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:

6571. 'And you thought evil against me' means that the things which have become alienated intend nothing but evil. This is clear from the representation of the sons of Jacob, to whom 'you refers here, as the things which have become alienated from truth and good, dealt with above in 6557, for when the brothers contemplated evil against Joseph they represented things which have become alienated; and from the meaning of 'thinking evil against me' as intending evil, for evil that is contemplated against someone is evil that is intended. And since things which have become alienated cannot intend what is good, it is therefore said that they intend nothing but evil. What is implied when it is said that the things which have become alienated from truth and good intend nothing but evil is this: A person who has become alienated from good and truth intends nothing but evil, since he cannot intend good; and what he intends reigns in him and is therefore present in all his thoughts, and in every smallest part of his being. For that which is a person's intention or end in view constitutes his actual life, that end in view being his love, and that love his life. What is more, a person's essential character is exactly like the end he holds in view; and the image of him seen in the light of heaven is also exactly like it. And what will perhaps astonish you, as is the image that he presents overall, so is the image presented in every smallest feature of his will. This means that a person is wholly and completely identifiable with his end in view.

[2] From this it may be seen that a person who is in himself an evil end cannot possibly be among those who are good ends, that is, one who is in hell cannot possibly be in heaven; for these ends conflict with each other, though the good ends triumph because they are from the Divine. From this it may also be seen that those people do not think correctly who believe that anyone at all can be admitted into heaven solely through an act of mercy. If one who is in himself an evil end comes into heaven, he finds it difficult to stay alive, like one in mortal agony, and is grievously tormented, quite apart from the fact that he looks like a devil there in the light of heaven. From this it is evident that those who have become alienated from truth and good cannot help contemplating what is evil. This is so in the smallest details of their thought and will, as is plainly evident from the sphere that emanates from people like this when a long way off. For one detects from that sphere what they are like; that sphere is so to speak a spiritual vapour appearing out of every detail of their life.