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.

18. A further proof that heaven comes from the human race is the likeness between the minds of angels and human beings. Both enjoy the ability to understand, perceive and will. Both are designed to receive heaven. For the human mind is just as wise as that of angels, but its wisdom is restricted in the world, because it is then in an earthly body, and in this a person's spiritual mind thinks naturally. For the spiritual thought which he possesses as much as an angel then descends into natural ideas corresponding to the spiritual ones, and is so there perceived. It is different when a person's mind is released from the shackles of that body. Then it ceases to think naturally, and thinks spiritually; and when it does that, its thoughts become to the natural man incomprehensible and ineffable, that is, like an angel's. From this it may be deduced that a person's internal, what is called his spirit, is in essence an angel. ¹ See HEAVEN AND HELL 73-77 for a demonstration that an angel has a perfect human form. But when a person's internal is not open upwards and only downwards, then although on release from the body it still has a human form, it is a dreadful and devilish one. For it is unable to look up to heaven, but only down to hell.

Imibhalo yaphansi: