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

Фусноти:

213. As for love and wisdom, love is the purpose, wisdom the means, and service the result. Further, service is the composite, vessel, and foundation of wisdom and love, such a composite and such a vessel that every bit of love and every bit of wisdom is actively present in it. It is their total presence. We need to be absolutely clear, though, that in keeping with what was presented in 189-194 above, what are present in service are all the elements of love and wisdom that are of the same kind, harmonious.

3814. 'And he dwelt with him for a full month' means a new state of life. This is clear from the meaning of 'dwelling' as life, dealt with in 1293, 3384, 3613, and from the meaning of 'a full month' as a new state. All periods of time mean states, see 1274, 1382, 2625, 2788, 2837, 3254, 3356, 3404, so that years, months, and days mean such. What kind of states are meant however is clear from the numbers attached to them. When however year, month, or day is used in the singular, an entire state is meant, and so the end of the previous state and the beginning of the next, as has also been shown in various places in the explanations. Here therefore 'month' means the end of the previous state and the beginning of the next, and so means a new state, as in other places in the Word, as in Isaiah,

At length from month to its month, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh will come to bow down before Me, said Jehovah. Isaiah 66:23.

In John,

He showed me a pure river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and of the river, on this side and on that, was the tree of life bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month. Revelation 22:1-2.

'Yielding its fruit each month' stands for a state for ever new as regards the reception of good and the consequent practice of it. In Moses, Count the sons of Levi according to their father's house and according to their families. Every male a month old and over shall you count. Count every firstborn male of the children of Israel, a month old and over, and take the number of their names. Numbers 3:15, 40.

[2] It was because the end of the previous state and the beginning of the next, that is, a new state, was meant by 'a month' that they were ordered to count those who were 'a month old and over'. In the same author,

If you see among captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her so that you would take her to yourself for a wife, she shall remove the clothing of her captivity from upon her, and she shall sit in your house and lament her father and her mother for a full month. After that you shall go in to her and know her, and she shall be your wife. Deuteronomy 21:11, 13.

Here 'a full month' clearly stands for the end of the previous and the beginning of the next or new state.