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:

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.

735. The reason why temptation as regards things of the understanding, that is, as regards the falsities residing with man, is mild is that man is subject to the illusions of the senses; and the illusions of the senses are such that they are bound to enter in, and for this reason they are easily dispersed. This is the case with all who keep to the sense of the letter of the Word, where the statements made are in accordance with man's mental grasp, and so in accordance with the illusions of his senses. If those people in simplicity have faith in these things because it is the Lord's Word, then despite being subject to illusions, they easily allow themselves to be taught. Take, for example, someone who believes that the Lord is angry, punishes, and does evil to the wicked; because he has acquired this from the sense of the letter he can easily be taught the truth of the matter. Equally, if in simplicity he believes that of himself he can do good and that he receives a reward in the next life if he is a good man of himself, he also can easily be taught that the good he does comes from the Lord and that the Lord out of His mercy grants the reward for nothing. Consequently when such people enter into temptation as regards things of the understanding, that is, illusions such as these, they are able to be tempted only mildly. It is this initial temptation, scarcely seeming to be temptation at all, that is the subject here. The situation is altogether different however with people who do not believe the Word from simplicity of heart but who confirm themselves in illusions and falsities for the reason that these favour their own evil desires. For that reason they accumulate from ideas of their own and from the facts they know many more compelling arguments which they then confirm by means of the Word, and in so doing impress upon themselves and persuade themselves that falsity is truth.