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.

8108. 'And by night in a pillar of fire to give them light' means that when there was a state of dimness, this was moderated by enlightenment from good. This is clear from the meaning of 'night' as a state of obscurity or dimness, dealt with in 1712, 6000; from the meaning of 'fire' as the good of love, dealt with in 934, 4906, 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324, 7852; and from the meaning of 'giving light' as enlightenment. The reason why Jehovah or the Lord appeared or led the way in a pillar of cloud during the daytime and in a pillar of fire by night was that the state of heaven was represented thereby. In heaven variations and changes of state occur unceasingly; for angels are being perfected constantly, and without unceasing changes of states this perfecting could not possibly take place. In general those variations and changes are like the cyclic changes in the world - like the round of yearly seasons, which are spring, summer, autumn, winter, and spring again, and like the round of times of day, which are morning, midday, evening, night, and morning again. Morning and midday in heaven occurs when the understanding is being enlightened by the Lord; but in this state the light is moderated by a dimming of truth, as if by a cloud. And evening and night there occur when the understanding grows dim; but the Lord moderates that dimness by means of the good of love, as if by means of a fire giving light. These provisions by the Lord are what were represented by the pillar of cloud during the daytime, and the pillar of fire by night, present with the children of Israel in the wilderness.