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

Footnotes:

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.

Footnotes:

8309. 'In Your strength You have brought them to the dwelling-place of Your holiness' means that the Lord's Divine power has raised them to heaven, to the Divine there. This is clear from the meaning of 'leading in strength', when used in reference to being raised into heaven by the Lord, as being raised by Divine power, 'strength' meaning power, as is self-evident; and from the meaning of 'the dwelling-place of holiness' as heaven, where the Divine is. For holiness is an attribute of the Divine Truth that emanates from the Lord, 8302, and this Divine Truth makes heaven.

[2] The truth that Jehovah's or the Lord's 'dwelling-place' is heaven, and also good, because good has heaven within it, is clear from the following places: In Moses,

Look from the dwelling-place of Your holiness, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel. ¹ Deuteronomy 26:15

In Isaiah,

Look out from heaven, and see from the dwelling-place of [Your] holiness and of Your glory. Isaiah 63:15.

In David,

Surely I will not give sleep to my eyes, until I find a place for Jehovah, the dwelling-places for the Mighty One of Jacob Behold, we heard of Him in Ephrathah; we found Him in the fields of the wood. We will enter His dwelling-places. Psalms 132:4-7.

[3] The truth that Jehovah's, that is, the Lord's, 'dwelling-place' is within good may be seen in Zechariah,

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Zion! Behold I am coming in order that I may dwell in Your midst. Many nations will cling to Jehovah on that day and will be My people; for I will dwell in you. Zechariah 2:10-11.

And in Ezekiel,

I will set My sanctuary in their midst forever, so will My dwelling-place be among them. Ezekiel 37:26-27.

'Sanctuary' is where Divine Truth having Divine Good within it resides.

Footnotes: