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

Mga talababa:

52. Everything in the universe was created by the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. The universe, from beginning to end and from first to last, is so full of divine love and wisdom that you could call it divine love and wisdom in an image. This is clearly evidenced by the way everything in the universe answers to something in us. Every single thing that comes to light in the created universe has such an equivalence with every single thing in us that you could call us a kind of universe as well. There is a correspondence of our affective side and its consequent thought with everything in the animal kingdom, a correspondence of our volitional side and its consequent discernment with everything in the plant kingdom, and a correspondence of our outermost life with everything in the mineral kingdom.

This kind of correspondence is not apparent to anyone in our physical world, but it is apparent to observant people in the spiritual world. We find in this latter world all the things that occur in the three kingdoms of our physical world, and they reflect the feelings and thoughts of the people who are there--the feelings that come from their volition and the thoughts that come from their discernment--as well as the outermost aspects of their life. Both their feelings and their thoughts are visible around them looking much like the things we see in the created universe, though we see them in less perfect representations.

From this it is obvious to angels that the created universe is an image depicting the Divine-Human One and that it is his love and wisdom that are presented, in image, in the universe. It is not that the created universe is the Divine-Human One: rather, it comes from him; for nothing whatever in the universe is intrinsic substance and form or intrinsic life or intrinsic love and wisdom. We are not "intrinsic persons." It all comes from God, who is the intrinsic person, the intrinsic wisdom and love, and the intrinsic form and substance. Whatever has intrinsic existence is uncreated and infinite; while what comes from it, possessing nothing within itself that has intrinsic existence, is created and finite. This latter presents an image of the One from whom it derives its existence and manifestation.

2417. 'Do not look back behind you' means that he was not to look to matters of doctrine. This is clear from the meaning of 'looking back behind him' when the city was behind him and the mountain in front of him; for 'a city' means doctrinal teaching, 402, 2268, 2451, while 'a mountain' means love and charity, 795, 1430. That this is the meaning will be evident in the explanation at verse 26, where it is said that his wife looked back behind him and she became a pillar of salt. Anyone may recognize that these words - 'looking back behind him' - have some Divine arcanum within them and that this lies too far down to be visible. For looking back behind him seems to involve nothing reprehensible at all, and yet it is of such great importance that it is said that he was to escape for his life, that is, he was to be concerned about his life to eternity by not looking back behind him. What is meant by looking to matters of doctrine however will be seen in what follows.

[2] Here let it be merely stated what doctrinal teaching is. Such teaching is twofold: one kind has to do with love and charity, the other with faith. Each of the Lord's Churches at the outset, while still very young and virginal, neither possesses nor desires any other doctrinal teaching than that which has to do with charity, for this has to do with life. In course of time however a Church turns away from this kind of teaching until it starts to despise it and at length to reject it, at which point it acknowledges no other kind of teaching than that called the doctrine of faith. And when it separates faith from charity such doctrinal teaching colludes with a life of evil.

[3] This was so with the Primitive or gentile Church after the Lord's Coming. At the outset it possessed no other doctrinal teaching than that which had to do with love and charity, for such is what the Lord Himself taught, see 2371 (end). But after His time, as love and charity started to grow cold, doctrinal teaching regarding faith gradually crept in, and with it disagreements and heresies which increased as men leant more and more towards that kind of teaching.

[4] Something similar had happened to the Ancient Church which came after the Flood and which was spread throughout so many kingdoms, 2385. This Church at the outset knew no other teaching than that which had to do with charity, for that teaching looked towards and permeated life; and so they were concerned about their eternal welfare. After a time however some people started to foster doctrinal teaching about faith which they at length separated from charity. Members of this Church called such people 'Ham' however because they led a life of evil, see 1062, 1063, 1076.

[5] The Most Ancient Church which existed before the Flood and which was pre-eminently called Man enjoyed the perception itself of love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, and so had teaching about love and charity inscribed within them. But there also existed at that time those who fostered faith, and when these at length separated it from charity they were called Cain, for Cain means such faith, and Abel whom he killed means charity; see the explanation to Genesis 4.

[6] From this it becomes clear that doctrinal teaching is twofold, one kind having to do with charity, the other with faith, although in themselves the two are one, for teaching to do with charity includes everything to do with faith. But when doctrinal teaching comes to be drawn solely from things to do with faith, such teaching is said to be twofold because faith is separated from charity. Their separation at the present day becomes clear from the consideration that what charity is, and what the neighbour, is utterly unknown. People whose teaching is solely about faith know of charity towards the neighbour as nothing other than giving what is their own to others and taking pity on everyone, for they call everyone their neighbour indiscriminately, when in fact charity consists in all the good residing with the individual - in his affection, and in his ardent zeal, and consequently in his life - while the neighbour consists in all the good residing with people which affects the individual. Consequently the neighbour consists in people with whom good resides - and quite distinctly and separately from one person to the next.

[7] For example, charity and mercy are present with him who exercises righteousness and judgement by punishing the evil and rewarding the good. Charity resides within the punishment of the evil, for he who imposes the punishment is moved by a strong desire to correct the one who is punished and at the same time to protect others from the evil he may do to them. For when he imposes it he is concerned about and desires the good of him who does evil or is an enemy, as well as being concerned about and desiring the good of others and of the state, which concern and desire spring from charity towards the neighbour. The same holds true with every other kind of good of life, for such good cannot possibly exist if it does not spring from charity towards the neighbour, since this is what charity looks to and embodies within itself.

[8] There being so much obscurity, as has been stated, as to what charity is and what the neighbour, it is plain that after doctrinal teaching to do with faith has seized the chief position, teaching to do with charity is then one of those things that have been lost. Yet it was the latter teaching alone that was fostered in the Ancient Church. They went so far as to categorize all kinds of good that flow from charity towards the neighbour, that is, to categorize all in whom good was present. In doing so they made many distinctions to which they gave names, calling them the poor, the wretched, the oppressed, the sick, the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, the prisoners or those in prison, the. sojourners, the orphans, and the widows. Some they also called the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, and the maimed, and many other names besides these. It was in accordance with this kind of teaching that the Lord spoke in the Old Testament Word, and it explains why such expressions occur so frequently there; and it was in accordance with the same that the Lord Himself spoke, as in Matthew 25:35-36, 38-40, 42-45; Luke 14:13, 21; and many times elsewhere. This is why those names have quite a different meaning in the internal sense. So that doctrinal teaching regarding charity may be restored therefore, some discussion will in the Lord's Divine mercy appear further on as to who such people are, and what charity is, and what the neighbour, generally and specifically.