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

Voetnoten:

4. 2. Divine love and wisdom radiate from the Lord as a single whole. We can see this from several things that I explained in Divine Love and Wisdom, especially the following.

In the Lord, reality and its manifestation are both distinguishable and united (14-17 [Divine Love and Wisdom 14-16]).

In the Lord, infinite things are distinguishably one (Divine Love and Wisdom 17-22).

Divine love is a property of divine wisdom, and divine wisdom is a property of divine love (Divine Love and Wisdom 34-39).

Unless it is married to wisdom, love cannot accomplish anything (Divine Love and Wisdom 401-403).

Love or volition does not do anything without wisdom or discernment (Divine Love and Wisdom 409-410).

As spiritual warmth and light radiate from the Lord as the sun, they make a unity the way divine love and divine wisdom make a single whole in the Lord (99-132 [Divine Love and Wisdom 99-102]).

We can see the truth of the present proposition from what is explained in these passages. However, since people do not know how two things can act in unison if they are different from each other, I should like to show at this point that no unity occurs apart from a form. Rather, the form itself is what makes the whole. Then I should like to show that a form makes a whole more perfectly as its constituents are distinguishably different and yet united.

[2] No whole occurs apart from a form. Rather, the form itself is what makes the whole. Anyone who thinks with real mental focus will see clearly that no whole occurs apart from a form. If a whole occurs, it is a form. Whatever comes into being derives from its form what we refer to as its quality, attributes, changes of state, relationships, and the like. So anything that is not in some form is of no effect, and anything that is of no effect is of no substance. The form itself is the source of all these qualities. Further, since all the constituents of a form--if the form is complete--relate to each other like link to link in a chain, it follows that the form itself is what makes the whole and therefore is the object to which we can attribute quality, state, effect, and so on, all depending on the completeness of the form.

[3] Everything we see with our eyes in this world is this kind of whole, and so is everything we do not see with our eyes, either in the depths of nature or in the spiritual world. An individual is this kind of whole, and so is a human community. Further, the church is this kind of whole, and so is the whole angelic heaven in the Lord's sight. In short, the created universe is this kind of whole not only in its entirety but also in every detail.

If the whole and every part is to be a form, it is necessary that the one who created them all should be form itself and that all the things that have been created in their particular forms should come from that essential form. That is the reason for a number of statements in Divine Love and Wisdom; for example, the following: Divine love and wisdom is substance and is form (Divine Love and Wisdom 40-43). Divine love and wisdom are form in and of themselves, and are therefore wholly "itself" and unique (Divine Love and Wisdom 44-46). Divine love and divine wisdom are a single whole in the Lord (14-17 [Divine Love and Wisdom 14-16], 18-22 [Divine Love and Wisdom 17-22]). They emanate from the Lord as a single whole (Divine Love and Wisdom 99-102 and elsewhere [Divine Love and Wisdom 125]).

[4] A form makes a unity more perfectly as its constituents are distinguishably different, and yet united. It is hard for our discernment to accept this unless it is raised up, because it seems as though the only way a form can make a single whole is if its constituents have some regular similarity.

I have often talked with angels about this. They have told me that this is a mystery clearly grasped by the wise among them but dimly grasped by the less wise. Still, the truth is that a form is more perfect as its constituents are distinguishably different but still united in some particular way. In support of this, angels have cited the communities in the heavens. Taken all together, these communities make up the form of heaven. They have also cited the angels in each community, saying that the more clearly individual angels are on their own--are therefore free--and love the other members of their community on the basis of their own affection, in apparent freedom, the more perfect is the form of the community.

They have also referred by way of illustration to the marriage of what is good and what is true. The more clearly these are two, the more perfectly they can form a unity. It is the same with love and wisdom. Anything unclear is confused, and this is what gives rise to all imperfection of form.

[5] Angels have also offered abundant evidence of the way completely different things are united so that they form a single whole. They have called attention particularly to things within a person, where all the countless parts are similarly differentiated and yet are united--differentiated by membranes and united by ligaments. They have said that it is the same with love and all its components and with wisdom and all its components, which are perceived simply as unities.

There is more on this subject in Divine Love and Wisdom 14-22 and in Heaven and Hell 56, 489 [Heaven and Hell 56, 71, 418]. I include all this because it is a matter of angelic wisdom.

479. Man after death is his own love or his own will. This has been proved to me by manifold experience. The entire heaven is distinguished into societies in accordance with differences of good of love; and every spirit who is taken up into heaven and becomes an angel is taken to the society where his love is; and when he comes there he is, as it were, at home, and in the house where he was born; this the angel perceives, and is associated with those there who are like himself. When he goes away to another place he feels constantly a kind of resistance, and a longing to return to his like, thus to his ruling love. Thus are associations brought about in heaven. It is the same in hell, where all are associated in accordance with loves that are the opposites of heavenly loves. It has been shown above (41-50, 200-212) that both heaven and hell are composed of societies, and that they are all distinguished in accordance with differences of love.

[2] That man after death is his own love might also be confirmed from the fact that whatever things do not make one with his ruling love are then separated and, as it were, taken away from him. From one who is good all discordant or inharmonious things are separated and, as it were, taken away, and he is thus let into his own love. It is the same with an evil spirit, with the difference that from the evil, truths are taken away, and from the good, falsities are taken away, and this goes on until each becomes his own love. This is effected when the man-spirit is brought into the third state, which will be described in following sections. When this has been done he turns his face constantly to his own love, and this he has continually before his eyes, in whatever direction he turns (see above, 123-124).

[3] All spirits, provided they are kept in their ruling love, can be led wherever one pleases, and are incapable of resistance, however they may know that this is being done, and however much they may think that they will resist. They have often been permitted to try whether they could do anything contrary to that love, but in vain. Their love is like a bond or a rope tied around them, by which they may be led and from which they cannot loose themselves. It is the same with men in the world who are also led by their love, or are led by others by means of their love; but this is more the case when they have become spirits, because they are not then permitted to make a display of any other love, or to counterfeit what is not their own.

[4] That the spirit of man is his ruling love is clearly exhibited in all fellowship in the other life, for so far as anyone is acting or speaking in accordance with the love of another, to the same extent is the other plainly present, with full, joyous, and lively countenance; but when one is speaking or acting contrary to another's love, to that extent the other's countenance begins to be changed, to be obscured and undiscernible, until at length he wholly disappears as if he had not been there. I have often wondered how this could be, for nothing of the kind can occur in the world; but I have been told that it is the same with the spirit in man, which, when it turns itself away from another, ceases to be within his view.

[5] That a spirit is his own ruling love is also clear from the fact that every spirit seizes and appropriates all things that are in harmony with his love, and rejects and repudiates all that are not. Everyone's love is like a spongy or porous wood, which imbibes such fluids as promote its growth, and repels others. It is also like animals of every kind, which know their proper food and seek the things that agree with their nature, and avoid those that disagree; for every love wishes to be nourished on what belongs to it, an evil love by falsities and a good love by truths. I have sometimes been permitted to see certain simple good spirits desiring to instruct the evil in truths and goods; but when the instruction was offered them they fled far away, and when they came to their own they seized with great pleasure upon the falsities that were in agreement with their love. I have also seen good spirits talking together about truths, and the good who were present listened eagerly to the conversation, but the evil who were present paid no attention to it, as if they did not hear it. In the world of spirits ways are seen, some leading to heaven, some to hell, and each to some particular society. Good spirits go only in the ways that lead to heaven, and to the society there that is in the good of their love, and do not see the ways that lead elsewhere; while evil spirits go only in the ways that lead to hell, and to the society there that is in the evil of their love; they do not see the ways that lead elsewhere; or, if they see them, have no wish to enter them. In the spiritual world these ways are real appearances, which correspond to truths or falsities; and this is why ways have this signification in the Word. ¹ By these evidences from experience, the things previously said from reason have been confirmed, namely, that every man after death is his own love and his own will. It is said one's own will because everyone's will is his love.

Voetnoten: