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

각주:

83. Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love

Part 2

In the spiritual world, divine love and wisdom look like a sun. There are two worlds, one spiritual and one physical; and the spiritual world does not derive anything from the physical one, nor does the physical one derive anything from the spiritual one. They are completely distinct from each other, communicating only by means of correspondence, whose nature has been amply explained elsewhere. The following example may be enlightening. Warmth in the physical world is the equivalent of the good that thoughtfulness does in the spiritual world, and light in the physical world is the equivalent of the truth that faith perceives in the spiritual world. No one can fail to see that warmth and the goodness of being thoughtful, and light and the truth of faith, are completely distinct from each other.

At first glance, they seem as distinct as two quite different things. That is what comes to the fore when we start thinking about what the goodness of being thoughtful has in common with warmth and what the truth of faith has in common with light. Yet spiritual warmth is that very "goodness," and spiritual light is that very "truth."

In spite of the fact that they are so distinct from each other, though, they still make a single whole by means of their correspondence. They are so united that when we read about warmth and light in the Word, the spirits and angels who are with us see thoughtfulness in the place of warmth and faith in the place of light.

I include this example to make it clear that the two worlds, the spiritual one and the physical one, are so distinct from each other that they have nothing in common, and that still they have been created in such a way that they communicate with each other and are actually united through their correspondences.

65. The uses of all things that have been created ascend by degrees from the lowest created forms to mankind, and through mankind to God the Creator from whom they originate. The lowest created forms are, as we said above, each and every constituent of the mineral kingdom, which are substances of various kinds, composed of stony, saline, oily, mineral and metallic materials, and covered with soil resulting from plant and animal matter disintegrating into a fine dust. In these lie the end in all uses that originate from life, and also their beginning. The end in all uses is the endeavor to effect them, and their beginning is the force acting as a result of that endeavor. These are the end in and the beginning of the uses of the mineral kingdom.

[2] Intermediate created forms are each and every constituent of the plant kingdom. These are grasses and herbs of every kind, shrubs and bushes of every kind, and trees of every kind. Their uses exist to serve each and every constituent of the animal kingdom, both the lower ones and the higher. They nourish these, gratify them, and enliven them. They nourish their bodies with their substances, gratify their senses with their taste, smell and beauty, and enliven their affections. An endeavor to serve in these ways is present in them also from life.

[3] The highest created forms are each and every constituent of the animal kingdom. The lowest forms in it are called worms and insects, the intermediate ones birds and beasts, and the highest ones human beings. For every kingdom has in it its lowest, intermediate, and highest constituents, the lowest existing to serve the intermediate, and the intermediate existing to serve the highest.

Thus do the uses of all things that have been created ascend in turn from the lowest created forms to mankind, which is the highest in order.