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

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522. First, though, let me state what divine mercy is. Divine mercy is a pure mercy toward the whole human race with the intent of saving it, and it is constant toward every individual, never withdrawing from anyone. This means that everyone who can be saved is saved. However, no one can be saved except by divine means, the means revealed by the Lord in the Word. Divine means are what we refer to as divine truths. They teach how we are to live in order to be saved. The Lord uses them to lead us to heaven and to instill heaven's life into us. The Lord does this for everyone; but he cannot instill heaven's life into anyone who does not refrain from evil, since evil bars the way. So to the extent that we do refrain from evil, the Lord in his divine mercy leads us by divine means, from infancy to the end of life in the world and thereafter to eternity. This is the divine mercy that I mean. We can therefore see that the Lord's mercy is pure mercy, but not unmediated: that is, it does not save people whenever it feels like it, no matter how they have lived.

10568. 'And he said to Him, If Your face is not going [before me], do not cause us to go up from here' means that if the Divine is not present there, nothing constituting the Church will be there. This is clear from the meaning of 'Jehovah's face' as things that are interior and Divine in the Church, worship, and the Word, dealt with immediately above in 10567; and from the meaning of 'do not cause us to go up from here' as that nothing constituting the Church will be there. The reason why these words have this meaning is that being led into the land of Canaan means the establishment of the Church, and therefore 'do not cause us to go up from here' means that without those interior things nothing constituting the Church will be present. For the meaning of being led into the land of Canaan as the establishment of the Church, see above in 10560, 10561. The reason why being led into the land of Canaan means the establishment of the Church is that by the land of Canaan in the Word those in heaven understand nothing at all other than the Church. They perceive everything in the Word on a spiritual level; consequently when any land is mentioned they think of the kinds of things constituting the Church that exist in that land or among the nation inhabiting it. Angels in heaven cannot keep their mind focused on the idea of a land because that idea is a material one, nor on the idea of any nation since this idea too is material; therefore a spiritual idea is what immediately presents itself to them, an idea that has something to do with the Church. In general a spiritual idea has to do with the Lord, His kingdom, heaven, the Church, love to the Lord and faith in Him, and countless aspects of faith and love, thus of the Church. And if you are willing to believe it, it is impossible for any material idea to enter heaven; it is cast off at the gateway of heaven. This is how it is with every single thing in the Word. So it is then that being led into the land of Canaan means the establishment of the Church, and not being led in, implied in the present verse, its not being established.