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:

59. We can conclude from this that Divinity is present in absolutely everything in the created universe and that the created universe is therefore the work of Jehovah's hands, as it says in the Word. That is, it is a work of divine love and wisdom, for this is what is meant by "Jehovah's hands." Further, even though Divinity is present in all things great and small in the created universe, there is no trace of intrinsic divinity in their own being. While the created universe is not God, it is from God; and since it is from God, his image is in it like the image of a person in a mirror. We do indeed see a person there, but there is still nothing of the person in the mirror.

5502. 'And they trembled [turning] a man to his brother' means the dread shared by them all. This is clear from the meaning of 'trembling' as dread, and from the meaning of 'a man to his brother' as shared by all, as just above in 5498. The reason why fear is expressed by these two phrases, by 'their heart went out' and 'they trembled', is that one has reference to the will and the other to the understanding. For it is quite usual in the Word, especially in the prophetical part, for the same matter to be described twice, though with a change of words. Anyone unacquainted with the hidden reason for this may imagine that it is pointless repetition; but that is not the case. One expression has reference to good, the other to truth; and because good belongs in the will and truth in the understanding, one has reference at the same time to the will and the other to the understanding. The reason for this is that in the Word everything is holy, and this holiness comes from the heavenly marriage, which is the marriage of goodness and truth. This being so, heaven is present within the Word, and so too is the Lord, the All in all of heaven - present so fully that He is the Word. The Lord's two names Jesus Christ entail the same, the name Jesus entailing Divine Good and the name Christ Divine Truth, see 3004, 3005, 3008, 3009. From this it is also evident that the Lord is present in every part of the Word, present so fully that He is the Word itself. Regarding the marriage of goodness and truth, which is the heavenly marriage, in every detail of the Word, see 683, 793, 801, 2516, 2712, 5138. From this a further conclusion may be reached, that to live in expectation of heaven a person must have within him not only truth that is the truth of faith but also good that is the good of charity. Otherwise no heaven is present within him.