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

Footnotes:

Jehovah was the name for God among the most ancient people, and it is the sacred name meaning 'I am'. Jehovah refers to the Lord's Internal or love itself which seeks to save everyone, make them eternally happy and to bestow on them everything of Himself.

So, Jehovah is God, the one God. There is no other God as many passages in the Old and New Testament state clearly by saying there is only one God and also by clearly stating that Jehovah is the Savior and Redeemer. Jesus Christ is Jehovah come to earth to put the hells in order so that people can be saved if they freely choose to follow Him.

See Doctrine of the Lord 34 for a wonderful explanation of who Jehovah is and what He does and for an extensive list of the passages in the Word that clearly show our one God in His great love for all people.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 1343; True Christian Religion 19)

295. The existence of such a difference between the thoughts of angels and those of people has been made known to me by the following experiment:

I have told angels to think about something spiritually and after that to tell me what they thought. When they did so and tried to tell me, they could not, saying that they were unable to put it into words.

The same was the case with their spiritual speech and with their spiritual writing. Not a word of their spiritual speech was the same as a word of natural speech, nor was any part of their spiritual writing the same as natural writing, except for the letters, each one of which contained a complete meaning.

On the other hand - surprisingly - they said that they seem to themselves to think, speak and write in their spiritual state in the same way that a person does in his natural state, when in fact nothing is the same.

It was apparent from this that natural and spiritual things differ in accordance with degrees of height, and that they do not communicate with each other except through correspondences.