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:

479. A great deal of my experience has testified to the fact that we are our love or intention after death. All heaven is differentiated into communities on the basis of differences in the quality of love, and every spirit who is raised up into heaven and becomes an angel is taken to the community where her or his love is. When we arrive there we feel as though we are in our own element, at home, back to our birthplace, so to speak. Angels sense this and associate there with kindred spirits. When they leave and go somewhere else, they feel a constant pull, a longing to go back to their kindred and therefore to their dominant love. This is how people gather together in heaven. The same applies in hell. There too, people associate according to loves that oppose heavenly ones. On the fact that both heaven and hell are made up of communities and that they are all differentiated according to differences of love, see 41-50, 200-212 above.

[2] We may also gather that we are our love after death from the fact that anything that does not agree with our dominant love is then removed and apparently taken away from us. For good people, what is removed and apparently taken away is everything that disagrees and conflicts, with the result that they are admitted to their love. It is much the same for evil people, except that what is taken away from them is everything true, while for good people everything false is taken away. Either way, the result is that ultimately everyone becomes his or her own love. This happens when we are brought into our third state, which will be discussed below.

Once this has happened, we constantly turn our faces toward our love and have it constantly before our eyes no matter which way we face (see above, 123-124).

[3] All spirits can be led wherever you want as long as they are kept in their dominant love. They cannot resist even though they know what is happening and think that they will refuse. Spirits have often tried to do something in opposition, but without success. Their love is like a chain or rope tied around them, with which they can be pulled and which they cannot escape. It is the same for people in this world. Our love leads us as well, and it is through our love that we are led by others. It is even more so when we become spirits, though, because then we are not allowed to present a different love or pretend to a love that is not ours.

[4] It is obvious in every gathering in the other life that our spirit is our dominant love. To the extent that we act and talk in keeping with someone else's love, that individual looks whole, with a face that is whole, cheerful, and lively. To the extent that we act and talk against someone else's dominant love, though, that individual's face begins to change, to dim, and to be hard to see. Eventually it disappears as though it were not even there. I have often been amazed at this because this kind of thing cannot happen in the world. However, I have been told that the same thing happens to the spirit within us, in that when we turn our attention away from someone, that individual is no longer in our sight.

[5] I have also seen that our spirit is our dominant love from the fact that every spirit seizes and claims whatever suits his or her love and rejects and repels whatever does not suit it. Our love is like a spongy, porous wood that absorbs whatever liquids prompt its growth, and repels others. It is like animals of various kinds. They recognize their proper foods, seek out the ones that suit their natures, and avoid the ones that disagree. Every love actually wants to be nourished by what is appropriate to it - an evil love by falsities and a good love by truths. I have occasionally been allowed to see that some particular simple and good people wanted to teach evil people things that were true and good. Faced with this teaching, though, the evil people fled far away; and when they reached their own kind, they seized on whatever falsities suited their love with great delight. I have also been allowed to see good spirits talking with each other about truths, which other good spirits in attendance listened to eagerly, while some evil ones who were there paid no attention, as though they did not hear anything.

In the world of spirits you can see paths, some leading to heaven and some leading to hell, each one leading to some specific community. Good spirits travel only the paths that lead to heaven, and to the community engaged in their own quality of love. They do not see paths that lead anywhere else. On the other hand, evil spirits travel only the paths that lead to hell and to that community there which is engaged in the evil of their own love. They do not see paths that lead anywhere else; and if they do see them, they still do not want to follow them.

Paths like this in the spiritual world are "real appearances" that correspond to true and false [understandings]; so this is what "paths" in the Word mean. ¹

These proofs from experience support what was said above on rational grounds, namely that after death we are our own love and our own intent. I say "intent" because for each of us, our intent is our love.

Footnotes:

206. He that openeth and no one shutteth, and shutteth, and no one openeth. That this signifies the power of admitting into heaven all who are in faith from charity, and of removing from heaven all who are not, is evident from the signification of that openeth and no one shutteth, when said of the Lord, as being to admit into heaven, which will be treated of presently; and from the signification of and shutteth and no one openeth, as being to remove from heaven. The reason why the former expression denotes to admit into heaven, and the latter to remove from heaven is, that the Lord alone opens heaven to those who are admitted into it; for neither a man, a spirit, nor an angel, can do this of himself. How this is shall be explained in a few words. When a man after death is in a state in which he can be admitted into heaven, then a way opens to him which leads to the heavenly society in which he is to be. Before he is in that state, the way thither does not open to him, it being opened to him by the Lord alone; such is the introduction and admission of every one into heaven. It is similar with the evil man after death; when he is in that state in which he is to go to hell, a way opens to him leading to the infernal society in which he is to be; before he is in that state, the way thither does not open to him. The reason of this is that ways in the spiritual world appear to every one according to the intention of his thought, thus according to the affection of his love; when therefore a spirit is brought into his reigning love - for every one after death is brought into that love - there then appear ways to the society where his love reigns. It is therefore evident that love itself opens these ways; and because all the love of good and truth is from the Lord, it follows that the Lord alone opens a way to those who are admitted into heaven. But on the other hand, because all love of evil and of falsity is from the man or spirit alone, it follows that the spirit himself opens his own way to hell.

[2] (These things will be more evident from the article in the work, Heaven and Hell 545-550, where it is shown that the Lord casts no one into hell, but that it is the spirit himself who casts himself there. That ways in the spiritual world appear to every one according to the intention of his thought, thus according to the affection of his love, may be seen in the same work, n. 479, 590.) As to what concerns the hells, they are all shut, and can in no wise be opened, except by permission of the Lord; they are shut because of the evils and falsities which continually endeavour to break out thence and injure those who are in goods and truths from the Lord (concerning which circumstance see also what is said in the work, Heaven and Hell 584-592).

From these considerations it is now evident how the case is, and hence how it is to be understood that he that hath the key of David, openeth and no one shutteth and shutteth and no one openeth. The reason why heaven is opened to those who are in the faith of charity, and shut to those who are not is, that the former are here treated of (see above, n. 203), and that they who are in faith from charity are in Divine truth from the Lord, and to Divine truth from the Lord belongs all power, as was shown in some of the preceding articles.

[3] The same as is here meant by the key of David is signified by the key of Peter, concerning which it is thus written in Matthew:

"I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in the heavens, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in the heavens" (16:18, 19).

By Peter here, the same as by David, is signified, in the highest sense, the Divine truth proceeding from the Divine good of the Lord, and, in the internal sense, all truth from good from the Lord; the same is also signified by rock in the Word, which is mentioned in connection with Peter, and from which he is there called Peter. The twelve disciples of the Lord represented all the truths and goods of the church in the aggregate. Peter represented truth or faith; James, charity; and John, the works of charity. In the above passage, however, Peter represented faith from charity, or truth from good which is from the Lord, because he then acknowledged the Lord from the heart, saying,

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God: Jesus answering said, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, who is in the heavens. I say unto thee, Thou art Peter," etc., verses 16-18,

and the following. (This may be seen illustrated in the small work, The Last Judgment 57.)

[4] The same is also meant by the words of the Lord to the rest of His disciples in Matthew:

Jesus said to the disciples, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (18:18).

These things were said to the disciples because they represented all truths and goods from the Lord in the aggregate. (That these were represented by the twelve disciples, as also by the twelve tribes of Israel, may be seen in Arcana Coelestia 2129, 3354, 3488, 3858, 6397.) The same is meant by them where it is said that

"They shall sit upon twelve thrones and shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:30)

see Arcana Coelestia 2129, 6397). The same is also meant by Eliakim, who was to succeed Shebna over the house of the king, in Isaiah:

"I will give dominion into his hands, that he may be for a father to the inhabitant of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah; and I will lay upon his shoulder the key of the house of David, that he may open and none shut, and that he may shut and none open" (22:21, 22).

By the house of the king over which he was to be is signified the church which is in truth from good from the Lord: by opening and shutting, and by binding and loosing, is meant in general to save (see above, n. 86).