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:

330. Since the goal of creation is a heaven from the human race (and therefore the human race itself), the intermediate goals are everything else that has been created. Because these do relate to us, they focus on these three aspects of us: our bodies, our rational functioning, and, for the sake of our union with the Lord, our spiritual functioning. We cannot be united to the Lord unless we are spiritual; we cannot be spiritual unless we are rational; and we cannot be rational unless we are physically whole. These aspects are like a house, with the body as its foundation, the structure of the house as our rational functioning, and the contents of the house as our spiritual functioning. Living in the house is union with the Lord.

This enables us to see the sequence, level, and focus of the relationship to us of the useful functions that are intermediate goals of creation. That is, they are for the support of our bodies, for the development of our rational ability, and for our acceptance of what is spiritual from the Lord.

8484. Verses 21-24 And they gathered it morning by morning, each according to the mouth of his eating; and the sun grew hot, and it melted. And so it was, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one; and all the princes of the assembly came and told Moses. And he said to them, This is what Jehovah has spoken: [A day of] rest, a holy sabbath to Jehovah shall tomorrow be. Bake what you will bake, and boil what you will boil; and all that is left over put aside for yourselves to keep until the morning. And they put it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not become putrid, and there was no worm in it.

'And they gathered it morning by morning' means the reception of good from the Lord unceasingly. 'Each according to the mouth of his eating' means each according to his capacity to make it his own. 'And the sun grew hot, and it melted' means its disappearance gradually as craving increased. 'And so it was, that on the sixth day' means at the end of each state. 'They gathered twice as much' means the joining together resulting from the reception of good. 'Two omers for each one' means the power present then. 'And all the princes of the assembly came and told Moses' means reflection on the basis of primary truths. 'And he said to them' means instruction. 'This is what Jehovah has spoken' means influx from the Divine. '[A day of] rest' means a state of peace when there is no temptation. 'A holy sabbath to Jehovah shall tomorrow be' means the joining together of goodness and truth into eternity. 'Bake what you will bake' means preparing good to be joined. 'And boil what you will boil' means preparing truth to be joined. 'And all that is left over put aside for yourselves to keep until the morning' means the enjoyment of all good and truth then as if from what was their own. 'And they put it aside till the morning' means the enjoyment to come. 'As Moses commanded' means in accordance with instruction received from God's truth. 'And it did not become putrid, and there was no worm in it' means that there was nothing foul within it, because in that way they acted from the Divine in making it their own.