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

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84. Because these two worlds are so distinct from each other, it is quite obvious that the spiritual world is under a different sun than is the physical world. There is just as much warmth and light in the spiritual world as there is in the physical world, but the warmth there is spiritual and so is the light. Spiritual warmth is the good that thoughtfulness does and spiritual light is the truth that faith perceives.

Now, since the only possible source of warmth and light is a sun, it stands to reason that there is a different sun in the spiritual world than there is in the physical world. It also stands to reason that because of the essential nature of the spiritual world's sun, spiritual warmth and light can come forth from it, while because of the essential nature of the physical world's sun, physical warmth [and light] can come forth from it. The only possible source of anything spiritual--that is, anything that has to do with what is good and true--is divine love and wisdom. Everything good is a result of love and everything true is a result of wisdom. Any wise individual can see that this is their only possible source.

5920. 'And the eyes of my brother Benjamin' means especially as a result of perception by the intermediary. This is clear from the meaning of 'the eyes' and 'seeing' as understanding and consequently perceiving, as above in 5919; and from the representation of 'Benjamin' as the intermediary, dealt with in 5411, 5413, 5443, 5639, 5688, 5822. The implications of this are as follows: Because 'Benjamin' represented the intermediary - and this intermediary was interior truth, 5600, 5631, directly dependent on internal good, represented by 'Joseph' - it possessed a clearer and sharper perception than that possessed by the truths beneath it, that is, by the external truths which his ten brothers represented. For the closer truth and good are to the internal, the more perfect is their power of perception; they are nearer the centre of the light in heaven and so are closer to the Lord. For the flow of Divine Good and Truth from the Lord passes through continuous degrees that serve as mediators to one another and are so positioned one after another. As a consequence people who dwell in the first or initial degrees receive the flow with clearer perception, because they are nearer the source, than those who dwell in the middle or outermost degrees. Like light goodness and truth become progressively dimmer at distances away from their source; for the increasingly imperfect things that exist in consecutive degrees make them duller. From all this one may see how to understand the idea of attesting especially as a result of perception by the intermediary; for the intermediary is more internal, while the truths represented by 'Jacob's sons' are more external.