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

फुटनोट:

13. The Lord's Divine Nature in Heaven Is Love for Him and Thoughtfulness toward One's Neighbor

In heaven, the divine nature that emanates from the Lord is called divine truth, for reasons that will be given below. This divine truth flows into heaven from the Lord, out of his divine love. Divine love and the divine truth that derives from it are like the sun's fire and the light that comes from it in our world. The love is like the sun's fire, and the derivative truth is like the light from the sun. By reason of correspondence, fire means love and light means the truth that flows from it. ¹

This enables us to determine the character of the divine truth that emanates from divine love: in its essence, it is divine good united to divine truth, and because it is united, it gives life to everything in heaven the way the warmth of the sun, united to its light, makes everything fruitful on earth in spring and summer. It is different when the warmth is not united to light, when the light is therefore cold. Then everything slows down and lies there, snuffed out.

The divine good we have compared to warmth is the good of love within and among angels, and the divine truth we have compared to light is the means and the source of this good of love.

फुटनोट:

7270. 'You Shall speak all that I command you, [and Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh,] means the reception of Divine influx, and communication. This is clear from the representation of 'Moses', who is to speak, as Divine Truth, and from the representation of 'Aaron as teachings derived from it, both dealt with in 7089; from the meaning of 'speaking' as influx and the reception of it, dealt with in 5797; and from the meaning of 'commanding' too as influx, dealt with in 5486, 5732, here the reception of influx. From all this it is evident that 'speaking' means the influx of Divine Truth in an indirect way into doctrinal teachings, that is, with the teacher, (for it is implied that Moses, representing Divine Truth, was to speak what Jehovah commanded to Aaron, who represents doctrinal teachings or the teacher, thus to him who was to communicate it) and that 'commanding' means a direct Divine influx into the Divine Law, which 'Moses' represents.

[2] How these matters are to be understood may be seen from what has been stated already in 7009, 7010, Where it is shown that 'Moses' represents truth that comes forth directly from the Divine, and that 'Aaron' represents the truth that comes forth in an indirect way. Anyone unacquainted with the nature of order consisting in consecutive degrees cannot be acquainted with the nature of influx either. Therefore let a brief statement be made on this subject. Since truth which comes forth directly from the Lord is from the Infinite and Divine Being Himself, it cannot be received at all by any living, finite substance, thus not by any angel. This being so, the Lord created degrees consecutively descending to serve as the means by which Divine Truth coming forth directly from Him could be communicated. But the first degree away from Him is still too full of the Divine to enable that Truth to be received by any living, finite substance, and so by any angel. On account of this the Lord created a further degree down, by which Divine Truth coming forth directly from Him was to some extent able to be received. This degree is God's truth which exists in heaven. These first two degrees are above the heavens; they are like belts, made radiant by a fiery source, which surround the Sun, which is the Lord. This is the nature of the consecutive degrees of order down to the heaven nearest to the Lord, which is the third heaven where the innocent and wise live. From there consecutive degrees continue down to the lowest heaven, and from the lowest heaven down to the degree of the senses and the body in man, the last in the series to receive influx.

[3] From all this it is clear that degrees one after another continue from Him who is the First, that is, the Lord, right down to the last and lowest present with man, indeed right down to the last and lowest present in the natural order. The last and lowest degrees present with man, like those in the natural order, are relatively unresponsive and consequently frigid; they are also relatively general and consequently obscure. From this it is also evident that through those consecutive degrees all things exist in a continuous chain linked to the First Being (Esse). And it is in accordance with those degrees that influx takes place; for Divine Truth coming forth directly from Divine Good flows into one degree after another. On the way down or with each new degree it becomes more general, and so grosser and more obscure, and becomes more sluggish, and so more unresponsive and frigid. All this clarifies the nature of Divine Order consisting of consecutive degrees and consequently of the nature of influx.

[4] But it should be fully recognized that God's truth, which flows into the third heaven nearest to the Lord, at the same time flows right down into the last and lowest degrees of order as well, without undergoing consecutive degrees of formation. Every single thing at that level is also directly governed and provided by Him who is the First. In this way the consecutive degrees are held together in their proper order and connection. The truth of this may also be recognized to some extent from the law not unknown to the learned in the world that there is only one substance which really is substance. Everything else is a formation from it, and that one and only substance reigns not solely as the form but as that too which is not the form, for instance, as that which gave rise to them. If this were not so, what has been formed could not remain in being and operate. But these matters are stated for him who may be able to understand them.