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:

59. We can conclude from this that Divinity is present in absolutely everything in the created universe and that the created universe is therefore the work of Jehovah's hands, as it says in the Word. That is, it is a work of divine love and wisdom, for this is what is meant by "Jehovah's hands." Further, even though Divinity is present in all things great and small in the created universe, there is no trace of intrinsic divinity in their own being. While the created universe is not God, it is from God; and since it is from God, his image is in it like the image of a person in a mirror. We do indeed see a person there, but there is still nothing of the person in the mirror.

2446. 'Brimstone' means the hell of the evils of self-love, and 'fire' the hell of falsities deriving from these. This is clear from the meaning in the Word of 'brimstone' and of 'fire' produced by it as self-love together with its evil desires and derivative falsities, and so as hell, for hell consists of such. That 'brimstone' and 'fire' have these meanings is clear in David,

Jehovah will rain on the wicked, snares, fire and brimstone. Psalms 11:6.

The fact that it is not fire or brimstone but something else that is meant here by 'fire and brimstone' becomes clear also from its being said that 'Jehovah will rain snares'. In Ezekiel,

I will dispute with him with pestilence and blood; and deluging rain and hailstones, fire and brimstone will I rain on him and on his hordes, and on the many peoples that are with him. Ezekiel 38:22.

This refers to Gog who lays waste the land of Israel, that is, the Church. What Gog is, see 1151. 'Fire' stands for falsities, 'brimstone' for derivative evils, and at the same time for the hells of those who lay waste. In John,

Those who worshipped the beast were thrown into the lake burning with brimstone. Revelation 19:20.

Here they stand for hell. In the same book,

The devil was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Revelation 20:10.

Here they plainly stand for hell. In the same book,

As for abominable people, and murderers, and adulterers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their lot will be in the lake burning with fire and brimstone. Revelation 21:8.

Here also 'fire and brimstone' plainly stands for hell.

[2] That these two stand for the evils of self-love and for falsities deriving from these, in which the hells have their origin, is seen in Isaiah,

The day of Jehovah's vengeance - the year of retributions in the controversy of Zion - and her streams will be turned into pitch, and her dust into brimstone, and her land will become burning pitch. Isaiah 34:8-9.

Here 'burning pitch', mentioned instead of fire, stands for dense and dreadful falsities, 'brimstone' for evils which are the product of self-love. In the same prophet,

Its pyre is fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah is like a stream of burning brimstone in it. Isaiah 30:33.

In this reference to Tophet, 'a stream of burning brimstone' stands for falsities which are the product of the evils of self-love. In Luke,

On the day Lot went out of Sodom fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all - so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. Luke 17:29-30.

[3] Anyone may see that it is not fire and brimstone that will rain down at that time but that the falsities and desires of self-love, which are meant by 'fire and brimstone' and which make up hell, will be predominant. 'Fire' in the Word means evil desires and at the same time the hells, in which case the smoke from the fire means falsity which arises from and exists in those hells, see 1861. And in John,

I saw horses in the vision, and those seated on them had breastplates of fire and of brimstone. And the heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and out of their mouths there went forth fire, smoke, and brimstone. By these three a third part of mankind was killed - by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone. Revelation 9:17-18.

'Fire, smoke, and brimstone' stands for evils and falsities of every kind, in which, as stated, the hells have their origin.