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:

27. The Lord's Divine Providence Has as Its Goal a Heaven from the Human Race

I have explained elsewhere that heaven did not originate in angels who were created angels at the beginning, and that hell did not originate in a devil who was created an angel of light and was cast down from heaven. Rather, both heaven and hell are from the human race. Heaven is made up of people who are involved in a love for what is good and a consequent discernment of what is true, and hell of people who are involved in a love for what is evil and a discernment of what is false. I have been given convincing evidence of this through long-term association with angels and spirits, and would refer you to Heaven and Hell 311-316, the booklet The Last Judgment 14-27, and the whole of Supplements on the Last Judgment and the Spiritual World.

[2] Since heaven comes from the human race, then, and since heaven is living with the Lord forever, it follows that this was the Lord's goal for creation. Further, since this was the goal of creation, it is the goal of the Lord's divine providence.

The Lord did not create the universe for his own sake but for the sake of people he would be with in heaven. By its very nature, spiritual love wants to share what it has with others, and to the extent that it can do so, it is totally present, experiencing its peace and bliss. Spiritual love gets this quality from the Lord's divine love, which is like this in infinite measure.

It then follows that divine love (and therefore divine providence) has the goal of a heaven made up of people who have become angels and are becoming angels, people with whom it can share all the bliss and joy of love and wisdom, giving them these blessings from the Lord's own presence within them. He cannot help doing this, because his image and likeness is in us from creation. His image in us is wisdom and his likeness in us is love; and the Lord within us is love united to wisdom and wisdom united to love, or goodness united to truth and truth united to goodness, which is the same thing. (See the preceding section for a description of this union.)

[3] However, people do not know what heaven is in general or in groups of people and what heaven is in particular or in an individual. They do not know what heaven is in the spiritual world and what it is in the physical world, either; and yet it is important to know about these matters. Consequently, I want to shed some light on this, in the following sequence.

1. Heaven is union with the Lord.

2. Our nature from creation enables us to be more and more closely united to the Lord.

3. The more closely we are united to the Lord, the wiser we become.

4. The more closely we are united to the Lord, the happier we become.

5. The more closely we are united to the Lord, the more clearly we seem to have our own identity, and yet the more obvious it is to us that we belong to the Lord.

10582. 'That I will put you in a cleft of the rock' means obscurity and falsity of faith such as exists with those whose interest lies in external things and not in what is internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'a cleft of the rock' as obscurity and falsity of faith, for 'the rock' means faith, as just above in 10580, and 'a cleft' obscurity in it, and falsity as well, dealt with below. The words 'such as exists with those whose interest lies in external things and not in what is internal' are used because every truth of faith with them lies in obscurity, together with falsity as well. For those among them who believe the Word take every statement in it literally, and not according to its inner meaning. People with that kind of belief in it cannot have any light, because the light from heaven flows into the external by way of the internal; and also what they believe without the light from heaven looks like the truth, but is nevertheless falsity with them. For they have material and earthly ideas about what is true and not at the same time spiritual and heavenly ones; and all material and earthly ideas, if the light from heaven does not shine on them, swarm with illusions. Take James and John, for example. Because they had earthly ideas about the Lord's kingdom they asked to sit one on His right and the other on the left in His kingdom. But Jesus said,

You do not know what you ask. You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever has the wish to become great among you must be your minister, and whoever has the wish to be first must be your servant. Matthew 20:21-22, 25-27.

[2] No one with such earthly ideas as they entertained then can know what the heavenly kingdom is. People like this do not know what the glory there is, nor what love is, nor indeed what faith is; in general they do not know what good is. For their judgements are based on bodily and earthly things. Everything that delights the body and its senses is what they call good; pre-eminence over others is what they call glory; love of the world and self-love are what they call heavenly love; and belief which is based on factual knowledge but is no more than persuasion they call faith. When they think about God they do so in a materialistic way, as a consequence of which either they deny the existence of God and replace Him with nature, or they worship idols or people who have died. From this it is evident how much obscurity of faith exists with those whose interest lies in external things alone, and that falsity as well does so.

[3] Obscurity and falsity of faith such as this exists with those who believe only the literal sense of the Word, without the aid of religious teachings drawn from it in a state of enlightenment. Those who read the Word without the aid of those teachings are like people who walk in the dark without a lamp. All who think on no more than a sensory level are like this. It is evident that the Jewish nation is like this, for they explain everything in the Word literally, because their interest lies in external things separated from what is internal. In the next life people like them do not live on rocks, but either in caves among those rocks or in clefts.

[4] The fact that 'a cleft of the rock' means obscurity and falsity of faith is also clear from other places in the Word, as in Isaiah,

On that day Jehovah will whistle for the fly that is in the farthest parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Asshur. They will come and all of them will rest in the rivers of desolations, and in the clefts of the rocks. Isaiah 7:18-19.

This refers to the Lord's Coming and to the state of the Church at that time, when everything constituting spiritual truth and good has been desolated. For these words mean that people of the Church will by then have forsaken internal things and become altogether external, thus sensory-minded and no more than this. People become sensory-minded when they accept and believe nothing apart from what their outward senses tell them. 'The fly in the farthest parts of the rivers of Egypt' is falsity existing with a person who is altogether external, that is, who is sensory-minded and no more than this; 'the bee in the land of Asshur' is falsity that belongs to reasoning based on sensory evidence; 'the rivers of desolations' are the truths which belong to religious teachings but have been completely desolated; and 'the clefts of the rocks' are the falsities of faith that exist as a result. Who would ever guess that those words mean such things? And the things they mean would remain completely hidden if the internal sense was not used to uncover them.

[5] In the same prophet,

On that day a person will cast away the idols which they made for themselves to bow down to, to the moles and bats, to go into the splits of the rocks, and into the clefts of the crags. Isaiah 2:20-21.

'Bowing down to the moles and bats' means worshipping such things as exist in total darkness and in the shades of night, that is, external things without their inner substance. 'Going into the splits of the rocks and into the clefts of the crags' means entering into matters of faith that are full of obscurity and thick darkness, thus entering into falsities.

[6] In Jeremiah,

I will bring back the children of Israel over their land. And I am sending to many fishermen who will fish them, and to hunters who will hunt them from upon every mountain, upon every hill, and from the holes of the rocks. Jeremiah 16:15-16.

This refers to the re-establishment of the Church, meant by 'bringing back the children of Israel over their land'. 'Fishing them' means giving them instruction in the outward things of the Church, 'hunting them' doing so in the inward things. Those upon mountain and hill are those who live in love and charity, and those in the holes of the rocks are those who live in faith but are not as yet enlightened, thus those who dwell in obscurity of faith.

[7] In the same prophet,

I have made you least among the nations. The pride of your heart dwelling in the holes of the rock holds the height of the hill. Jeremiah 49:15-16.

In Obadiah,

The pride of your heart has deceived you, O you who dwell in the splits of the rock, whose seat is high ¹ - he who says in his heart, Who will bring me down to earth? If you raise yourself up like the eagle, and if you place your nest among the stars, I will bring you down from there. Obad. verses 3-4.

'Dwelling in the holes of the rock' means living in falsities of faith. The subject is those who raise themselves above others, in the belief that they are better informed than everyone else, when in fact they are immersed in falsities and cannot even see truths. In the next life they dwell in the holes of rocks. Sometimes they force their way up on top of the rocks, but they are nevertheless cast down from there into their holes in the rocks or into caves beneath them. This is what is meant by 'holding the height of the hill', 'raising themselves up like the eagle, placing their nest among the stars, and nevertheless being brought down'.

From all this it now becomes clear that 'putting Moses in a cleft of the rock' means obscurity and falsity of faith such as exists with those whose interest lies in external things and not in what is internal. For here 'Moses' is used to mean the people, because here he represents the head of that nation, see 10556.

Notas de rodapé: