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

Mga talababa:

301. Further, in the light of angelic concepts, which are nonspatial, it is perfectly clear that in the created universe there is nothing living except the Divine-Human One--the Lord--alone, that nothing moves except by life from God, and that nothing exists except by means of the sun from God. So it is true that in God we live and move and have our being.

8992. Verses 7-11 And when a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. ¹ If she is bad ² in the eyes of her master, so that he does not betroth her, let her be redeemed. He shall have no power to sell her to a foreign people ³ - he would be acting treacherously towards her. And if he betroths her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the judgement of daughters. ⁴ If he takes another one for himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, for no silver.

'And when a man sells his daughter to be a female slave' means an affection for truth springing from natural delight. 'She shall not go out as the male slaves do' means a state unlike truth devoid of affection. 'If she is bad in the eyes of her master' means if the affection for truth springing from natural delight is not in agreement with spiritual truth. 'So that he does not betroth her' means so that it cannot be joined to it. 'Let her be redeemed' means alienation from those truths. 'He shall have no power to sell her to a foreign people' means that it must not pass to those who are not of the Church's faith. 'He would be acting treacherously towards her' means that this would be contrary to the laws of Divine order. 'And if he betroths her to his son' means if it is in agreement with some derived truth, so that it can be joined to it. 'He shall deal with her according to the judgement of daughters' means that it will then be like a genuine affection for truth. 'If he takes another one for himself' means being joined to an affection for truth stemming from some other source. 'He shalt not diminish her food, her clothing, and [her] marital rights' means no deprivation of inner life meant by 'food', nor of outer life meant by 'clothing', thus no deprivation of the joining together meant by 'right to be married'. 'If he does not do these three things for her' means the deprivation of those things. 'She shall go out for nothing, for no silver' means alienation from that [spiritual truth], without truth joined to it.

Mga talababa: