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

Сноски:

335. 2. The working of divine providence is constantly done through means, out of pure mercy. Divine providence has both means and ways. The means are what serve to make us human and grow in perfection in discernment and volition. The ways are the manners in which these processes happen.

The means that serve to make us human and grow in perfection in discernment are summed up in the word "truths." They become concepts in our thinking, and we refer to them as facts in our memory. Essentially, they are the thoughts that give rise to what we know.

All these means are spiritual in and of themselves, but since they occur in our earthly concerns, they seem to be earthly because of this covering or clothing, which is earthly and even physical. They are infinite in number and infinite in variety. There are some less simple and some more simple; some less complex and some more complex; some less imperfect and some more imperfect; and some less perfect and some more perfect. There are means for giving form and completeness to our life on the civic, earthly level, for giving form and completeness to our life on the moral, rational level, and for giving form and completeness to our life on the spiritual, heavenly level.

[2] These means occur in sequence, one kind after another, from infancy to the last stage of our life, and then on to eternity. They intensify as they follow each other, with the earlier ones being means to the later ones. All the steps become part of whatever takes shape, like intermediate causes, because every effect of them, every final result, is active and therefore becomes a cause. So the subsequent ones are means in the sequence. Further, since this process goes on to eternity, there is no last or final step that closes the sequence. That is, just as eternity is without end, so wisdom that increases to eternity has no end. If there were an end of wisdom for the wise, that would be the end of their pleasure in wisdom, which consists of its endless increase and fertility. It would therefore be the end of the joy of their life. In its place would come a pleasure in their brilliance, and there is no heavenly life in this alone. The wise would no longer be young; they would seem to age, and eventually to become decrepit.

[3] Although the wisdom of the wise does increase forever in heaven, angelic wisdom never approaches divine wisdom closely enough to touch it. It is rather like a straight line drawn next to a hyperbola, constantly approaching but never touching; or we might think of the squaring of a circle.

This shows what is meant by the means that divine providence uses to make us human and to bring us toward perfection in discernment, and shows that the general term for them is "truths." There are the same number of means by which we are given form and completeness in volition, but the general term for these is "good." It is from these latter that we have love, while the former means provide us with wisdom. The union of these two kinds of means makes us human because the nature of that union determines our own nature. This union is what we refer to as "the marriage of goodness and truth."

4353. 'And kissed him' means an interior joining together brought about by love. This is clear from the meaning of 'kissing' as a joining together brought about by love, dealt with in 3573, 3574, 4215, in this case an interior joining together. The present verse deals with the joining of Divine Natural Good, meant by 'Esau', to Natural Truth, meant by 'Jacob'. It deals with this in general, whereas the verses which follow deal more specifically with that joining together. As regards the actual joining together, it is that which brings about a person's regeneration, for he is regenerated through the joining of the truths he knows to the good he cherishes, that is, through the joining of matters of faith to the deeds of charity. The process of that joining together is described fully in this verse and in those that follow. The subject, it is true, is the Lord - how He made His Natural Divine and therefore how He united Divine Good to Truth within the Natural; but because the regeneration of man is an image of the glorification of the Lord, 3138, 3212, 3296, 3490, that regeneration too is at the same time the subject in the internal sense. And because man can get an idea of regeneration more easily than he can of the Lord's glorification, let His glorification be illustrated by means of man's regeneration.

[2] It is evident from the explanations which have been given that the joining together of good and truths which leads to regeneration is a process that grows more and more interior; that is, truths are joined step by step more interiorly to good. For the object of regeneration is that the internal man may be joined to the external, and so the spiritual man be joined to the natural through the rational. Unless the two are joined together no regeneration is accomplished. Nor can that joining together be effected until good has first been joined to the truths within the natural; for the natural has to exist as the underlying groundwork, and things within the natural have to exist in correspondence with those above them. This is the reason why, when the natural is being regenerated, the joining together of good and truths becomes step by step more interior; for the spiritual first joins itself to the things that are inmost in the natural, and after that through these to those that are more exterior. Nor can man's internal join itself to his external unless the truth within that external becomes the good of truth, that is, becomes truth in will and action, 4337. Only then can they be joined together, for the Lord flows into a person through his internal man, especially through the good there. The good there is able to be joined to the good in the external man, but not directly to the truth.

[3] From this it becomes clear that the truth residing with man must first of all become truth in will and action, that is, become the good of truth, before the joining together of the rational and the natural, or of the internal man and the external, can come about. But in what way truth becomes the good of truth may be clear to anyone who gives his attention to it. Every Divine truth is related to the following two commandments: Love God above all things, and love your neighbour as yourself. These two commandments are the base from which truths are derived, the reason why truths exist, and the end to which truths lead - immediately or remotely. Therefore when truths are translated into action they are introduced step by step into their beginning and into their end, that is to say, into charity towards the neighbour and love to the Lord, and as a consequence truth becomes the good which is called the good of truth. Once truth becomes such it is able to be joined to the internal man, a conjunction which becomes step by step more interior as truths that are more interior are implanted within that good. Action comes first, then the desire for it in the person's will follows. For when a person is led by his understanding to carry out any action, he is at length led by his will to do it, till at last he has taken it on as an action performed habitually. When this point is reached it is introduced into the rational or internal man; and once it has been introduced, truth is no longer that which motivates him when he does a good action but good. For now he begins to feel within it something of what is blessed and so to speak of heaven. This remains with him after death, and by means of it the Lord raises him up to heaven.