Let us say, therefore, that in the Lord God the Creator there is Divine love and Divine wisdom, and that these are the Lord, which is to say that He is love itself and wisdom itself. For these two are the same as good and truth. The reason is that good has to do with love and truth with wisdom, for love is composed of goodness and wisdom of truths.
Since the two sets of terms amount to the same thing, in what follows now we will sometimes use one, sometimes the other, and both sets of terms have the same meaning. We say this at the outset lest the understanding see a difference of meaning in the following pages where these terms are used.
