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:

13. The Lord's Divine Nature in Heaven Is Love for Him and Thoughtfulness toward One's Neighbor

In heaven, the divine nature that emanates from the Lord is called divine truth, for reasons that will be given below. This divine truth flows into heaven from the Lord, out of his divine love. Divine love and the divine truth that derives from it are like the sun's fire and the light that comes from it in our world. The love is like the sun's fire, and the derivative truth is like the light from the sun. By reason of correspondence, fire means love and light means the truth that flows from it. ¹

This enables us to determine the character of the divine truth that emanates from divine love: in its essence, it is divine good united to divine truth, and because it is united, it gives life to everything in heaven the way the warmth of the sun, united to its light, makes everything fruitful on earth in spring and summer. It is different when the warmth is not united to light, when the light is therefore cold. Then everything slows down and lies there, snuffed out.

The divine good we have compared to warmth is the good of love within and among angels, and the divine truth we have compared to light is the means and the source of this good of love.

Footnotes:

6032. 'And was seen towards him' means perception. This is clear from the meaning of 'seeing' as understanding and discerning, dealt with in 2150, 3764, 4567, 4723, 5400, and as having faith, 1315, 1807, 3863, 3869, 4403-4421, 5400. As regards the meaning of 'seeing' as understanding and therefore perceiving, and also as having faith, it should be recognized that a person has two components constituting his life - SPIRITUAL LIGHT and SPIRITUAL HEAT. Spiritual light constitutes the life of his understanding, and spiritual heat the life of his will. By virtue of its very own origin spiritual light is Divine Truth flowing from the Lord's Divine Good and is therefore the truth of faith flowing from the good of charity, while spiritual heat by virtue of its very own origin is the Divine Good of the Lord's Divine Love and is therefore the good of celestial love or love to the Lord and the good of spiritual love or love towards the neighbour. As has been stated, these two constitute the entire life in a person.

[2] As regards spiritual light, this is related to a person's understanding in the way that natural light is related to his external sight. That is to say, so that the eye can function, light must exist which enables it to do so. When it exists the eye beholds in that light everything all round outside itself. The same is true of the intellectual power of the mind, which is a person's inner eye. So that this eye can function the light of heaven flowing from the Lord must exist, enabling it to do so. And when this eye functions with the aid of that light it too beholds things all round outside itself. But the objects it sees are spiritual ones - facts and truths. When however it does not have the aid of that light, a person's intellectual power of the mind or inner eye is like his external or physical eye when this is in darkness and cannot see anything. That is, it does not from factual knowledge behold any truth, or from truth behold any good. The light which enables the intellectual power of the mind to function is light indeed, a kind of light which is a thousand times brighter than midday light in the world, as I can testify since I have beheld it. In that light all the angels in heaven see things all round outside themselves, and in that same light they also behold and perceive the truths of faith and the essential nature of them. This now explains why in the spiritual sense 'seeing' means not only the understanding but also any of its activities, such as cogitation, reflection, observation, circumspection, and many others, as well as meaning not only faith but also anything constituting faith, such as truth, teaching drawn from the Word, and the like.

[3] As regards spiritual heat however, this is related to a person's will in the way natural heat is related to his body, in that the one imparts life to the other. But by virtue of its very origin - an origin that can be traced back to the Lord - spiritual heat is nothing other than Divine Love towards the entire human race and the reciprocation of that love by man, to Him and also towards the neighbour. And that heat is heat indeed; it blesses angels' bodies with warmth and at the same time blesses their inmost beings with love. This is the reason why 'heat', 'flame', and 'fire', when used in the genuine sense in the Word, mean things connected with love, such as affections for goodness and truth, and also goodness itself.