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:

319. People can realize that non-Christians as well as Christians are saved if they know what constitutes heaven in us; for heaven is within us, and people who have heaven within them come into heaven. The heaven within us is our acknowledgment of the Divine and our being led by the Divine. The beginning and foundation of every religion is its acknowledgment of the Divine Being; a religion that does not acknowledge the Divine Being is not a religion at all. The precepts of every religion focus on worship, that is, on how the Divine is to be honored so that we will be acceptable in its sight; and when this fully occupies the mind (or, to the extent that we intend this or love this) we are being led by the Lord.

It is recognized that non-Christians live lives that are just as moral as the lives of Christians - many of them, in fact, live more moral lives. A moral life may be lived either to satisfy the Divine or to satisfy people in this world. A moral life that is lived to satisfy the Divine is a spiritual life. The two look alike in outward form, but inwardly they are totally different. One saves us, the other does not. This is because if we live a moral life to satisfy the Divine we are being led by the Divine; while if we live a moral life to satisfy people in this world, we are being led by ourselves.

[2] This may be illustrated by an example. If we do not do harm to our neighbor because that is against our religion and therefore against the Divine, our refraining from evil stems from a spiritual source. But if we refrain from doing harm to others simply because we are afraid of the law or of losing our reputation or respect or profit - for the sake of self and the world, that is - then this stems from a natural source and we are being led by ourselves. This latter life is natural, while the former is spiritual. If our moral life is spiritual, we have heaven within ourselves; but if our moral life is merely natural, we do not have heaven within ourselves. This is because heaven flows in from above, opens our deeper natures, and flows through those deeper natures into our more outward natures; while the world flows in from below and opens our more outward natures but not our deeper natures. No inflow occurs from the natural world into the spiritual, only from the spiritual world into the natural; so if heaven is not accepted at the same time, the deeper levels are closed. We can see from this who accept heaven into themselves and who do not.

[3] However, the heaven in one individual is not the same as the heaven in another. It differs in each according to the affection for what is good and true. If people are absorbed in an affection for what is good for the sake of the Divine, they love divine truth because the good and the true love each other and want to be united. ¹ Consequently, non-Christian people who have not had access to genuine truths in the world still accept them in the other life because of their love.

फुटनोट:

874. Fear God and give glory unto him. That this signifies that they should worship the Lord from His Divine truth by a life according to it, is evident from the signification of fearing God, as denoting to reverence and worship the Lord; concerning which see above (n. 696); and from the signification of giving glory unto Him, as denoting to live according to Divine truth, that is, according to His precepts in the Word.

By glory, where it is said of the Lord, is signified Divine truth proceeding from Him, thus the Word such as it is in heaven; for this is light to the angels, by means of which the Lord manifests His glory. For by means of that light He gives intelligence and wisdom, and also sets before their eyes magnificent objects, which are refulgent from highly precious things. This in the proximate sense is signified by the Lord's glory. But because all those magnificent things that are refulgent, as it were, from gold and precious stones in wonderful forms, are given by the Lord according to the reception of Divine truth proceeding from Him, therefore they are seen by them entirely according to the wisdom which is in them; for these things are correspondences. But since they have wisdom according to their reception of Divine truth, not only in doctrine but also in life, therefore by giving glory unto Him is signified to live according to Divine truth.

[2] It is believed in the world that those possess wisdom, and consequently heaven, who know Divine truths and speak of them from knowledge, although they may not live according to them. But I can testify that such persons have no wisdom. They appear indeed to be wise, when they speak; but as soon as they are in their own spirit, or think in themselves, they are quite unwise; sometimes in fact they rave like foolish persons, thinking contrary to the Divine truths of which they have spoken. But the case is different with those who live according to Divine truths. Such persons think wisely in themselves, and also speak wisely with others. This it has been granted me to know by a thousand examples from experience in the spiritual world; for things are seen there such as are altogether unknown to men in the natural world. I have heard many there speak so wisely that I could have supposed them to be angels of the interior heaven; yet they had become devils; for they had filled their memory with such things from the love of glory, and yet had not lived according to them. As soon therefore as they came to themselves, and returned to the love of their own life, they spoke in opposition to those things, and were as insane as if they had known nothing at all about them. It was therefore evident to me, that almost every one has the faculty to understand, in order that he may be reformed; but he who does not live the life of truth, does not will to be reformed. He successively rejects from himself all those things that have reference to his intelligence and wisdom, and lives his own love, which is opposed to them, and at length he draws near to those who are in hell, and in a love similar to his own.

From these things it is evident that to give glory to God is to live according to Divine truth; as the Lord also taught in these words in John:

"In this is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. Abide ye in my love: if ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you" (15:8, 10, 14).

It is therefore evident that to glorify God, or to give glory to God, is to bring forth fruit.

See, moreover, what has been said before concerning glory as that glory signifies the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord, and its reception by angels and men (n. 33, 288, 345); and that the Lord's glory consists in enlightening men and angels, and in blessing them with wisdom and happiness; which can take place only by the reception of Divine truth in doctrine and also in life.