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

Imibhalo yaphansi:

6008. 'And Joseph will put his hand on your eyes means that the internal celestial will impart life to it. This is clear from the representation of 'Joseph' as the internal celestial, dealt with in 5869, 5877; and from the meaning of 'putting a hand on the eyes' as imparting life. For 'putting a hand on the eyes' is used to mean that the external or bodily senses will be closed and the internal senses opened, thus that a raising up will be effected and life will thereby be imparted. A hand was placed on people's eyes when they were dying because 'death' meant an awakening into life, 3498, 3505, 4618, 4621. For when a person dies he does not really die; he merely lays aside the body that has served him for his use in the world and passes into the next life in a body which serves him for his use there.

104. To see that everyone who is old enough has an outer and an inner thinking, an outer [and an inner] volition and discernment, or outer and inner levels of spirit that amount to outer and inner levels of self, we need only look closely at the thoughts and intentions of other people on the basis of what they say and do. We may also look at our own thoughts and intentions when we are in company and when we are by ourselves.

People can talk cordially with others on the basis of their outer thinking and yet be hostile to them in their inner thinking. They can talk about love for their neighbor and love for God on the basis of their outer thinking, and do so with feeling, when in their inner thinking they are trivializing their neighbor and have no fear of God. People can talk thoughtfully and with feeling about the justice of our civil laws, the virtues of moral living, and the theological issues of spiritual life, and yet when they are by themselves, moved by their inner thinking and its feeling, they can argue against our civil laws, against the virtues of moral living, and against the theological issues of spiritual life. We do this when we are driven by our compulsions to evil but want it to seem to the world that we are not.

[2] When they are listening to what others say, many people are thinking, "Are their private thoughts the same as the thoughts they are expressing? Should I believe them or not? What are their intentions?" Everyone knows that flatterers and hypocrites have two levels of thought. They can control themselves and prevent their inner thinking from being seen, hiding it deeper and deeper within and virtually locking the doors to keep it hidden. We can also see quite clearly that we have inner and outer levels of thinking from the fact that we can see our own outer thought from the vantage point of our inner thought. We can reflect on it as well, and decide whether it is evil or not.

We may attribute this characteristic of the human mind to the two abilities we are given by the Lord, namely, freedom and rationality. If we did not have outer and inner levels of thought, these abilities would not enable us to sense and see anything evil in ourselves and be reformed. In fact, we would not even be able to talk; we would only be able to make noises like animals.