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:

153. There are two suns by means of which the Lord created everything, the sun of the spiritual world and the sun of the physical world. The Lord created everything by means of the spiritual world's sun, but not by means of the physical world's sun, since this latter sun is far beneath the former one. The spiritual sun is at a midpoint, with the spiritual world above it and the physical world below it. The physical world's sun was created to play a supporting role, a role that will be discussed below [157].

46. It needs to be known that the Last Judgment took place on those who lived between the time of the Lord and the present day, not on those who lived before that date. For on this planet a last judgment has taken place twice before. One was described in the Word by the flood; the other was accomplished by the Lord Himself when He was in the world. This is meant by the Lord's words:

Now is the judgment of this world, now is the prince of this world cast out. John 12:31.

Also:

I have said this to you so that in Me you should have peace; be confident, I have overcome the world. John 16:33.

Also these words in Isaiah:

Who is this who comes from Edom, striding out in the excess of his strength? Mighty [am I] to save. I have trodden the wine-press alone. Therefore I trod them down in my anger. Hence their victory is sprinkled over my clothing. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come. Therefore he became a saviour. Isaiah 63:1-8.

There are many other such passages.

[2] The reason why there have been two previous last judgments on this planet is that every judgment occurs at the end of a church, as was shown above in the chapter on this subject [33-39]; and on this earth there have been two earlier churches, the first before the flood, the second after it. The church before the flood is described in the first chapters of Genesis by the new creation of heaven and earth, and by the garden [of Eden]. Its end was described by eating of the tree of knowledge, and the incidents which followed. Its last judgment was described by the flood. All of these were described by straight correspondences after the manner of the Word's style. In the internal or spiritual sense the creation of heaven and earth means the setting up of a new church (see the first chapter [1-5] above). The garden in Eden means the wisdom of that celestial church. The tree of knowledge means the factual knowledge which destroyed that church, and so does the serpent there. The flood means the last judgment on those who belonged to that church.

[3] The second church, however, which came after the flood, is also described in several passages of the Word (such as Deuteronomy 32:7-14 and elsewhere). This extended over much of the Asian continent, and was continued by the descendants of Jacob. It came to an end when the Lord came into the world. He then carried out a last judgment on all who had lived from the date on which that church was first set up, and at the same time on all the survivors of the first church. The Lord's purpose in coming into the world was to reduce to order everything in the heavens, and by their means everything on earth, and at the same time to make His human Divine. No one could have been saved if this had not been done. The existence of two churches on this earth before the Lord's coming was demonstrated in various passages of ARCANA CAELESTIA; a summary of these will be found in the notes at the end of this chapter. ¹ It was also shown that the Lord came into the world to reduce to order everything in the heavens and by their means everything on earth, and to make His human Divine. ²

The third church on this earth is the Christian. It was on this, and at the same time on all in the first heaven from the time of the Lord, that the last judgment now being described took place.

Footnotes: