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

Fotnoter:

67. Next, since we are by creation heavens in smallest form and therefore images of the Lord, and since heaven is made up of as many desires as there are angels, each of which is a person as to its form, it follows that the constant effort in divine providence is for each of us to become a heaven in form and therefore an image of the Lord. Further, since this is accomplished by means of the desire for what is good and true, it is for us to become that desire. This, then, is the constant effort in divine providence.

The very heart of providence, though, is that we should be in some particular place in heaven or in some particular place in the divine heavenly person and therefore in the Lord. This is what happens for people whom the Lord can lead to heaven. Since the Lord foresees this, he also constantly provides for it, with the result that all of us who are allowing ourselves to be led to heaven are being prepared for our own places in heaven.

2661. 'Because of his son' means for the reason that He delighted in it, that is, in the first rational. This is clear from the meaning of 'son', that is to say, the son of the servant-girl, as the merely human or first rational, dealt with already. The reason for the grief is not actually mentioned here but it is nevertheless evident from what follows. Love is plainly the reason for that grief, for it is said [that Abraham was distressed] 'because of his son', and this son is the subject in verses 13-21 which follow. But so that it may be known why this grief existed, that is, why it is said that 'the matter was deeply distressing to Abraham because of his son', let the following few comments serve by way of illustration.

[2] The Lord did not come into the world to save those who are celestial, but to save those who are spiritual. The Most Ancient Church, which was called Man, was celestial, and if this Church had remained uncorrupted there would have been no need for the Lord to be born a human being. But as soon as it began to decline the Lord foresaw that the celestial Church would cease to exist altogether in the world, and therefore a prophecy was given there and then about the Lord's Coming into the world, Genesis 3:15. After the era of that Church there was no longer a celestial Church but a spiritual Church. The Ancient Church, which came after the Flood, was this spiritual Church, referred to many times in Volume One. This Church, or the people who belonged to the spiritual Church, could not have been saved unless the Lord had come into the world. This is what the Lord's words in Matthew are used to mean,

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Matthew 9:12-13.

And the following in John are used with the same meaning,

And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. John 10:16.

And the same is also meant in the parable about the hundred sheep, in Matthew 18:11-13.

[3] Now seeing that 'Isaac', representing the Lord's Divine Rational, also means those that are celestial, who are called 'heirs', while 'Ishmael', representing the Lord's merely human rational, also means those that are spiritual, who are referred to as 'sons' - as may also be evident from what has been stated above in 2658 - the words used in the present verse therefore mean that because of His Divine Love the Lord suffered grief. This is also the meaning of what follows in verses 13-21, where Hagar's son and she his mother represent the spiritual Church, and where the subject is the state of that Church, that is, of those who are members of that Church, 2612. Any further declaration regarding these arcana is not as yet possible. All that can be stated here is that with the Lord when in the world all states of the Church were represented, and also the way in which those who belonged to it were to be saved through Him. Consequently the same states of the Church are also meant by those same names.