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:

461. After Death, We Enjoy Every Sense, Memory, Thought, and Affection We Had in the World: We Leave Nothing Behind except Our Earthly Body

Repeated experience has witnessed to me that when we move from the natural world into the spiritual, which happens when we die, we take with us everything that pertains to our character except our earthly body. In fact, when we enter the spiritual world or our life after death, we are in a body as we were in this world. There seems to be no difference, since we do not feel or see any difference. This body is spiritual, though, so it has been separated or purified from earthly matter. Further, when anything spiritual touches and sees something spiritual, it is just like something natural touching and seeing something natural. So when we have become a spirit, we have no sense that we are not in the body we inhabited in the world, and therefore do not realize that we have died.

[2] As "spirit-people," we enjoy every outer and inner sense we enjoyed in the world. We see the way we used to, we hear and talk the way we used to; we smell and taste and feel things when we touch them the way we used to; we want, wish, crave, think, ponder, are moved, love, and intend the way we used to. Studious types still read and write as before. In a word, when we move from the one life into the other, or from the one world into the other, it is like moving from one [physical] place to another; and we take with us everything we owned as persons to the point that it would be unfair to say that we have lost anything of our own after death, which is only a death of the earthly body.

[3] We even take with us our natural memory, since we retain everything we have heard, seen, read, learned, or thought in the world from earliest infancy to the very end of life. However, since the natural objects that reside in our memory cannot be reproduced in a spiritual world, they become dormant the way they do when we are not thinking about them. Even so, they can be reproduced when it so pleases the Lord. I will have more to say soon, though, about this memory and its condition after death.

Sense-centered people are quite incapable of believing that our state after death is like this because they do not grasp it. Sense-centered people can think only on the natural level, even about spiritual matters. This means that anything they do not sense - that is, see with their physical eyes and touch with their hands - they say does not exist, as we read of Thomas in John 20:25, 27, 29. The quality of sense-centered people has been described above in 267, and in notes there.

4763. 'And he rent his clothes' means mourning. This is clear from the meaning of 'rending clothes' as mourning, that is to say, mourning on account of the loss of truth, or the fact that no faith exists. In the Word, especially the historical part, one often reads about people rending their clothes, but the origin of that practice is not known at the present day. Nor is it known that it was representative of grief on account of the loss of truth. This practice became representative from the fact that 'clothes' meant truths, as has been shown and may be seen in 4545. Further on in this chapter it is also said that when Jacob recognized his son's tunic he rent his clothes, verse 34, by which mourning for lost truth is meant. Similar instances of this practice occur elsewhere in the Word, where it is stated that when the Rabshakeh was sent by Sennacherib king of Asshur and uttered insults against Jerusalem, Eliakim who was over the king's house, and Shebna the secretary, and Joash the recorder ¹ rent their clothes and reported these things to king Hezekiah; and when he heard them the king too rent his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth, Isaiah 36:22; 37:1; 2 Kings 18:37; 19:1. The insults he uttered were directed against God, the king, and Jerusalem, and so against Divine Truth, as is even more evident from the internal sense of this narrative. It was to express mourning therefore that their clothes were rent.

[2] When Jehudi had read before the king the scroll which Jeremiah wrote, it is said that he threw it into the fire, but the king and his servants who were listening to all those words did not tear their clothes apart, Jeremiah 36:23-24. 'They did not tear their clothes apart' meant that they did not mourn on account of the non-acceptance of Divine Truth. Something similar is implied by Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh rending their clothes, when the spies spoke in opposition to them, by speaking unfavourably about the land of Canaan, Numbers 14:6; for 'the land of Canaan' means the Lord's kingdom, and 'to speak in opposition to this' describes falsity in opposition to Divine Truth. Mourning over the loss of Divine Truth and Divine Good is meant where it is said, in 1 Samuel 4:11-12, that when the ark of God was captured by the Philistines and both of Eli's sons died, a man ran from the line of battle to Shiloh, with rent clothes and dust on his head. Because 'the ark' represented the Lord's kingdom, and in the highest sense the Lord Himself, and consequently represented everything holy in the Church, 'rent clothes' meant grief over the loss of Divine Truth, while 'dust on his head' meant grief over the loss of Divine Good.

[3] In the narrative about Samuel and Saul one reads,

When Samuel turned to go away Saul took hold of the skirt of his tunic, and it was torn away. Therefore Samuel said to him, Jehovah has torn the kingdom of Israel from upon you this day and has given it to your companion. I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of Jehovah, and Jehovah has rejected you from being king over Israel. 1 Samuel 15:26-28.

The tearing away by Saul of the skirt of Samuel's tunic represented that which Samuel then stated - that the kingdom would be torn from him and that he would not be the king of Israel any longer. For 'the kingdom' in the internal sense means Divine Truth, 1672, 2547, 4691, as also does 'king' and 'kingship', 1672, 1728, 2015, 2069, 3009, 3670, 4575, 4581, especially the king and the kingdom of Israel, since 'Israel' represented the Lord's kingship. The meaning is similar in what is recorded concerning Jeroboam and Ahijah the prophet,

When Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, and Ahijah the prophet found him on the road, when he was covered with a new garment and both were alone in the field, Ahijah took hold of the new garment that was on him and rent it into twelve pieces; and he said to Jeroboam, Take for yourself ten pieces; for thus said Jehovah, the God of Israel, behold, I am rending [the kingdom] from the hand of Solomon and I will give you ten tribes. 1 Kings 11:29-31.

[4] The second Book of Samuel likewise records that when Saul was killed in battle they tore their clothes apart,

When Saul was killed in battle, on the third day a man came from the camp, whose clothes had been rent. And when David heard about the death of Saul, David took hold of his garments and tore them apart; and so did all his servants who were with him. 2 Samuel 1:2, 10-12.

This too represented mourning because of Divine Truth, lost and cast away by those who adhered to faith separated from charity. For as stated above, 'kingship' meant Divine Truth, while 'the Philistines' by whom Saul was slain represented adherents to faith separated from charity, 1197, 1198, 3412, 3413. The same is also evident from David's lament over him, in verses 18-27 of the same chapter.

[5] When Absalom had slain Amnon his brother and the news reached David that Absalom had slain all the king's sons, David tore his clothes apart and lay on the ground; and all his servants standing by tore their clothes apart, 2 Samuel 13:28, 30-31. This too was done for the sake of the representation that truths from the Divine were lost, those truths being meant in the internal sense by 'the king's sons'. A similar meaning exists in the reference to Hushai the Archite who with his tunic torn apart came to meet David when he fled from Absalom, 2 Samuel 15:32; for in the Word 'a king', and in particular David, represents Divine Truth. The meaning is also very similar in the reference to Ahab, who tore his clothes apart and put sackcloth over his flesh when Elijah told Ahab the king of Israel the words of Jehovah, to the effect that he would be completely wiped out for the evil he had done, 1 Kings 21:27-29.

[6] The fact that tearing apart or rending clothes represented mourning the loss of Truth is additionally clear from the following: Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the law in the house of Jehovah. When Shaphan read it before king Josiah and the king heard the words of the Book of the law, he tore his clothes apart, 2 Kings 22:11. Plainly the king did so because the Word, that is, Divine truth, had been lost for so long and in their hearts and life had been blotted out.

[7] The tearing apart of his own clothes by the high priest, when the Lord confessed He was the Christ the Son of God, and his declaration that He had spoken utter blasphemy, Matthew 26:63-65; Mark 14:63-64, meant that the high priest was absolutely convinced that the Lord had spoken against the Word and so against Divine truth. When Elijah went up in the whirlwind, and Elisha saw it, it is said,

He took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces. And he took up Elijah's tunic that had fallen from upon him, and he struck the waters and they were divided this way and that, and Elisha went over. 2 Kings 2:11-14.

Elisha tore his own clothes apart at that time to express mourning the loss of the Word, that is, of Divine Truth; for 'Elijah' represents the Lord as regards the Word, that is, Divine Truth, 2762. When the tunic fell from Elijah and was picked up by Elisha, the continuation of Elijah's representation by Elisha was represented, 'the tunic' meaning Divine Truth, see 4677. This also explains why the garment torn apart when such mourning took place was the tunic, as is evident from some of the places that have been quoted. Because 'a garment' meant the truth possessed by the Church, and in the highest sense Divine Truth, it was therefore shameful, except when one was mourning, to go about with clothes that were torn. This is evident from what was done to David's servants by Hanun king of the children of Ammon, when he cut off half the beard of each one, and their garments at the middle even to their buttocks, for which reason they were not allowed to come to David, 2 Samuel 10:4-5.

Footnotes: