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

അടിക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ:

456. The Connection between Loving God and Loving Our Neighbor

People generally know that the law proclaimed on Mount Sinai was written on two tablets, one of which was about God and the other about humankind. People also know that in Moses' hand the two were a single tablet: the right-hand side contained writing concerning God, and the left-hand side contained writing concerning humankind, because if it was set before people's eyes in this way, the writing on both sides would be seen at once. Therefore the sides faced one another like Jehovah talking with Moses and Moses with Jehovah, face to face, as we read [Exodus 33:11; Deuteronomy 34:10].

The tablets were made in this way so that together they would represent God's connection to people and people's reciprocal connection to God. For this reason the law written there was called "the Covenant" and "the Testimony. " The term "covenant" refers to the partnership and "testimony" refers to the life that follows the points agreed upon.

The union of the two tablets shows the connection between loving God and loving our neighbor. The first tablet covers all aspects of loving God; they are primarily that we should acknowledge one God, the divinity of his human manifestation, and the holiness of the Word; and that in worshiping him we are to use the holy things that come from him. (The fact that the first tablet covers the above is clear from the comments made in chapter 5 on the Ten Commandments [291-308].)

The second tablet covers all aspects of loving our neighbor. The first five of its commandments relate to our behavior, or what are called our "works. " Its other two commandments relate to our will and to the origins of goodwill: they tell us that we should not covet what our neighbors have, and that by not doing so, we have their well-being in mind.

On the point that the Ten Commandments contain everything about how to love God and how to love our neighbor, see 329, 330, and 331 above. That discussion also shows that in people who have goodwill the two tablets are connected.

6323. The good of love which flows in from the Lord through angels contains all truth, and truth would reveal itself spontaneously if the human being led a life of love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour. This is evident not only from things that obtain in heaven but also from those in the natural order beneath. Since the things in the natural order are observable, let some be brought forward to illustrate the matter.

[2] Animals are propelled by nothing else than the loves and accompanying affections into which they have been created and afterwards born; for every animal is carried in the direction its affection and love take it. That being so, animals also have all the knowledge that ever accompanies that love. For they know from a love resembling the love that belongs to marriage how they are to mate, cattle in one way, birds in another. Birds know how they must build nests, lay eggs and sit on them, how they must hatch chicks and feed them. They know these things without any instruction, solely from a love resembling that which belongs to marriage and from a love for offspring, which loves have all that knowledge implanted in them. Similarly they know which food they must eat and how they must look for it. More than that, bees know how to look for food in flowers of various kinds, and also to gather wax to make cells with, in which first they place their offspring and after that store food. They also know how to make provision for the winter, not to mention many other things. All this knowledge is included in their loves and resides in them right from the start. Creatures are born into that knowledge because they exist in the order which belongs to their true nature and into which they have been created; and as such they are driven by a general inflow from the spiritual world.

[3] If the human being were living in the order into which he was created - that is to say, in love towards the neighbour and in love to the Lord, for these loves are peculiar to the human being - he would be born, pre-eminently over all animals, not only into knowledge but also into all spiritual truths over and all celestial forms of good, thus into all wisdom and intelligence. For the human being is able to think about the Lord and to be joined to Him through love, and so to be raised up to what is Divine and eternal, which animals cannot be. Thus if he were living in his true order he would be governed solely by general influx from the Lord through the spiritual world. But because he is not born into his true order but into one contrary to it, he is born totally without knowledge. This being so, provision has been made so that he can be born again and in that way enter into intelligence and wisdom, in the same measure as he embraces good in freedom, and truth through good.