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

Notes de bas de page:

168. MAN'S AWAKENING FROM THE DEAD, AND HIS ENTRY INTO ETERNAL LIFE

Since I am being allowed, as mentioned already, ¹ to make known step by step how someone passes from the life of the body into that of eternity, and so that it might be known how a person is awakened, I have been shown not by hearing but by actual experience.

Notes de bas de page:

5827. 'And one went out from me' means an apparent departure of internal good. This is clear from the meaning of 'going out' or going away as a departure, and from the representation of 'Joseph' as internal good, dealt with already. The fact that the departure was only an apparent one is self-evident, since Joseph was still alive. The implications of this are as follows: From start to finish the details recorded regarding Joseph represent in their order the glorification of the Lord's Human. They consequently represent in the lower sense a person's regeneration since this is an image or model of the Lord's glorification, 3178, 3212, 3296, 3490, 4402, 5688.

[2] So far as a person's regeneration is concerned, in the first state, when he is being brought by means of truth into good, truth is plainly visible because it exists in the light of the world and is not far removed from the ideas formed by the bodily senses. This is not the case with good, for good exists in the light of heaven, far from ideas formed by the bodily senses since it resides inwardly in the person's spirit. Consequently the truth of faith is clearly visible but good is not, even though good is constantly present, both flowing into truths and bringing them to life. If that were not so the person could not be regenerated. But once the state is completed, good reveals itself, doing so through love towards the neighbour, and through affection for truth as a guide to life. These things also what are represented by Joseph's being taken away from and not seen by his father, and after that revealing himself to his father. This is how an apparent departure of internal good, meant by 'one went out from me', is to be understood.