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

Notas de rodapé:

11. 4. For various reasons, different nations and peoples have had and still have a diversity of opinions on the nature of that one God. The first reason for this is that knowledge about God and therefore acknowledgment of God is not possible without revelation; and knowledge of the Lord and therefore acknowledgment that all the fullness of divinity dwells physically in him is not possible without the Word, which is a garland of revelations. From the revelation they have been given, people are able to meet God, receive an inflow, and thus be made spiritual instead of earthly.

Early revelation spread throughout the whole world, and the earthly self distorted it in many different ways, giving rise to divergences, disagreements, heresies, and schisms among religions.

The second reason [for the diversity of opinions on God] is that the earthly self cannot comprehend anything about God; it can comprehend only the world, and conform it to itself. This is why it is among the axioms of the Christian church that the earthly self is against the spiritual self, and that they battle each other. People then have come to acknowledge from the Word [or] from some other revelation that there is a God, and yet in both the past and the present they have had a diversity of opinions on the nature and the oneness of God.

[2] Therefore people whose mental sight was dependent on their physical senses and who nevertheless wished to see God made idols for themselves out of gold, silver, stone, and wood. They intended to adore God in those forms as objects of sight. Others with the same desires but with religious principles that forbade idols pictured the sun and moon, the stars, and various things on earth as images of God. Those who believed themselves to be wiser than most but who remained earthly were led by the immensity and omnipresence God displayed in creating the world to acknowledge nature as God, in some cases in its innermost, in others in its outermost aspects. And some who wished to see God as separate from nature thought up some thing that was as all-encompassing as possible and that they called the Entity of All; but because they know nothing more of God than this, this "Entity of All" turns out to be an entity of their minds alone, utterly without any real meaning.

[3] As anyone can see, concepts of God are mirrors of God, and people who know nothing about God do not see God in a mirror facing their eyes, but in a mirror that is facing the wrong way, the back of which is covered with quicksilver or some black, sticky substance that absorbs rather than reflects the light.

Faith in God enters us on a pathway that comes down from above, from the soul into the higher reaches of the intellect. Concepts of God enter us on a pathway that comes up from below, because the intellect takes them in from the revealed Word through our bodily senses. In mid-intellect the different inflows come together. There an earthly faith, which is mere belief, becomes a spiritual faith, which is actual acknowledgment. The human intellect, then, is a kind of trading floor on which exchanges occur.

6907. 'That the king of Egypt will not allow you to go' means that falsity will set itself in opposition. This is clear from the meaning of 'not allowing you' as setting itself in opposition, for he who does not allow something when it is said to be a Divine command, 6903, and he who refuses to let someone worship God, sets himself in opposition, as is common among all those who are under the influence of falsity of which they have become firmly convinced; from the representation of Pharaoh or 'the king of Egypt' as falsity, dealt with in 6651, 6679, 6683; and from the meaning of 'to go' - that is to say, a three days' journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to Jehovah God - as to lead a life in keeping with truth in a state totally removed from falsities, and in so doing to worship the Lord, 6904.

[2] The situation when those under the influence of falsity, who are represented by 'the king of Egypt', set themselves against those guided by truths must be described. In the world those under the influence of falsity do not openly set themselves in opposition to those who are guided by truth, for they are held back from doing so by external restraints, which consist in the fear that others may see them as people who behave contrary to the laws of state and Church, in which case they would not seem to be good citizens. For everyone wishes the world to see him as righteous and true in outward appearance, and the wicked desire this more than the upright, in order that they may captivate people's minds and mislead them for reasons of gain and exalted positions. But inwardly they set themselves in opposition, for as often as they hear anyone proclaiming the truths of the Church not because it is his job to do so but because he loves them passionately, they laugh to themselves; and if at that time there were no external restraints to prevent them they would openly deride him. When such people enter the next life they are no longer held back by external restraints, since these are taken away from them in order that what each person is really like may be exposed to view. Then they openly set themselves in opposition to those who are guided by truths and molest them in every possible way; and this is now for them the absolute delight of their life. And when they are warned not to do such things because if they do not desist they will at length be removed completely and thrust down into hell, they nevertheless take no notice at all and carry on constantly with their molestation as before; for such is the strength of the delight they feel in living in accord with falsity. It takes them over so completely that they accept nothing whatever that makes for intelligence. These are the things that are meant by 'the king of Egypt will not allow you to go' and that are represented by Pharaoh's setting himself in opposition so many times. The removal of such spirits and the thrusting down of them into hell is represented by the destruction of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Sea Suph.

[3] Those who lead an evil life and are consequently under the influence of falsity see by the light of the world, since it is the light in which a person sees things with his understanding. With those who are under the influence of falsity arising from evil this light is glowing; and the more they are under the influence of falsity arising from evil, the brighter it glows. The glory of the world, which has its origin in self-love, is what ignites it and gives it its glow. This being so, those people see truths in that light as nothing but falsities, and falsities as nothing but truths. The reason for this is that this light's rays cannot be infused with heavenly light; with that kind of light heavenly light becomes thick darkness. This is why such people believe firmly but wrongly in falsities as against truths, for this is how that inferior light leads them to see falsities and truths in relation to each other. With those however who are guided by truths that spring from good the light of the world is not glowing but dim, while the light of heaven is with them brightly shining. And because it is brightly shining, truths in that light look like truths, and falsities like falsities. For when that light falls onto falsities, which look like truths in the light of the world separated from the light of heaven, it does not merely dim them but altogether blots them out. This light - the light of heaven - becomes gradually brighter and brighter with them, till at length it is so bright that the light of the world cannot be compared with it. From all this one may see why those who are steeped in falsities arising from evil set themselves, because of the great strength of their wrong belief, in opposition to those guided by truths, an opposition which has been described just above.