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:

324. Since this also shows us that divine providence is a predestination only to heaven and that it cannot be changed into anything else, I need to show at this point that the ultimate purpose of creation is a heaven from the human race, and I need to do so in the order just proposed.

(a) Everyone is created to live forever. In parts 3 and 4 of Divine Love and Wisdom, I explained that we have three levels of life called earthly, spiritual, and heavenly, and that these levels are active in each one of us. I also noted that there is only one level of life in animals, a level like the lowest level in us, the one called earthly. It then follows that unlike animals, we can have our life so lifted toward the Lord that we enter a state in which we can discern things that come from divine wisdom and intend things that come from divine love, and in this way can accept something divine. If we can accept what is divine to the extent that we see and sense it within ourselves, then we must necessarily be able to be united to the Lord and to live forever because of this union.

[2] What would the Lord have been doing with all this creating of a universe if he had not made images and likenesses of himself with whom he could share his divine nature? Otherwise, it would only have been making something so that it existed and did not exist, or so that it happened and did not happen, and doing this only so that he could simply watch its permutations from far away, watch its ceaseless changes like something happening on a stage. What divine purpose would there be in all these changes unless they were serving subjects who would accept something divine more intimately, who would see and sense it? Since Divinity has inexhaustible splendor, would it simply keep it all to itself? Could it keep it all to itself? Love wants to share what it has with others, to give to others all that it can. What about divine love, then, which is infinite? Can it first give and then take back? Would this not be giving something that was bound to perish--that was intrinsically nothing, since it would become nothing when it perished? There is no real "is" involved in that. Divinity, though, gives what truly is, or what does not cease to be. This is what is eternal.

[3] To enable us to live forever, what is mortal is taken from us. That mortal part is our material body, which is taken from us by death. This lays bare what is immortal about us, which is our mind, and we then become spirits in human form. Our mind is that kind of spirit.

The sages and wise ones of old saw that our mind could not die. They asked how a spirit or a mind could die when it could be wise. Hardly anyone nowadays knows the ancients' deeper concept of the matter, but it was a concept from heaven that resulted in their general sense that God is wisdom itself, that we share in that wisdom, and that God is immortal or eternal.

[4] There is also something I can say from experience, because I have been allowed to talk with angels. I have talked with some who lived many centuries ago, with some from before the Flood and some from after it, with some from the time of the Lord, with one of his apostles, and with many who lived in subsequent centuries. They all looked like people in the prime of life and told me that the only thing they knew about death was that it was damnation.

When people who have lived good lives get to heaven, they all enter the young adulthood of their earthly lives and keep it forever, even though they had been old and debilitated in the world. Women, even women who had become old and frail in the world, return to the flower of youth and beauty.

[5] We can see from the Word that we live forever after death, in passages where life in heaven is called eternal life. See, for example, Matthew 19:29; Matthew 25:46; Mark 10:17; Luke 10:25; Luke 18:30; John 3:15-16, 36; John 5:24-25, 39; John 6:27, 40, 68; John 12:50. Or it is simply called "life," as in Matthew 18:8-9; John 5:40; John 20:31. The Lord told the disciples, "Because I am alive, you will also live" (John 14:19), and he said of the resurrection that God is God of the living and not God of the dead, and that they could no longer die (Luke 20:36, 38).

[6] (b) Everyone is created to live forever in a blessed state. This is a corollary, since the One who wants us to live forever wants us to live in a blessed state as well. Otherwise, what would eternal life be? Love always wants what is good for others. Parents' love wants what is good for their children; a groom's or husband's love wants what is good for his bride or wife; our love in friendship wants what is good for our friends; so why not divine love? Further, what is goodness if it is not pleasing, and as for divine good, what is it if it is not eternal bliss? We call things good because of the pleasure or blessedness they provide. We do refer to things that we are given or own as "good," but unless they give us pleasure, it is a barren kind of goodness that is not really good at all. We can see, then, that eternal life is eternal blessedness as well.

This state of humanity is the ultimate goal of creation, and the Lord is not to blame if only the people who get to heaven enjoy it. That is our own fault, as we shall shortly see.

[7] (c) This means that everyone is created to go to heaven. This is the ultimate goal of creation. The reason not everyone gets to heaven, though, is that people immerse themselves in pleasures of hell that are contrary to the blessedness of heaven. People who do not enjoy heaven's bliss cannot enter heaven because they cannot stand the place.

When we arrive in the spiritual world, no one is forbidden to come up to heaven, but if we enjoy the pleasures of hell, then as soon as we get to heaven our hearts pound, we struggle for breath, our life starts to ebb away, we are in pain, tortured, and we writhe like snakes next to a flame. This happens because opposites actively oppose each other.

[8] Even so, since we were born human, which provides us with the ability to think and intend and therefore to talk and act, we cannot actually die. Since we are unable to live with others unless their life pleasures are like ours, we are remanded to the company of such people. This means that if we have enjoyed the pleasures of evil, we are sent off to our own kind, as we are if we have enjoyed the pleasures of what is good. In fact, we are all allowed to enjoy the pleasure of our own evil, provided only that we do not make trouble for people who enjoy the pleasure of what is good. However, since evil cannot help but make trouble for the good because of its inherent hatred for everything good, we are sent away to keep us from doing actual harm and sent down to our places in hell, where our pleasure turns into displeasure.

[9] All this does not cancel the fact that by creation and therefore by birth we have the inherent possibility of getting to heaven. All the people who die in early childhood go to heaven. They are raised and taught there the way we are in this world. They absorb wisdom because of their desire for what is good and true, and they become angels. People who are raised and taught in this world could do the same, since what is in little children is also in them. On little children in the spiritual world, see Heaven and Hell 329-345 (published in London in 1758).

[10] The reason it is different for so many people in the world is that they love that first level of life called "earthly." They do not want to let go of it and become spiritual--left to itself, this earthly level of life has no love for anything but ourselves and the world. It stays glued to our physical senses, which take center stage in this world. In contrast, the spiritual level of life has an inherent love for the Lord and heaven and also for ourselves and the world. God and heaven come first, though, as primary and definitive, while our selves and the world come second, as tools or servants.

[11] (d) Divine love cannot do otherwise than intend this and divine wisdom cannot do otherwise than provide for this. In Divine Love and Wisdom, there is ample evidence that the divine essence is divine love and wisdom. I also explained in Divine Love and Wisdom 358-370 of that work that the Lord forms two vessels in every human embryo, one for divine love and one for divine wisdom. The vessel for divine love is for what will be our volition, and the vessel for divine wisdom is for what will be our discernment. This means that each of us has been given the inner ability to intend what is good and to discern what is true.

[12] Since the Lord has put these two human abilities in us at birth, and since the Lord is therefore within us in those abilities as his gifts, we can see that his divine love can intend only that we come into heaven and enjoy eternal blessedness there. We can also see that divine wisdom can provide only that this happen.

However, since the Lord's divine love wants us to feel that heaven's blessedness within us is our own, and since this cannot happen unless we feel absolutely as though we are doing our own thinking and intending, talking and acting, we can be led only in ways that follow the laws of the Lord's divine providence.

298. The right hand, when said of the Lord, signifies both omnipotence and omniscience, because there the south is at the right in heaven, and the north is at the left; and by the south is signified Divine truth in light, and by the north Divine truth in shade. And because Divine good has all power by means of the Divine truth, therefore by the right hand, when said of the Lord, omnipotence is signified; and because as Divine good has all intelligence and wisdom by means of Divine truth, and to the right in heaven is Divine truth in light as has been said, therefore, by the right hand, when said of the Lord, is also signified omniscience. That the south is at the right in heaven and that there Divine truth is in light, and that those who are there are in intelligence and wisdom; and that the north is at the left there, and that there Divine truth is in shade, may be seen in the work concerning Heaven and Hell, where the four quarters in heaven are treated of (n. 141-153). That all power is from Divine good by means of Divine truth, may be seen in the same work, where the subject treated of is concerning the power of the angels of heaven (n. 228-235): also, that all intelligence and wisdom are from Divine good by means of Divine truth, may be seen in the same work, where the subject treated of is concerning the wisdom of the angels of heaven (n. 265-275): and concerning the wise and simple in heaven (n. 346-356).

[2] That the right hand, when said of the Lord, signifies both omnipotence and omniscience, and when said of men, power and wisdom, is evident from the following passage.

In David:

"The north and the right hand thou hast created them; Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name. Thou hast a mighty arm; strong is thy hand, and thy right hand shall be exalted. Justice and judgment are the support of thy throne; mercy and truth shall stand together before thy faces" (89:12-14).

That by the right hand is here meant the south, is evident, for it is said, the north and the right hand, thou hast created; and the south signifies the Divine truth in light, thus in the highest sense (in which the Lord is spoken of) the omnipotence and omniscience, which Divine good has by means of Divine truth, as has been said above. Because both, omnipotence as well as omniscience, are signified, it is therefore said, Tabor and Hermon, justice and judgment, mercy and truth. Tabor and Hermon here signify those who are in Divine good and in Divine truth: justice and judgment signify Divine good and Divine truth, and similarly mercy and truth; by both together, in the spiritual sense, is signified Divine good by Divine truth. Omnipotence and omniscience, which Divine good has by means of Divine truth, are signified by "Thou hast a mighty arm," and by "strong is Thy hand, and Thy right hand shall be exalted."

[3] Again:

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget" (Psalms 137:5).

Jerusalem signifies the church as to the doctrine of Divine truth; and the right hand of Jehovah, Divine truth in light, because those are at the right hand of the Lord in heaven who are in light and in wisdom from Divine truth, as was said above: hence it is evident why it is said, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget."

[4] Again:

"I was foolish and ignorant. But I am always with thee; thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou guidest me by thy counsel, and afterwards receivest me in glory" (Psalms 73:22-24).

Forasmuch as by the right hand, when said of man, is signified wisdom which is from Divine truth, it is therefore said, "I was foolish and ignorant; Thou guidest me in thy counsel, and afterwards receivest me in glory." To guide by counsel, is to lead by means of Divine truth: and to receive in glory, is to bless with intelligence: for glory, when said of the Lord, signifies Divine truth and Divine wisdom, but when said of man, it signifies intelligence therefrom.

[5] Again:

"Jehovah is thy keeper; Jehovah is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night" (Psalms 121:5, 6).

To be a shade on the right hand, signifies to be a defence against evil and falsity. Shade is used there for a shady place to preserve from hurt, and the right hand for power and wisdom from Divine truth, which would be hurt by evil and falsity unless the Lord defended. Because these things are signified, therefore it is said, "the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." By the sun is there signified the love of self, and thence all evil; and by the moon the falsity of evil. (That these things are signified by the sun and moon, may be seen in the work concerning Heaven and Hell 122, 123; and in the Arcana Coelestia 2441, 7078, 8487, 9755, 10130, 10189, 10420, 10702).

[6] Again:

"Let thy hand, Jehovah, be before the man of thy right hand, before the son of man whom thou hast made strong for thyself" (Psalms 80:17).

"Let thy hand, Jehovah," means for a guard from omnipotence and omniscience: "the man of the right hand" for whom there is a guard, signifies the wise; and "the son of man," the intelligent, both by means of Divine truth.

[7] Again:

"Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty, in thy grace and in thine honour. In thine honour, mount up, ride on the Word of truth, of meekness, and of justice; thy right hand shall teach thee wonderful things. Kings' daughters are among thine excellent; at thy right hand shall stand the queen in the best gold of Ophir" (45:3, 4, 9).

These things are said concerning the Lord. To gird the sword upon the thigh, signifies Divine truth combating from Divine good; wherefore it is said, "O mighty, in thy grace and in thine honour": by grace is signified Divine truth; and by honour, Divine good (as may be seen above, n. 131, 288). It is also likewise said, "In thine honour, mount up, ride on the Word of truth." In honour to mount up, signifies to combat from Divine good, and to ride upon the Word of truth signifies to combat from Divine truth, thus from Divine good by means of Divine truth. The Lord's omnipotence and omniscience are signified by "Thy right hand shall teach thee wonderful things." "The kings' daughters among the excellent," signify affections of truth, and "the queen who is at the right hand in the best gold of Ophir," signifies heaven and the church, and those therein who are in truths from good, the right hand denoting truth in light, and gold of Ophir the good of love.

[8] Again:

"The saying of Jehovah unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his anger" (Psalms 110:1, 5; Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42, 43).

That these things are said concerning the Lord is well known. Thereby is described the Lord's combat in the world against the hells, and the subjugation which was effected from Divine good by means of Divine truth. The right hand there signifies Divine truth; wherefore it is said, "until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet." By enemies are signified the hells: by making them the footstool of the feet is signified to subjugate entirely. The same is signified by "the Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his anger": the day of anger denoting a state of combat, and kings those who are in falsities from evil. (That the Lord, when He was in the world, put on Divine truth from Divine good, and that He thereby subjugated the hells, and disposed all things in the heavens into order, may be seen in the small work concerning the Last Judgment 46: and in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 293, 294, 301, 303.)

[9] In the Evangelists:

"Jesus said, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hands of power" (Matthew 26:63, 64; Mark 14:61, 62; Luke 22:69).

And in Mark:

"The Lord after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God" (16:19).

To sit at the right hands of power, and at the right hand of God, signifies the omnipotence and omniscience which belong to the Lord from Divine good by means of the Divine truth.

[10] In Isaiah:

"I have strengthened thee, I have also helped thee by the right hand of my justice. I, Jehovah God, strengthening thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I help thee" (41:10, 13).

"I have strengthened thee, I have also helped thee," signifies to give power and intelligence from the omnipotence and omniscience, which are from Divine good by means of Divine truth: hence it is said, "I have upheld thee by the right hand of my justice." By the right hand is signified Divine truth, and by justice Divine good. To strengthen the right hand signifies the power and wisdom which man has thence; because both omnipotence and omniscience, which belong to the Lord from Divine good by means of the Divine truth, are here meant, He is therefore called Jehovah God; for the Lord is called Jehovah from Divine good, and God from Divine truth. (As may be seen, n. 709, 732, 2586, 2769, 2807, 2822, 3921, 4287, 4402, 7010, 9167.)

[11] Again:

"Jehovah hath said to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings to open before him doors that the gates may not be shut" (45:1).

By Cyrus, in a representative sense, is meant the Lord. His omnipotence and omniscience from Divine good by means of Divine truth, from which in the world He subjugated all the hells, and afterwards keeps them subjugated for ever, is signified by "whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings": also, by "to open before him doors that the gates may not be shut." By the nations which should be subdued before Him, are signified the hells as to evils; and by the kings whose loins He should loose, are signified the hells as to falsities; by the doors which should be open before Him that the gates may not be shut, is signified that from omniscience all things are manifest to Him, and that from omnipotence He has the power of saving.

[12]By the right hand are signified the omniscience and omnipotence which belong to the Lord from Divine good by means of the Divine truth, also in the following passages:

In David:

"Jehovah continually before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved" (Psalm 16:8).

Again:

O God, "Thy right hand sustains me" (Psalm 18:35).

Again:

"O God, thy right hand is full of justice" (Psalm 48:10).

In Isaiah:

"My hand hath founded the earth and my right hand hath spanned the heavens" (Isaiah 47:13).

Again:

God "hath sworn by his right hand and by the arm of his strength" (62:8).

And in the Apocalypse,

The Son of man "having in his right hand seven stars" (1:16).

In David:

"The right hand of Jehovah doeth valour: the right hand of Jehovah [is] exalted" (118:15, 16).

[13] Because by the right hand, when said of angels and men, are meant the wisdom and the intelligence which they have from Divine good by means of Divine truth proceeding from the Lord, therefore

The angel of the Lord was seen by Zechariah standing at the right hand of the altar of incense (Luke 1:11).

And the angel was seen in the sepulchre where the Lord was laid, sitting on the right hand (Mark 16:5, 6).

And therefore also the sheep are said [to be] placed on the right hand, and the goats on the left (Matthew 25:33, 34).

By the sheep are here meant those who are in truths from good, or in the faith of truth from the good of charity: but by the goats are meant those who are in faith without charity, which faith is called faith alone, and, regarded in itself, is no faith.

[14] On account of this signification of the right hand, when Aaron and his sons were inaugurated into the priesthood, the blood was sprinkled upon their right ear and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of the right foot (Exodus 29:20). By the blood here is signified Divine truth from Divine good; by the right ear, the perceptive [faculty] of truth from good; by the right hand and the right foot are signified the intelligence and power of truth from good in the internal or spiritual man, and in the external or natural man; and by the thumb and great toe, what is full.

[15] Because as most things in the Word have also an opposite sense, so also has the right hand; and in that sense it signifies falsity from evil, and reasoning and combat thereof against truth from good.

As in David:

"Thou hast set up the right hand of his enemies" (Psalms 89:42).

Again:

"Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood" (Psalms 144:8, 11)

In Isaiah:

"That he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" (44:20).

In the Apocalypse:

"They should receive a mark in the right hand or in the foreheads" (13:16:14:9).

The right hand, when said of the evil, signifies falsity, and the resulting reasoning and combat against truth, because the quarters with those who are in evil are opposite to the quarters which are with those who are in good; and so at the right hand of the former truths are in dense darkness, but falsities as it were in the greatest light. (That the quarters in the spiritual world, with those who are in evil, are opposite to the quarters that are with those who are in good, may be seen in the work concerning Heaven and Hell (n. 151, 152): and the reason thereof, n. 122, 123.)