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:

People have lived in groups since the earliest times. Over time, as human societies got more complex, family groups formed tribes, and tribes formed nations. People have had to learn how to live in groups, which necessitates some unselfishness - -some love of others. The Word makes it crystal clear that we're supposed to "love your neighbor as yourself". When you look at the 10 commandments, we're supposed to honor father and mother, not murder, not steal, not commit adultery, not bear false witness, and not covet -- all things that have to do with loving the neighbor.

What about nations? What does the Word say about how we should govern ourselves? There are certainly many clues. We see patriarchal families, tribal leaders, religious leaders and judges, and kings. There are good ones of each type, and evil ones. When good leaders are present, things generally go well for the tribe or nation. When the leaders fall into evil, there's usually a disaster - a famine, or marauding enemies, or plagues.

To Jesus, nationality seems to be a non-issue. He heals the Roman centurion's servant, and tells the story of the good Samaritan. He tells his disciples to publish the gospel to all nations (Mark 13:10).

In Swedenborg's works, there are useful descriptions of various degrees of love of the neighbor. One of the highest is the love of one's country, since it involves so many people. It is a strong motivator. Time and again in history, we see how many people are willing to make sacrifices, and risk their lives, for their countries.

An even higher love of the neighbor, though, is the love of the Lord's church -- again -- not an organization or a building, but the community of people who love the Lord, and are seeking to understand the truth and to do good.

There are some interesting points in some of Swedenborg's descriptions of his spiritual experiences. He wrote these things between 1750 and 1772, at a time when the King James Version of the Bible had been used in England for around 150 years, and he'd been able to publish his new theological works there. In Sweden, though, and elsewhere in Europe, religious freedom was much more limited. Swedenborg remarks on the great benefits of freedom of thought, speech, and religion in England, and that he had seen that it carried over into thriving spiritual communities of English people in the next life.

(References: The Last Judgment (Supplement) 73; True Christian Religion 795)

525. Many people who arrive in the other life from the Christian world bring with them a faith that they are going to be saved out of straight mercy, because they plead for it. When they are examined, though, it turns out that they have believed that getting into heaven was simply a matter of being let in, and that people who had been admitted were in heavenly joy. They have had no notion of what heaven is or what heavenly joy is. So they are told that the Lord does not deny heaven to anyone. They can be let in if they wish and even stay there. Some who wanted to were actually let in; but at the very threshold, at the touch of heaven's warmth (that is, of the love angels are engaged in) and the inflow of heaven's light (which is divine truth), they were seized with such pain in the heart that they felt themselves in the torments of hell rather than in the joys of heaven. Struck by this, they plunged down headlong. In this way they were taught by firsthand experience that no one can enter heaven out of straight mercy.