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:

17. In the Divine-Human One, infinite things are distinguishably one. It is recognized that God is infinite: he is in fact called the Infinite One. But he is called infinite because he is infinite. He is not infinite simply because he is intrinsically essential reality and manifestation, but because there are infinite things in him. An infinite being without infinite things within it would be infinite in name only.

The infinite things in him should not be called "infinitely many" or "infinitely all," because of our earthly concepts of "many" and "all." Our earthly concept of "infinitely many" is limited, and while there is something limitless about our concept of "infinitely all," it still rests on limited things in our universe. This means that since our concept is earthly, we cannot arrive at a sense of the infinite things in God by some process of shifting it to a higher level or by comparison. However, since angels enjoy spiritual concepts they can surpass us by changing to a higher level and by comparison, though they cannot reach infinity itself.

4980. 'That Jehovah blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake' means that at this point the Divine imparted the celestial-natural to that truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'being blessed' as being enriched with celestial and spiritual good, so that an imparting by the Divine is meant by 'Jehovah blessed'; and from the meaning of 'the Egyptian's house' as the good dwelling in the natural mind, as above in 4973. From this it follows that the words 'Jehovah blessed the Egyptian's house' mean that at this point the Divine imparted the celestial-natural to it. The celestial-natural is good present in the natural which corresponds to the good belonging to the rational, that is, which corresponds to the celestial of the spiritual from the rational, meant by 'Joseph', 4963.

[2] The term celestial, like spiritual, is used in reference both to the rational and to the natural, that is, both to the internal man, which is the rational man, and to the external, which is the natural man. For essentially, the spiritual is Divine Truth which goes forth from the Lord, while the celestial is Divine Good present within that Divine Truth. When Divine Truth containing Divine Good is received by the rational, or by the internal man, it is called the spiritual within the rational, but when it is received by the natural, or by the external man, it is called the spiritual within the natural. The same is so with Divine Good present within Divine Truth. When this good is received by the rational, or by the internal man, it is referred to as the celestial within the rational, but when it is received by the natural, or by the external man, it is referred to as the celestial within the natural. In man's case these two flow in both directly from the Lord and indirectly from Him through angels and spirits; but in the Lord's case while He was in the world they flowed in from Himself because the Divine existed within Him.