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

Notes de bas de page:

84. Because these two worlds are so distinct from each other, it is quite obvious that the spiritual world is under a different sun than is the physical world. There is just as much warmth and light in the spiritual world as there is in the physical world, but the warmth there is spiritual and so is the light. Spiritual warmth is the good that thoughtfulness does and spiritual light is the truth that faith perceives.

Now, since the only possible source of warmth and light is a sun, it stands to reason that there is a different sun in the spiritual world than there is in the physical world. It also stands to reason that because of the essential nature of the spiritual world's sun, spiritual warmth and light can come forth from it, while because of the essential nature of the physical world's sun, physical warmth [and light] can come forth from it. The only possible source of anything spiritual--that is, anything that has to do with what is good and true--is divine love and wisdom. Everything good is a result of love and everything true is a result of wisdom. Any wise individual can see that this is their only possible source.

6396. 'Dan' means those who are guided by truth but not as yet by good. This is clear from the representation of 'Dan' as the good of life, dealt with in 3921, 3923, but here those who have some goodness of life, which is engendered by truth but not as yet by good. For the situation with a person who is being regenerated by the Lord is that at first truth resides with him but no goodness of life engendered by that truth. Then such goodness of life engendered by truth, though not as yet by good, does reside with him; and after that, once he has been regenerated, goodness of life engendered by good comes to reside with him, at which stage he discerns truth from the vantage point of good and multiplies that truth residing with him. These are the degrees of regeneration, and 'Dan' is used to mean those with whom goodness of life resides which is engendered by truth but not as yet by good. The good that resides with them still lies deeply concealed within that truth; yet it provides them with an affection for truth and impels them to lead a life in accordance with the truth. Such people are in the Lord's kingdom, but because they are led to do good not by good but by truth, that is, not by anything of a new will but by the understanding - thus not by love but by obedience because they are commanded so to act - they are among those in the Lord's kingdom who inhabit the first or lowest heaven. These are the people whom 'Dan' represents, for in the internal sense of the prophetic declarations made here by Israel his twelve sons serve to describe in general the essential natures of all who are in the Lord's kingdom.

[2] The habitation by those meant by 'Dan' of the lowest heaven or lowest level of the Lord's kingdom because they are guided by truth but not as yet by good was represented by the falling of the lot last for Dan when the land of Canaan was shared out as an inheritance among the tribes, Joshua 19:40-48, and by the allotment at that time of an inheritance to them in the remotest part of the land, Judges 18. For the lot was cast before Jehovah, Joshua 18:6, and therefore fell for each tribe in accordance with its representation. The land of Canaan represented the Lord's kingdom, see 1607, 3038, 3481, 3705, 3686, 4447, 4454, and all its boundaries were therefore representative, 1607, 1866, 4116, so that the outermost parts of that land represented the lowest parts of the Lord's kingdom, 4240. 'Dan' consequently represented the inhabitants of those lowest parts, for before truth has become joined to good it resides on the lowest level of that kingdom. But if truth has become entirely separated from good it does not reside within any boundary of the Lord's kingdom but is outside it.

[3] The fact that Dan's inheritance was the outermost part of the land of Canaan is clear from the fact that whenever the full extent of that land was described the expression from Beersheba even to Dan was used, 2 Samuel 3:10; 17:11; 24:15; 1 Kings 4:25. In this expression Beersheba means the inmost part of the land, for the reason that it was the place where Abraham and Isaac lived, that is, before Jerusalem and Zion had become the inmost parts of the land.

[4] The essential nature of those guided by truth but not as yet by good was also represented by the Danites who were to spy out the land in which they were to live, Judges 18. It was represented by their removal of the Levite from Micah's house and their making off with the ephod, teraphim, and carved image, by which objects is meant the worship of those guided by truth but not as yet by good. For those people venerate things of an external nature but have no interest in those of an internal nature; for things of an internal nature are discerned by none but those who are guided by good. This is what the Danites under consideration here represented, as becomes clear from the consideration that all the historical incidents in the Word, both those in the Books of Moses and those in the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, are representative of the celestial and spiritual realities of the Lord's kingdom, including therefore this incident in the Book of Judges involving the Danites. As regards anything further concerning the essential nature of those guided by truth but not as yet by good, this is described in the internal sense of the things said about Dan that come next.