解説

 

The Big Ideas

作者: New Christian Bible Study Staff

A girl gazes into a lighted globe, showing the solar system.

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

脚注:

スウェーデンボルグの著作から

 

True Christianity#456

この節の研究

  
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456. The Connection between Loving God and Loving Our Neighbor

People generally know that the law proclaimed on Mount Sinai was written on two tablets, one of which was about God and the other about humankind. People also know that in Moses' hand the two were a single tablet: the right-hand side contained writing concerning God, and the left-hand side contained writing concerning humankind, because if it was set before people's eyes in this way, the writing on both sides would be seen at once. Therefore the sides faced one another like Jehovah talking with Moses and Moses with Jehovah, face to face, as we read [Exodus 33:11; Deuteronomy 34:10].

The tablets were made in this way so that together they would represent God's connection to people and people's reciprocal connection to God. For this reason the law written there was called "the Covenant" and "the Testimony. " The term "covenant" refers to the partnership and "testimony" refers to the life that follows the points agreed upon.

The union of the two tablets shows the connection between loving God and loving our neighbor. The first tablet covers all aspects of loving God; they are primarily that we should acknowledge one God, the divinity of his human manifestation, and the holiness of the Word; and that in worshiping him we are to use the holy things that come from him. (The fact that the first tablet covers the above is clear from the comments made in chapter 5 on the Ten Commandments [291-308].)

The second tablet covers all aspects of loving our neighbor. The first five of its commandments relate to our behavior, or what are called our "works. " Its other two commandments relate to our will and to the origins of goodwill: they tell us that we should not covet what our neighbors have, and that by not doing so, we have their well-being in mind.

On the point that the Ten Commandments contain everything about how to love God and how to love our neighbor, see 329, 330, and 331 above. That discussion also shows that in people who have goodwill the two tablets are connected.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

スウェーデンボルグの著作から

 

True Christianity#331

この節の研究

  
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331. Evil and good cannot coexist; the more evil is removed, the more good is focused on and felt. This is the case because all who are in the spiritual world have a field of their particular love emanating around them. This field spreads all around and has an effect on others. It creates feelings of harmony or antipathy. These fields separate the good from the evil.

The fact that evil has to be removed before goodness is recognized, perceived, and loved could be compared with many situations that are possible in our world; for example, the following: Suppose someone keeps a leopard and a panther in an apartment and, as the one who feeds them, is able to live safely with them. No one else can visit unless their owner first removes these wild animals.

[2] Guests invited to the table of the king and queen would not forget to wash their faces and hands before attending. No bridegroom goes into the bedroom with his bride after the wedding without first washing himself all over and putting on a wedding garment. Anyone must first purify ore with fire and remove slag before getting pure gold or silver. Everyone separates the tares or weeds from the harvested wheat before taking it into the barn. Everyone removes the beards from harvested barley with threshing tools before bringing it home.

[3] Everyone cooks some of the juice out of raw meat before it becomes edible and is set on the table. Everyone knocks the grubs and caterpillars off the leaves of trees in the garden to prevent them from devouring the leaves and causing a loss of fruit. Everyone removes garbage from the house and the front entrance and cleans up those areas, especially when expecting a visit from a prince or the princes daughter to whom one is engaged. Does any man love a young woman and propose to marry her if she is riddled with malignancies or covered all over with pustules and varicose veins, no matter how much she puts makeup on her face, wears gorgeous clothing, and makes an effort to be attractive by saying nice things and paying compliments?

[4] The need for us to purify ourselves from evils, and not to wait for the Lord to do it without our participation, is like a servant coming in with his face and clothes covered in soot and dung, approaching his master, and saying, "Lord, wash me. " Surely his master would tell him, "You foolish servant! What are you saying? Look, there is the water, the soap, and a towel. Don't you have hands? Don't they work? Wash yourself!"

The Lord God is going to say, "The means of being purified come from me. Your willingness and your power come from me. Therefore use these gifts and endowments of mine as your own and you will be purified. " And so on.

The need for the outer self to be cleansed, but to be cleansed through the inner self, is something that the Lord teaches in Matthew chapter 23 from beginning to end.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.