AC 3131 - truth & apparent truth

AC 3131[3]
For no truth in its earliest stages is the actual truth
but an appearance of truth.
In the course of time however it sheds the cloak of appearance
and puts on the real essence of truth.
To make this intelligible it can be illustrated by examples,
for the moment by this alone:
It is a Divine truth that the Lord is never angry,
never punishes anyone, let alone does evil to anyone,
and that from the Lord nothing but good ever comes.
Nevertheless in its earliest stages
this truth declares that the Lord is angry when someone sins,
and that the Lord therefore punishes;
indeed with some people it declares that evil comes from the Lord.
But as a person progresses from early childhood, grows up,
and matures in judgement
he casts away that which from the appearance
seemed to him to be the truth
and gradually takes up the truth itself,
which is that the Lord is never angry and does not punish,
let alone perform evil.
Accordingly it is by means of apparent truth
that a person is introduced into actual truth;
for it is a general concept that enters first, which in itself is obscure,
containing scarcely anything that is to be seen
until it has been enlightened by means of particular ideas,
and these in turn by specific details.
And once it has been enlightened interior things can be seen.
In this way the delusions and appearances
which are truths at the time of ignorance
are dispersed and banished.