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

Notas de rodapé:

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.

2129. There are also other types of tumults, or rather of conflicts, which also convey the idea of a Last Judgement and by which communities harmfully joined together as regards their interiors are dissolved. Concerning them let the following be mentioned: Such spirits are driven into a condition in which they do not think in their normal way as a community, that is, one with another, but each one independently. As a result of their thinking, each at variance with the others, and of each muttering something different from the rest, an uproar is produced which sounds like that of many waters; and conflict with one another takes place such as defies description which arises out of the mishmash of opinions concerning firmly established truths, which are at the time the substance of their thoughts and speech. That mishmash is such as may be called spiritual chaos.

[2] The sound of these conflicting and confused uproarings was threefold. The first flowed in around the head, and I was told it was that of thoughts. The second flowed in towards the left temple. I was told that this was a conflict of reasonings about certain truths in which they were unwilling to pin their faith. The third flowed in from above over on the right. It was rasping though less confused, a rasping sound directed first this way, then that. I was told that this was the product of truths clashing which were being turned this way and that by means of reasonings. While these conflicts were going on there were other spirits who spoke to me, telling me in speech that rose clearly above all that noise the meaning of every single thing.

[3] The matters which they reasoned about were chiefly these - whether the statement that the twelve apostles were going to sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel was to be understood literally, and also whether other people who have endured persecution and affliction were to be allowed into heaven. Each one reasoned in accordance with what had taken his fancy during his lifetime. Some of them however who had been brought back into associations with one another and into order were then informed that those descriptions were to be understood in a completely different way, that is to say, that 'apostles' is not used to mean apostles, nor 'thrones' to mean thrones, nor 'tribes' tribes, nor indeed is 'twelve' used to mean twelve. Instead apostles, thrones, tribes, and also twelve, meant the first and foremost matters of faith, 2089. They also said that such matters of faith are the starting-point and the criteria from which everyone is judged. And over and above all this they were shown that the apostles have no power to judge anyone at all, and that all judgement is the Lord's alone.

[4] As regards the second point which they reasoned about, this should not be taken to mean that only those who have endured persecution and affliction will enter heaven, but that the rich no less than the poor will do so, those who have held important positions no less than those whose position has been humble. Furthermore the Lord takes pity on all, especially on people who have endured spiritual afflictions and temptations, which are persecutions by the evil, thus on those who acknowledge that of themselves they are wretched and who believe that it is through the Lord's mercy alone they are saved.