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

Примітки:

169. Throughout the created universe, in its largest and smallest instances alike, we find these three--purpose, means, and result. The reason we find them in the largest and smallest instances of the created universe is that these three are in God the Creator, who is the Lord from eternity. Since he is infinite, though, and since in one who is infinite there are infinite things in a distinguishable oneness (as explained in 17-22 above), these three are a distinguishable oneness in him and in the infinite things that belong to him. This is why the universe, being created from his reality and (if we look at its functions) being an image of him, retains these three in each of its constituent details.

3506. Verses 5-7 And Rebekah was listening to Isaac while he spoke to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, to bring it [home]. And Rebekah said to Jacob her son - she said - Behold, I listened to your father speaking to Esau your brother, saying, Bring me venison, and make me savoury food, and I will eat, and I will bless you before Jehovah, before my death.

'Rebekah was listening to Isaac while he spoke to Esau his son' means the affection for truth and the life from that affection. 'And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, to bring it [home]' means the effort of the affection for good to acquire the truth that was to be allied to the Divine Rational. 'And Rebekah said to Jacob her son - she said' means the Lord's perception from Divine Truth concerning natural truth. 'Behold, I listened to your father speaking to Esau your brother, saying' means that the desire of the Divine Good of the Divine Rational was for the affection for good. 'Bring me venison' means truth acquired from good. 'And make me savoury food' means the desire and pleasure gained from the pleasantness received from that truth. 'And I will eat' means in that way making it its own. 'And I will bless you before Jehovah' means conjunction thereby. 'Before my death' means life thus within the natural.