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:

67. Next, since we are by creation heavens in smallest form and therefore images of the Lord, and since heaven is made up of as many desires as there are angels, each of which is a person as to its form, it follows that the constant effort in divine providence is for each of us to become a heaven in form and therefore an image of the Lord. Further, since this is accomplished by means of the desire for what is good and true, it is for us to become that desire. This, then, is the constant effort in divine providence.

The very heart of providence, though, is that we should be in some particular place in heaven or in some particular place in the divine heavenly person and therefore in the Lord. This is what happens for people whom the Lord can lead to heaven. Since the Lord foresees this, he also constantly provides for it, with the result that all of us who are allowing ourselves to be led to heaven are being prepared for our own places in heaven.

7784. 'And against all the children of Israel not a dog will move its tongue' means that with those belonging to the spiritual Church there would not be the smallest trace of damnation or grief. This is clear from the representation of 'the children of Israel' as those who belong to the spiritual Church, dealt with in 6426, 6637, 6862, 6868, 7035, 7062, 7198, 7201, 7215, 7227; and from the meaning of 'not a dog moving its tongue' as there being not the smallest trace of damnation or grief. For these words express the opposite of 'a great cry which there will be in the land of Egypt', that is, deep grief, 7782 - deep grief on account of damnation, meant by the death of the firstborn.

[2] When it is said that there will not be the smallest trace of damnation with those who belong to the spiritual Church, that is, with those governed by the good of that Church, this should not be taken to mean that they are without any evil, but that they are withheld from evil and maintained in good by the Lord. What is properly their own is altogether evil and damned, but what is properly the Lord's which they receive is good and so is free from all damnation. This is the meaning when it is said that there is no damnation at all with those who abide in the Lord.

[3] The expression 'not a dog will move its tongue' is used on account of the meaning that 'a dog' has. 'A dog' means the lowest of all within the Church, that is, the mean and lowly, as well as those outside the Church, and also those who blather a lot about things that have to do with the Church and have little understanding of them. And in the contrary sense it means those who are altogether outside the faith of the Church and who subject matters of faith to abuse. The fact that 'dogs' means those outside the Church is clear in Matthew,

"Jesus said to the woman who was Greek, a Syro-Phoenician, It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." But she said, "To be sure, Lord, but even the little dogs eat from the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answering said to her, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire. And her daughter was healed." Matthew 15:26-28; Mark 7:27-28.

Here 'children' is used to mean those within the Church, and 'dogs' those outside it. Much the same is meant by the dogs that licked Lazarus sores, Luke 16:21; for 'the rich man' there is used to mean in the internal sense those who are within the Church and who consequently have an abundance of spiritual riches, which consist in knowledge of what is true and good.

[4] 'Dogs' stands for those occupying the lowest position within the Church who blather a lot about such things as have to do with the Church but have little understanding of them, and in the contrary sense those who hurl insults at the things which are matters of faith, in Isaiah,

His watchmen are all blind, they are without knowledge; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark - watching, lying down, loving to sleep. Isaiah 56:10.

In David,

They make a noise like a dog, they go around in the city; for they belch with their mouth, swords are in their lips. Psalms 59:6-7, 14.

In the same author,

That your foot may press into blood the tongue of your dogs. Psalms 68:23.

In Matthew,

Do not give what is holy to the dogs; do not cast your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample on them with their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. Matthew 7:6.

This is why the most inferior of all things, which was to be cast away, is meant by 'a dead dog' in 1 Samuel 24:14; 2 Samuel 9:8; 16:9.