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:

498. This first state after death lasts a few days for some people, months for some, and a year for some, but rarely more than a year for anyone. The difference for particular individuals depends on the harmony or discord between their inner and outer natures. These inner and outer natures must act as one and correspond for everyone. No one is allowed to think and intend one way and speak and act another way in the spiritual world. Everyone must be an image of his or her affection or love, which means we must be outwardly what we are inwardly. This is why the outer concerns of a spirit are first stripped off and brought into order: so that they may serve as a plane responsive to the inner ones.

6088. Verses 7-10 And Joseph caused Jacob his father to come and placed him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Jacob, How many are the days of the years of your life? And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my sojournings are a hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their sojournings. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.

'And Joseph caused Jacob his father to come means the presence of general truth from the internal. 'And placed him before Pharaoh' means an introduction into factual knowledge as a general whole. 'And Jacob blessed Pharaoh' means a heartfelt desire for a joining together and resulting fruitfulness. 'And Pharaoh said to Jacob' means perception in the natural where factual knowledge resides, regarding the Church's truth in general. 'How many are the days of the years of your life?' means regarding the state of life of the natural from the spiritual. 'And Jacob said to Pharaoh' means the reply. 'The days of the years of my hundred and thirty years' means its state and essential nature. '[Few] and evil have been the days of the years of my life' means that the state of life of the natural has been full of temptations. 'And they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers' means that it did not come means up to the state of life of those that went before. 'In the days of their sojournings' means so far as their state of life was concerned. 'And Jacob blessed Pharaoh' means, as before, a heartfelt desire for a joining together and resulting fruitfulness. 'And went out from before Pharaoh' means a temporary separation.