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:

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.

Voetnoten:

4966. 'The chief of the attendants' means which facts come first and foremost in explanations. This is clear from the meaning of 'the chief of the attendants' as the facts which come first and foremost in explanations, dealt with in 4790. Ones which come first and foremost in explanations are those which are pre-eminently suitable for explaining the Word, and so for coming to understand teachings drawn from the Word about love to God and charity towards the neighbour. It should be recognized that the factual knowledge of the people of old was entirely different from that existing at the present day. As stated above, the factual knowledge of the people of old had to do with the correspondences of things in the natural world with realities in the spiritual world. Knowledge which at the present day is called philosophical knowledge, such as Aristotelian systems and their like, did not exist among them. This is also evident from the books written by ancient authors, most of which consisted of descriptions of such things as were signs of, represented, and corresponded to more internal realities, as may be seen from the following evidence, and ignoring all else.

[2] They envisaged Helicon on a mountain and took it to mean heaven, and Parnassus on a hill below that, and took it to mean factual knowledge. They spoke of a flying horse, called Pegasus by them, which broke open a fountain there with its hoof; they called branches of knowledge virgins; and so on. For with the help of correspondences and representatives they knew that 'a mountain' meant heaven, 'a hill' the heaven beneath this, which is heaven as it exists among men, a horse' the power of understanding, 'its wings with which it flew' spiritual things, 'its hoof' that which was natural, 'a fountain' intelligence, while three virgins called 'the Graces' meant affections for good, and virgins who were named 'the Heliconians and 'the Parnassians' meant affections for truth. To the sun they likewise allotted horses, whose food they called ambrosia and whose drink they called nectar; for they knew that 'the sun' meant heavenly love, 'horses' powers of the understanding which sprang from that love, while 'food' meant celestial things and 'drink' spiritual ones.

[3] The Ancients are also the originators of customs that are still followed when kings are crowned. The king has to sit on a silver throne, wear a purple robe, and be anointed with oil. He has to wear a crown on his head, while holding in his hands a sceptre, a sword, and keys. He has to ride in regal splendour on a white horse shed with horseshoes made of silver; and he has to be waited on at table by the chief nobles of the kingdom. And many other customs are followed besides these. The Ancients knew that 'a king' represented Divine Truth that is rooted in Divine Good, and from this they knew what was meant by a silver throne, a purple robe, anointing oil, crown, sceptre, sword, keys, white horse, horseshoes made of silver, and what was meant by being waited on at table by the chief nobles. Who at the present day knows the meaning of any of these customs, or where the information exists to show him their meaning? People refer to them as symbols, but they know nothing at all about correspondence or representation. All this evidence shows what the factual knowledge possessed by the Ancients was like, and that this knowledge gave them a discernment of spiritual and heavenly realities, which at the present day are scarcely known to exist.

[4] The factual knowledge that has replaced that of the Ancients, and which strictly speaking is called philosophical knowledge, tends to draw the mind away from knowing such things because such knowledge can also be employed to substantiate false ideas. Furthermore, even when used to substantiate true ones it introduces darkness into the mind, because for the most part mere terms are used to substantiate them, which few people can understand and which the few who do understand them argue about. From this it may be seen how far the human race has departed from the learning of the Ancients, which led to wisdom. Gentiles received their factual knowledge from the Ancient Church, whose external worship consisted in representatives and meaningful signs and whose internal worship consisted in the realities represented and meant by these. This was the kind of factual knowledge that is meant in the genuine sense by 'Egypt'.