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:

66. There are three ascending levels in the physical world and three ascending levels in the spiritual world. All animals are life-receivers, the more perfect ones receiving the life of the three levels of the physical world, the less perfect receiving the life of two levels of that world, and the least perfect the life of one level. Only we humans are receptive of the life not only of the three levels of the physical world but also of the three levels of the spiritual world. This is why we, unlike animals, can be lifted up above the physical world. We can think analytically and rationally about civil and moral issues within the material world and also about spiritual and heavenly issues that transcend the material world. We can even be lifted up into wisdom to the point that we see God. I will discuss in their proper place, though, the six levels by which the functions of all created things rise up all the way to God, their Creator.

This brief summary enables us to see that there is a ladder of all created things to that First who alone is life and that the functions of all things are the actual vessels of life, and so too, therefore, are the forms of those functions.

7926. 'To inflict the plague on Egypt' means as a result of which damnation comes to those belonging to the Church who have been governed by faith separated from charity. This is clear from the meaning of 'the plague', which in this case is the death of the firstborn, as the damnation of those belonging to the Church [who have been governed by faith] separated from charity, dealt with in 7766, 7778. For 'Egypt' - that is, the Egyptians - means those who have had a knowledge of those kinds of things that belong to the Church, yet have separated life from religious teaching, that is, charity from faith. The Egyptians too were like them, for they possessed a knowledge of the things belonging to the Church at that time, a Church that was representative. They were familiar with the representations of spiritual realities through natural things, which constituted the ceremonies of the Church at that time, and were accordingly familiar with correspondences, as is plainly shown by their hieroglyphics, which were pictures of natural things representing spiritual realities. This explains why 'the Egyptians' means those who have a knowledge of matters of faith yet lead an evil life. In the next life such people undergo vastation of all that composes faith, that is, all that composes the Church, and are eventually damned. That damnation is what is understood in the internal sense by the death of the firstborn in Egypt.

[2] Since it says 'Jehovah will go through to inflict the plague on Egypt', and these words mean the presence of the Divine, as a result of which damnation comes to those belonging to the Church who have been governed by faith separated from charity, something must be said to explain all this. Jehovah or the Lord does not present Himself among those in hell in order to inflict damnation; but even so His presence is what brings it about. The hells have a constant desire to molest the good and also a constant longing to rise into heaven and dislodge those who are there, though their efforts cannot get them past those living in the outermost parts of heaven. For it is enmity constantly exhaling hostility and violence. But the Lord makes unceasing provision to keep those living in the outermost parts of heaven secure and undisturbed. This He accomplishes by His presence among them. When those belonging to hell bring themselves to where the Lord is present, that is, into His presence, they cast themselves into the miseries of vastation, and eventually into damnation; for as shown already in various places, the Lord's presence which they run into brings those things about. From this it is evident that the Lord does not present Himself among them in order to inflict the miseries of punishment on them, but that they cast themselves into those miseries. These considerations show that nothing but good is attributable to the Lord, and that everything bad is attributable to those themselves who are immersed in evil, thus that the ones to inflict vastation, damnation, and hell on the evil are the evil themselves. This shows one how to understand 'Jehovah will go through to inflict the plague on Egypt'.