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:

42. It is the same with love and wisdom, the only difference being that the substances and forms that are love and wisdom are not visible to our eyes as are the organs of our external senses. Still, no one can deny that those matters of love and wisdom that we call thoughts, perceptions, and feelings are substances and forms. They are not things that go floating out from nothing, remote from any functional and real substance and form that are their subjects. There are in fact countless substances and forms in the brain that serve as the homes of all the inner sensation that involves our discernment and volition.

What has just been said about our external senses points to the conclusion that all our feelings, perceptions, and thoughts in those substances and forms are not something they breathe out; they themselves are functional and substantial subjects. They do not emit anything, but simply undergo changes in response to the things that touch and affect them. There will be more later [210, 273] on these things that touch and affect them.

3353. The majority of people believe that when the Last Judgement comes everything visible in the world is going to perish - that is to say, the earth will go up in flames, the sun and moon will be reduced to nothing, and the stars will disappear; and after that a new heaven and a new earth will come into being. They have acquired this idea from the prophetical revelations, among which such occurrences are mentioned. But what will in fact happen at that time is quite different, as becomes clear from what has been shown already concerning the Last Judgement in 900, 931, 1850, 2117-2133. Those paragraphs show that the Last Judgement is nothing else than the end of the Church with one group of people and the beginning of it with another. This end with one and beginning with another occurs when the Lord is not acknowledged any longer, or what amounts to the same, when there is no faith any longer. No acknowledgement or faith exists any longer when there is no charity any longer, for faith is in no way possible except with those in whom charity is present. In those circumstances the Church comes to an end and is transferred to others, as is plainly evident from all the things that the Lord Himself taught and foretold in the Gospels concerning the last day or the close of the age - in Matthew 24; Mark 13; and Luke 21. But since nobody without the key, which is the internal sense, is able to understand those things foretold by Him there, let them be explained one after another.

[2] Here first let the following words be explained which appear in Matthew,

The disciples came to Jesus, saying, Tell us. when will those things take place, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the close of the age? And Jesus answering said to them, See that no one leads you astray, for many will come in My name, saying, I am the Christ; and they will lead many astray. But when you hear of wars and rumours of wars, see that you are not alarmed; for all things must take place; but the end is not yet. For nation will be roused against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, and plagues, and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of sorrows. Matthew 24:3-8.

Those who confine themselves to the sense of the letter cannot know whether these words and those that follow in this chapter refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, or whether they refer to the end of days which is called the Last Judgement. But those admitted into the internal sense see clearly that the end of the Church is being referred to, this end being that which here and in other places is called 'the coming of the Lord' and 'the close of the age'. And inasmuch as the end of the Church is meant one is able to see that all these statements made by the Lord mean such things as have to do with the Church. But their overall meaning may be seen from the individual meaning below which each of them has in the internal sense.

Many will come in My name, saying, I am the Christ; and they will lead many astray. 'Name' here does not mean name, nor 'the Christ' the Christ, but 'name' means that by which the Lord is worshipped, 2724, 3006, while 'the Christ' means truth itself, 3009, 3010. Thus the meaning is that people will come who say that this is the sum and substance of faith, that is, it is the truth, when in fact it is neither the sum and substance of faith, nor the truth, but falsity.

They will hear of wars and rumours of wars means that arguments and disagreements over truths will arise which are wars in the spiritual sense.

Nation will be roused against nation and kingdom against kingdom means that evil will conflict with evil, and falsity with falsity, 'nation' meaning good, but in the contrary sense evil, see 1259, 1260, 1416, 1849, and 'kingdom' meaning truth, but in the contrary sense falsity, 1672, 2547. And there will be famines, and plagues, and earthquakes in various places means that no cognitions of good and truth will exist any more, and thus that the state of the Church is altered, meant by 'an earthquake'.