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:

84. Because these two worlds are so distinct from each other, it is quite obvious that the spiritual world is under a different sun than is the physical world. There is just as much warmth and light in the spiritual world as there is in the physical world, but the warmth there is spiritual and so is the light. Spiritual warmth is the good that thoughtfulness does and spiritual light is the truth that faith perceives.

Now, since the only possible source of warmth and light is a sun, it stands to reason that there is a different sun in the spiritual world than there is in the physical world. It also stands to reason that because of the essential nature of the spiritual world's sun, spiritual warmth and light can come forth from it, while because of the essential nature of the physical world's sun, physical warmth [and light] can come forth from it. The only possible source of anything spiritual--that is, anything that has to do with what is good and true--is divine love and wisdom. Everything good is a result of love and everything true is a result of wisdom. Any wise individual can see that this is their only possible source.

9730. 'And you shall put it under the rim of the altar beneath' means that sensory perception on the last and lowest levels. This is clear from the meaning of 'a grating, a network', which was to be put under the rim of the altar, as the level of sensory perception, dealt with above in 9726; from the meaning of 'the rim', when it refers to sensory perception, as that which is last and lowest (external sensory perception forms for a person the last and lowest level of life, see 9726); and from the meaning of 'beneath' as outwardly, for by things that are higher those which are more internal are meant, and by things that are lower those which are more external are meant, 6952, 6954, 7814-7821, 8604, so that 'above' means inwardly and 'beneath' means outwardly. The words 'external sensory perception' are not used to mean the sensory powers of the body itself - its senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch - but the ability that depends directly on them. For a person is called sensory-minded if those bodily senses and their appetites govern what he thinks and desires and he looks no further. If he does look further to examine what the senses desire and what his senses lead him to think, he is said to be raised above the sensory level, or to be drawn away from it, and to think on a more internal level. This happens to those at the present day who are governed by the good of charity and faith; and when it happens, the sensory level becomes dormant and is deprived of the life and activity that the world and worldly objects stimulate there.

There are two directions in which the things composing a person's understanding and will can be oriented. One faces without, towards the world; the other faces within, towards heaven. With natural and sensory-minded people the things composing their understanding and will, that is, their thoughts and affections, are oriented towards the world; but with spiritual and heavenly-minded people their thoughts and affections are oriented towards heaven, and also alternately towards the world. When a person is being regenerated he pivots round to face within, and so far as he can be turned in that direction the person can be raised by the Lord towards heaven, to Himself, and can as a result be endowed with wisdom, faith, and love. For the person then leads his life on the level of the internal man, consequently on that of his spirit, and the external man is subordinate to the internal. But if a person does not allow himself to be regenerated all the thoughts and affections within him remain oriented towards the world, in which case he leads his life on the level of the external man, and the internal man is subordinate to the external, as happens when the external man produces reasonings that lend support to evil desires. These people are called natural-minded, and those who are interested only in the most external things are called sensory-minded. All this goes to show what anyone should understand by the level of sensory perception.