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:

45. Anyone who can pursue and grasp inherent reality and its manifestation at all thoughtfully will necessarily come to grasp the fact that it is wholly itself and unique. We call it wholly itself because it alone exists; and we call it unique because it is the source of everything else.

Further, since what is wholly itself and unique is substance and form, it follows that it is the unique substance and form, and wholly itself; and since that true substance and form is divine love and wisdom, it follows that it is the unique love, wholly itself, and the unique wisdom, wholly itself. It is therefore the unique essence, wholly itself, and the unique life, wholly itself, since love and wisdom is life.

33. To Him be the glory and the might unto the ages of the ages, signifies that these things, namely, Divine good and Divine truth, are from the Lord alone to eternity. This is evident from the signification of "glory," as meaning Divine truth in heaven (See Arcana Coelestia 4809, 5922, 8267, 8427, 9429); and from the signification of "might," as meaning Divine good through Divine truth, since Divine good has all might and all power through Divine truth (See n. 3091, 3563, 6344, 6423, 8304, 9643, 10019, 10182; and in the work on Heaven and Hell, where the power of the angels of heaven from the Lord is treated of, n 228-233). That "unto the ages of the ages" means to eternity is clear without explanation. "Glory" is Divine truth in heaven because Divine truth is the light there; and the things that have existence from the light of heaven are called "glory," because they have existence from the Lord and represent the Divine truth that is from Him, and declare His glory; especially the things that are within the angel, which are of intelligence and wisdom. (That the light of heaven is Divine truth, and that all things that are in heaven, whether without or within the angel, have existence from the light there, see in the work on Heaven and Hell, n (Heaven and Hell 126-140). 126-140, 172, 173, 176.) It is believed in the world that "Glory be to God" means that God for His own sake desires glory from man, and that He is moved by it, and imparts blessings in return for it. But this is a mistake. God desires glory from man for man's sake; for thus man ascribes all things to the Divine and nothing to himself, and when he does this, the Divine can flow in with Divine truth, and give him intelligence and wisdom. Thus and no otherwise is the Lord glorified in man; for the Lord loves everyone, and, from love, desires that His glory, that is, Divine truth, may be in men. This, moreover, the Lord teaches in John:

If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask whatever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, and that ye be made My disciples (John 15:7-8).

(That the salvation of the human race is the glory of the Lord, see n. Arcana Coelestia 4347, 4593, 5957, 7550, 8263, 10646)