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.

3573. 'And kiss me, my son' means as to whether union is possible. This is clear from the meaning of 'kissing' as a uniting and joining together resulting from affection. Kissing, which is an external activity, is nothing else than the desire to become joined together, which is an internal activity; the two activities also correspond. The subject here, as is evident from what has been stated above, in the highest sense is the glorification of the Natural within the Lord, that is, how the Lord made the Natural within Him Divine. But in the representative sense the subject is the regeneration of the natural present in man and so the joining together of the natural and the rational; for the natural is not regenerate until it has been joined to the rational. This joining together is effected by means of both direct and indirect influx of the rational into the good and the truth of the natural; that is to say, by means of influx from the good of the rational directly into the good of the natural, and through the good of the natural into the truth of the natural, and by means of influx indirectly through the truth of the rational into the truth of the natural and from there into the good of the natural.

[2] These instances of a joining together are the subject here. They cannot possibly be achieved except through the means provided by the Divine. Indeed they are effected by means such as are quite unknown to man and of which he can gain scarcely any idea through the things which belong to the light of the world, that is, which belong to the natural light with him, but rather through the things belonging to the light of heaven, that is, to rational light. Nevertheless all those means have been disclosed in the internal sense of the Word, and are evident to those who know the internal sense, and so to angels who see and perceive countless details relating to this subject, of which scarcely one can be drawn out and explained adequately for man to grasp it.

[3] Yet from effects and the signs of those effects this joining of the rational to the natural is to some extent evident to man, for the rational mind, that is, the inward areas of will and understanding with a person ought to present themselves in his natural mind. Just as the natural mind presents itself in the face and facial expressions, so much so that the face is the outward expression of the natural mind, so ought the natural mind to be the outward expression of the rational mind. When rational and natural are joined together, as they are with those who are regenerate, whatever a person wills and thinks inwardly within his rational makes itself evident in his natural; and this in turn makes itself evident in the face. This is what the face is to angels and what it was to the most ancient people who were celestial. Indeed they were never afraid that others might know their ends and intentions, for they willed nothing but good. For anyone who allows himself to be led by the Lord never intends or thinks anything else. Where a state such as this exists the rational as regards good joins itself to the good of the natural directly, and through the good of the natural to the truths of the natural. It also joins itself indirectly through the truth there in the rational to the truth in the natural, and through this to the good there. All this effects an indissoluble joining together.

[4] But how far mankind is removed at the present day from this state, and so from the heavenly state, may be seen from the belief that practical wisdom requires one, in the world, to use words, also to perform acts, as well as to adopt facial expressions which are other than what one in fact thinks and intends. Indeed it is believed that one should so control the natural mind itself that in unison with its face it acts in quite an opposite way from inward thoughts and desires that flow from an evil end in view. To the most ancient people this was utterly abominable, and people who behaved in that way were expelled as devils from their community. From these considerations, as from effects and the signs of those effects, one may see what the joining together of the rational or internal man as regards good and truth with his natural or external man implies. One may thus also see what one who is an angel is like and what one who is a devil is like.