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:

319. People can realize that non-Christians as well as Christians are saved if they know what constitutes heaven in us; for heaven is within us, and people who have heaven within them come into heaven. The heaven within us is our acknowledgment of the Divine and our being led by the Divine. The beginning and foundation of every religion is its acknowledgment of the Divine Being; a religion that does not acknowledge the Divine Being is not a religion at all. The precepts of every religion focus on worship, that is, on how the Divine is to be honored so that we will be acceptable in its sight; and when this fully occupies the mind (or, to the extent that we intend this or love this) we are being led by the Lord.

It is recognized that non-Christians live lives that are just as moral as the lives of Christians - many of them, in fact, live more moral lives. A moral life may be lived either to satisfy the Divine or to satisfy people in this world. A moral life that is lived to satisfy the Divine is a spiritual life. The two look alike in outward form, but inwardly they are totally different. One saves us, the other does not. This is because if we live a moral life to satisfy the Divine we are being led by the Divine; while if we live a moral life to satisfy people in this world, we are being led by ourselves.

[2] This may be illustrated by an example. If we do not do harm to our neighbor because that is against our religion and therefore against the Divine, our refraining from evil stems from a spiritual source. But if we refrain from doing harm to others simply because we are afraid of the law or of losing our reputation or respect or profit - for the sake of self and the world, that is - then this stems from a natural source and we are being led by ourselves. This latter life is natural, while the former is spiritual. If our moral life is spiritual, we have heaven within ourselves; but if our moral life is merely natural, we do not have heaven within ourselves. This is because heaven flows in from above, opens our deeper natures, and flows through those deeper natures into our more outward natures; while the world flows in from below and opens our more outward natures but not our deeper natures. No inflow occurs from the natural world into the spiritual, only from the spiritual world into the natural; so if heaven is not accepted at the same time, the deeper levels are closed. We can see from this who accept heaven into themselves and who do not.

[3] However, the heaven in one individual is not the same as the heaven in another. It differs in each according to the affection for what is good and true. If people are absorbed in an affection for what is good for the sake of the Divine, they love divine truth because the good and the true love each other and want to be united. ¹ Consequently, non-Christian people who have not had access to genuine truths in the world still accept them in the other life because of their love.

Footnotes:

985. Who hath power over these plagues. That this signifies, no fear of the Last Judgment from the Lord, and of the consequent condemnation and punishment of evils and the falsities therefrom that have devastated the church, is evident from the signification of having power, when said of God, whose name they blasphemed, as denoting the Lord as to the Last Judgment; and from the signification of plagues, as denoting evils and the falsities therefrom, and falsities and the evils therefrom that have devastated the church (concerning which see n. 949). The reason why it is the Lord as to judgment who is signified by Him that hath power over the seven plagues treated of in this chapter is, that the subject here treated of is the end of the church, when those plagues exist, that is, those evils and falsities, after which judgment takes place from the Lord. By the Last Judgment, also, all those who are in those plagues, that is, in the evils and falsities that have devastated the church, are cast into hell. Thus the New Church, which is then to be established, is purified of these. From these things it is evident what is signified by having power over these plagues.

Continuation concerning the Sixth Precept:-

[2] How profane and hence how much to be detested adulteries are, is evident from the sanctity of marriages. All things in the human body, from the head to the sole of the foot, as well interior as exterior, correspond to the heavens. Hence it is that man is a heaven in its least form, and also that angels and spirits are, in form, perfectly human, for they are forms of heaven. All the members consecrated to generation, in each sex, especially the uterus, correspond to the societies of the third or inmost heaven. The reason is, that love truly conjugial is derived from the Lord's love towards the church, and from the love of good and truth, which love is the love of the angels of the third heaven. Wherefore, conjugial love which descends therefrom, as the love of that heaven, is innocence, which is the very esse of every good in the heavens. Hence embryos in the uterus are in a state of peace; and infants, after they are born, are in a state of innocence; the mother also being similarly affected towards them.

[3] Such being the correspondence of the genital organs in both sexes, it is evident that from creation they are holy, and, therefore, are solely consecrated to chaste and pure conjugial love, and are not to be profaned by the unchaste and impure love of adultery, by which a man converts heaven with him into hell; for as the love of marriage corresponds to the love of the highest heaven, which is love to the Lord from the Lord, so the love of adultery corresponds to the love of the lowest hell. The reason why the love of marriage is so holy and heavenly is, that it has its commencement from the Lord Himself in the inmost parts of man, and descends, according to order, even to the ultimates of the body, and thereby fills the whole man with heavenly love, and induces in him a form of the Divine love, which form is the form of heaven, and is an image of the Lord, as said above. But the love of adultery commences from the ultimates of man, and from an impure lascivious fire there; and, therefore, contrary to order, it penetrates towards the interiors, always into the things of man's proprium, which are nothing but evil, and induces in them a form of hell, which is an image of the devil. Therefore the man who loves adultery and turns away from marriage is in form a devil.

[4] Because the organs of generation, in both sexes, correspond to the societies of the third heaven, and the love of a married pair to the love of good and truth, therefore also those members and that love correspond to the Word. The reason is, that the Word is Divine truth, united to the Divine Good proceeding from the Lord. Hence it is that the Lord is called the Word; and also that in every part of the Word there is the marriage of good and truth, or the heavenly marriage. That there is this correspondence is a mystery not yet known in the world, but it has been made known and proved to me by much experience. From this consideration, also, it is evident how holy and heavenly in themselves marriages are, and how profane and diabolical adulteries are. Hence also it is that adulterers make no account of Divine truths, nor, consequently, of the Word. Indeed, were they to speak from the heart, they would blaspheme the holy things that are in the Word. This is done by them when they become spirits after death, for every spirit is compelled to speak from the heart so that his interior thoughts may be revealed.