Here we are in the 21st century. We know that the universe is an enormous place. We're just bursting with scientific knowledge. But how are we doing with the even-bigger ideas? Our human societies seem to be erasing them, or ignoring them - maybe we think we're too busy for them.

Here on the New Christian Bible Study site, we'll buck the trend. We want to explore the big ideas that give us a framework for living better lives. Here's a start on a list of big ideas from a New Christian perspective. For each idea, there is a footnote that lists some references in Swedenborg's theological works:

1. God exists. Just one God, who created and sustains the entire universe in all its dimensions, spiritual and physical. ¹

2. God's essence is love itself. It's the force that drives everything. ²

3. God's essence comes into being, that is, it exists, in and through creation. ³

4. There are levels, or degrees, of creation - ranging from spiritual ones that we can't detect with our physical senses or sensors, to the level of the physical universe where most of our awareness is when we're alive here. ⁴

5. The created universe emanates from God, and it's sustained by God, but in an important way it is separate from God. He wants it to be separate, so that freedom can exist. ⁵

6. God operates from love through wisdom - willing good things, and understanding how to bring them about. ⁶

7. The physical level of creation exists to provide human beings with an opportunity to choose in freedom, with rationality, whether or not to acknowledge and cooperate with God. ⁷

8. God provides all people everywhere, regardless of their religion, the freedom to choose to live a life of love to God and to the neighbor. ⁸

9. God loves everyone. He knows that true happiness only comes when we're unselfish; when we're truly motivated by a love of the Lord which is grounded out in a love of the neighbor. He seeks to lead everyone, but will not force us to follow against our will. ⁹

10. God doesn't judge us. He tells us what's good, and what's evil, and flows into our minds to lead us towards good. However, we're free to reject his leading, and instead opt to love ourselves most. Day by day, we create habits of generosity or of selfishness, and live out a life in accordance with those habits. Those habits become the real "us", our ruling love. ¹⁰

11. Our physical bodies die eventually, but the spiritual part of our minds keeps going. It's been operating on a spiritual plane already, but our awareness shifts - so that we become fully aware of spiritual reality. ¹¹

Fußnoten:

3016. 'Abraham, being old, was advanced in years' means when the state was reached in which the Lord's Human could become Divine. This is clear from the representation of 'Abraham' as the Lord, dealt with in 1893, 1965, 1989, 2011, 2172, 2198, 2501, 2833, 2836, and many times elsewhere; from the meaning of 'old' or old age as casting off what is human and putting on what is heavenly, dealt with in 1854, 2198, and when it has reference to the Lord, putting on what is Divine; and from the meaning of 'day' as state, dealt with in 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788, and therefore from the meaning of 'advanced in years' as the point when a state has been reached. The reason why 'old' and 'advanced in years' mean these things is that with angels the notion of old age does not exist, nor that of getting older, meant by 'advanced in years', only the notion of state as regards the life that is theirs. Consequently when getting older or old age is mentioned in the Word the angels present with man can have no other idea than that of the state of life that is theirs or that is men's as they pass through the different stages of life until they reach the last, that is to say, as they accordingly cast off what is human and put on what is heavenly. For man's life from infancy to old age is nothing else than an advance from the world towards heaven, the last stage of which is death and the actual transition from one life to the next. Burial therefore is also resurrection since the casting-off process is completed then, 2916, 2917. Such being the idea that angels have, nothing else can be meant by 'advanced in years' and by 'old age' in the internal sense - the sense which exists primarily for angels and for men who have minds like those of angels.

29. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End." (1:8) This symbolically means, who is the one and only reality from firsts to lasts, from whom springs all else, thus who is the one and only love, the one and only wisdom, and the one and only life in itself, and so the one and only Creator, Savior and Enlightener from Himself, and therefore the all in all of the church and heaven.

These and still more are the ideas contained in these words, which describe the Lord. It is clearly apparent that they are said of the Lord, and indeed of His humanity, for we are told next that John heard a voice saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," that he turned to see the voice that spoke with him, and that he saw the Son of Man in the midst of the seven lampstands (Revelation 1:10-13) - who shortly also said, "I am the First and the Last, and am He who lives, and was put to death" (Revelation 1:17-18, cf. 2:8).

As for all the particulars listed above, however, it is impossible to confirm these briefly, since to confirm them to people's comprehension would take many pages. Still, we have confirmed them in part in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, recently published in Amsterdam, q.v.

The Lord calls Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, because Alpha and Omega have reference to His Divine love, while Beginning and End have reference to His Divine wisdom. For present in every particular of the Word is a marriage of love and wisdom or of goodness and truth, on which subject see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 80-90.

[2] The Lord is called the Alpha and the Omega because alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and they consequently symbolize all things in their entirety. That is because in the spiritual world every alphabetic letter has some symbolic meaning, and a vowel, since it serves to provide tone, symbolizes something having to do with affection or love. From this origin springs spiritual and angelic speech, and also writing. But this is an arcanum previously unknown. For there is a universal language, which all angels and spirits possess, and it has nothing in common with any language of people in the world. Everyone comes into use of this language after death, as it is implanted in everyone from creation. Everyone can therefore understand everyone else throughout the whole spiritual world. I have been granted often to hear that language, and also to speak it, and I have compared it with languages in the world and found that it does not accord, even in the least particular, with any natural language on earth. It differs from them from its first characteristic, which is that every letter in each word has some symbolic meaning, both in speaking and in writing.

That, then, is why the Lord is called the Alpha and the Omega, which symbolically means that He is the all in all things of heaven and the church. And because they are both vowels, they have reference to love, as said above.

Regarding this language and the writing of it flowing from the spiritual thought of angels, see also some observations in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, no. 295.