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:

52. Everything in the universe was created by the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. The universe, from beginning to end and from first to last, is so full of divine love and wisdom that you could call it divine love and wisdom in an image. This is clearly evidenced by the way everything in the universe answers to something in us. Every single thing that comes to light in the created universe has such an equivalence with every single thing in us that you could call us a kind of universe as well. There is a correspondence of our affective side and its consequent thought with everything in the animal kingdom, a correspondence of our volitional side and its consequent discernment with everything in the plant kingdom, and a correspondence of our outermost life with everything in the mineral kingdom.

This kind of correspondence is not apparent to anyone in our physical world, but it is apparent to observant people in the spiritual world. We find in this latter world all the things that occur in the three kingdoms of our physical world, and they reflect the feelings and thoughts of the people who are there--the feelings that come from their volition and the thoughts that come from their discernment--as well as the outermost aspects of their life. Both their feelings and their thoughts are visible around them looking much like the things we see in the created universe, though we see them in less perfect representations.

From this it is obvious to angels that the created universe is an image depicting the Divine-Human One and that it is his love and wisdom that are presented, in image, in the universe. It is not that the created universe is the Divine-Human One: rather, it comes from him; for nothing whatever in the universe is intrinsic substance and form or intrinsic life or intrinsic love and wisdom. We are not "intrinsic persons." It all comes from God, who is the intrinsic person, the intrinsic wisdom and love, and the intrinsic form and substance. Whatever has intrinsic existence is uncreated and infinite; while what comes from it, possessing nothing within itself that has intrinsic existence, is created and finite. This latter presents an image of the One from whom it derives its existence and manifestation.

874. Fear God and give glory to Him, signifies to worship the Lord from His Divine truth by a life according to it. This is evident from the signification of "fearing God," as being to revere and worship the Lord (See above, n. 696); also from the signification of "giving glory to Him," as being to live according to the Divine truth, that is, according to His commandments in the Word. "Glory" in reference to the Lord signifies the Divine truth proceeding from Him, thus the Word such as it is in heaven; for that is light to the angels, and by that light the Lord manifests His glory; for by that light He gives intelligence and wisdom, and also presents before the eyes of angels magnificent objects that glow with most precious things. This is the signification of the Lord's "glory" in the sense nearest to the letter. But all these magnificent things, which glow as if from gold and precious stones in wonderful forms, are given by the Lord according to the reception of Divine truth proceeding from Him, consequently they appear to the angels in the exact measure of the wisdom that is with them, for they are correspondences. But since angels have wisdom according to their reception of Divine truth not only in doctrine but also in life, "to give glory to Him," signifies to live according to Divine truth.

[2] It is believed in the world that those have wisdom, and thus heaven, who know Divine truths and talk about them from knowledge, although they do not live according to them. But I can testify that such have no wisdom. They appear to have wisdom when they speak; but as soon as they are in their own spirit or think with themselves they are not at all wise, sometimes they are even demented like fools, thinking in opposition to the Divine truths which they have spoken. But it is otherwise with those who live according to Divine truths; such think wisely with themselves, and speak wisely with others. This it has been given me to know from a thousand examples of experience in the spiritual world; for there such things are manifest that are wholly unknown to men in the natural world. I have heard many there speak so wisely that I could have believed them to be interior angels of heaven; and yet they became devils, for they had filled their memory with such things from the love of glory, but had not lived according to them; consequently as soon as they returned to themselves and the love of their life they spoke in opposition to these things, and were as insane as if they had known nothing at all about them. This made clear to me that almost everyone has the ability to understand, in order that he may be reformed; but he who does not live the life of truth does not wish to be reformed; and he who does not wish to be reformed gradually rejects from himself everything pertaining to that intelligence and wisdom, and lives his own love which is contrary to these, and finally he draws near to those who are in hell, and is in a love like theirs.

[3] From all this it can be seen that "to give glory to God" signifies to live according to Divine truth; as the Lord has taught in these words in John:

Herein is My Father glorified, that ye may bear much fruit, and may become My disciples. Abide ye in My love. If ye keep My commandments ye shall abide in My love. Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you (John 15:8-10, 14).

This makes clear that "to glorify God," or "to give glory to God," means to bear fruit. See also what has been said before about glory; as that "glory" signifies the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord, and its reception by angels and men (n. 33, 288, 345); also that "the Lord's glory" means the enlightenment of men and angels, and blessing them with wisdom and happiness; which is done solely through the reception of Divine truth in doctrine and at the same time in the life.