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:

335. 2. The working of divine providence is constantly done through means, out of pure mercy. Divine providence has both means and ways. The means are what serve to make us human and grow in perfection in discernment and volition. The ways are the manners in which these processes happen.

The means that serve to make us human and grow in perfection in discernment are summed up in the word "truths." They become concepts in our thinking, and we refer to them as facts in our memory. Essentially, they are the thoughts that give rise to what we know.

All these means are spiritual in and of themselves, but since they occur in our earthly concerns, they seem to be earthly because of this covering or clothing, which is earthly and even physical. They are infinite in number and infinite in variety. There are some less simple and some more simple; some less complex and some more complex; some less imperfect and some more imperfect; and some less perfect and some more perfect. There are means for giving form and completeness to our life on the civic, earthly level, for giving form and completeness to our life on the moral, rational level, and for giving form and completeness to our life on the spiritual, heavenly level.

[2] These means occur in sequence, one kind after another, from infancy to the last stage of our life, and then on to eternity. They intensify as they follow each other, with the earlier ones being means to the later ones. All the steps become part of whatever takes shape, like intermediate causes, because every effect of them, every final result, is active and therefore becomes a cause. So the subsequent ones are means in the sequence. Further, since this process goes on to eternity, there is no last or final step that closes the sequence. That is, just as eternity is without end, so wisdom that increases to eternity has no end. If there were an end of wisdom for the wise, that would be the end of their pleasure in wisdom, which consists of its endless increase and fertility. It would therefore be the end of the joy of their life. In its place would come a pleasure in their brilliance, and there is no heavenly life in this alone. The wise would no longer be young; they would seem to age, and eventually to become decrepit.

[3] Although the wisdom of the wise does increase forever in heaven, angelic wisdom never approaches divine wisdom closely enough to touch it. It is rather like a straight line drawn next to a hyperbola, constantly approaching but never touching; or we might think of the squaring of a circle.

This shows what is meant by the means that divine providence uses to make us human and to bring us toward perfection in discernment, and shows that the general term for them is "truths." There are the same number of means by which we are given form and completeness in volition, but the general term for these is "good." It is from these latter that we have love, while the former means provide us with wisdom. The union of these two kinds of means makes us human because the nature of that union determines our own nature. This union is what we refer to as "the marriage of goodness and truth."

4618. 'And Isaac breathed his last, and died' means an awakening within the Divine Natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'breathing one's last, and dying' as an awakening, dealt with in 3326, 3498, 3505; for when mention is made in the Word of someone having died, the latter end of that person's [representation] and a new beginning in another, and so a continuation, is meant in the internal sense. When for instance the kings of Judah and Israel, or the high priests, are referred to as having died, the meaning in the internal sense is the end of the representation by means of them and the continuation of it in another, and so an awakening of it. What is more, those in the next life who are present with man when these references are read have no conception of death, since in that life they are completely unaware of what it is to die. Instead of death therefore they perceive the representation which is continued in the other person. Besides, when a person dies he does so only so far as his body is concerned, which has been of service to him for performing uses on earth. So far as his spirit is concerned he continues his life in a world where what belongs to that body is no longer of any use to him.

[2] The reason why 'Isaac breathed his last, and died' means an awakening within the Divine Natural is that the rational has no life until the natural corresponds to it, 3493, 3620, 3623. It is like the sight of the eye. If this does not have any objects outside itself to look at it perishes; and it is similar with each of the other senses. It likewise perishes if the objects are utterly incompatible with it, for these bring death to it. It is also like the outlet of a spring from which no water flows, and therefore is a stream that is blocked up. Similarly with the rational. Unless its light is received within the natural its sight perishes, for facts present within the natural are the objects of sight for the rational. Or if these objects are incompatible with that light, that is, with an intelligent understanding of truth and a wise discernment of good, again the sight of the rational perishes, for it is unable to enter into things incompatible with itself. This is why in the case of those under the influence of evils and falsities the rational is closed, so that no communication with heaven lies open through it, except so to speak through chinks enabling them to think, reason, and speak. Consequently, so that the natural may be joined to the rational, it must be made ready to receive it; and this is effected through regeneration by the Lord. When it is so joined the rational lives within the natural, for within the natural it sees objects proper to the rational, as has been stated, just as within the world the eye sees objects proper to the eye.

[3] The rational does indeed possess life within itself which is distinct and separate from the life of the natural. Nevertheless the rational exists within the natural, like a person within his own house, or the soul within the body. The same is true of the heavens, in that the inmost or third heaven lives distinct and separate from the heavens beneath it, and yet if there were no reception of it in the second or middle heaven the wisdom there would evaporate. In a similar way if there were no reception of the light and intelligence of this middle heaven within the ultimate or first heaven, and finally of this heaven within man's natural, the intelligence of those heavens would likewise evaporate unless the Lord provided for its reception somewhere else. The heavens therefore have been formed by the Lord in such a way that one serves as the recipient of another, and lastly man who, as to his natural and sensory degrees, serves as the ultimate recipient of all; for at this point in him the Divine is present in the ultimate degree of order and passes into the world. If therefore the ultimate degree accords or corresponds with the degrees prior to it, those prior degrees exist simultaneously within the ultimate; for the things constituting the ultimate are the receptacles of those prior to itself, and things that are consecutive to one another are present together there within it. This shows what is meant by an awakening within the Divine Natural.