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:

169. Throughout the created universe, in its largest and smallest instances alike, we find these three--purpose, means, and result. The reason we find them in the largest and smallest instances of the created universe is that these three are in God the Creator, who is the Lord from eternity. Since he is infinite, though, and since in one who is infinite there are infinite things in a distinguishable oneness (as explained in 17-22 above), these three are a distinguishable oneness in him and in the infinite things that belong to him. This is why the universe, being created from his reality and (if we look at its functions) being an image of him, retains these three in each of its constituent details.

1285. That 'the whole earth was one lip' means that people everywhere held to the same doctrine in its general aspects is clear from the meaning in the Word of 'a lip', dealt with in the next paragraph. This verse, in these few words, describes the state of the Ancient Church as it had been, that is to say, it held to the same general doctrine. The next verse however describes how it began to be falsified and adulterated, and after that down to verse 9 how it became so utterly perverted that no internal worship existed any longer. Immediately after that the subject is the second Ancient Church begun by Eber, and at last the third Church which was the start of the Jewish Church. For after the Flood there were three consecutive Churches.

[2] In regard to what has been said of the first Ancient Church - that though so wide-spread throughout the world, its lip was nevertheless one and its words one, that is, it shared one doctrine in its general aspects and in its particular details; but for all that, the forms of worship, internal as well as external, were everywhere divergent, as shown in the previous chapter where each nation that is mentioned meant a divergent form of doctrine and of ritual - the situation is as follows: Heaven consists of countless communities. They all vary, and yet all are one, for all are led as one by the Lord; see what has appeared already in 457, 551, 684, 685, 690. A parallel exists in man, in that although internally his body has so many parts, which, like his other organs and limbs, have so many inner parts, each functioning differently from any other, yet all of them, every single one, are nevertheless controlled as one by one soul. A parallel also exists with the human body, which has different ways of exerting its strength and of moving. Nevertheless all are controlled by one motion of the heart and one of the lungs, and together make one. The reason they are able to function as one in this way is that in heaven there is one single influx which is received by everyone according to his own disposition. This influx is an influx of affections from the Lord, from His mercy and life. And although there is one influx only, everything nevertheless conforms and follows as one. And this comes about through the mutual love shared by those in heaven.

[3] Such was the situation with the first Ancient Church that although there were so many forms of internal and external worship, at the general level as many as there were nations, at the specific level as many as there were families making up nations, and at the particular level as many as there were people in the Church, they all nevertheless had 'one lip' and 'their words were one'; that is, they all shared one doctrine in general and in particular. Doctrine is one when all possess mutual love, or charity. Mutual love or charity causes things, though varied, to be one, for it makes one out of varied things. If all, no matter how many - even ten thousand times ten thousand - are governed by charity or mutual love, they have but one end in view, namely the common good, the Lord's kingdom, and the Lord Himself. Variations in matters of doctrine and in forms of worship are like the variations that exist with the physical senses and with the inner parts of man's body, which, as stated, all contribute to the perfection of the whole. Indeed the Lord flows in and works by way of charity though in different ways according to the disposition of each individual. And in so doing He arranges every single person into a proper order, on earth as in heaven. In this way the Lord's will is done, as He Himself teaches, 'on earth as it is in heaven'.