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:

154. The reason the Lord created the universe and everything in it by means of the spiritual world's sun is that this sun is the first emanation of divine love and wisdom, and as explained above (52-82), everything comes from divine love and wisdom.

There are three components of everything that has been created, no matter how large or how small it is: a purpose, a means, and a result. There is nothing created that lacks these three components. In the largest instance, the universe, these three components arise in the following pattern: the purpose of everything is in that sun that is the first emanation of divine love and wisdom; the means of everything is in the spiritual world; and the result of everything is in the physical world. I will describe below [167-172] how these three components occur in both first and last forms.

Since there is nothing created that lacks these three components, it follows that the universe and everything in it has been created by the Lord by means of the sun where the purpose of everything resides.

13. Every work of God reflects infinity and eternity. There are many proofs of this among things to be seen both in heaven and on earth. In either place there is never anything exactly like or identical with another. There is not a face exactly like or identical with another, nor will there ever be. Equally one person's character is not exactly like another's. Consequently there are as many faces and as many characters as there are human beings and angels. In one person, who contains countless parts making up the body and countless affections making up the character, there is never one thing which is exactly like and identical with another's. That is why every individual lives a life different from anyone else's. The situation is similar in every detail of Nature.

Such an infinite variety in details is caused by the fact that all things owe their origin to the Divine, who is infinite. There is thus a certain image of the infinite everywhere, so that all things may be looked upon by the Divine as His work, and at the same time that all things may reflect the Divine as being His work.

A rather trivial example may serve to illustrate how everything in Nature reflects infinity and eternity. Every seed, whether the fruit of a tree, a cereal or a flower, is so created that it is capable of infinite multiplication and eternal duration. For a single seed may produce many more, perhaps five or ten or twenty or a hundred, and each of these may produce as many more. If the fruitfulness of a single seed continued without a break, it might in only a hundred years cover the surface of not merely one planet, but of tens of thousands of planets. The seeds too are so created that they can continue in existence for ever. So it is plain how these contain the idea of infinity and eternity; and likewise other things.

The heaven of angels is the reason why everything in the universe has been created. For the heaven of angels is the purpose for which the human race was created, and the human race is the purpose for which the visible heavens and the planets it contains were created. Consequently that work of God, the heaven of angels, primarily has regard to infinity and eternity, and thence to its unlimited reproduction, for it is there the Divine Himself resides. From this it may be established that the human race will never come to an end; for if it did, the work of God would be restricted to a fixed number, and thus would cease to reflect infinity.