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:

213. As regards love and wisdom, love is the end, wisdom the cause or means, and useful endeavor the effect, and useful endeavor embraces, contains, and is the foundation of love and wisdom. Moreover, useful endeavor so embraces and so contains them that all the qualities of the love and all the qualities of the wisdom are actually present in it, useful endeavor being the concurrence of these.

It should be rightly known, however, that it is all homogeneous and accordant qualities of love and wisdom that are present in useful endeavor, in accordance with the observations presented and demonstrated above in the discussion in nos. 189-194.

255. 'The seed of the woman' is used to mean faith in the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'woman' as the Church, the seed of which is nothing else than faith. It is from faith in the Lord that the Church has its being and gets its name. In Malachi faith is called 'God's seed',

Jehovah was a witness between you and the wife of your youth. And not one has done so, though he has a residue of the spirit. And is there one seeking God's seed? But take heed within your spirit, lest he act treacherously against the wife of your youth. Malachi 2:14-15.

Here 'wife of your youth' is the Ancient Church and the Most Ancient, whose seed or faith is the subject. In Isaiah,

I will pour out waters upon the thirsty land, and streams on the dry. I will pour out [My] Spirit upon your seed and My blessing upon your descendants. Isaiah 44:3.

This too refers to the Church. In Revelation,

The dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her seed, who kept the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:17.

And in David,

I have made a covenant with My Chosen One, I have sworn to David My servant, I will establish your seed even for ever; and I will set up his seed in perpetuity, and his throne as the days of the heavens; his seed will be for ever, and his throne will be like the sun in front of Me. Psalms 89:7, 4, 29, 36.

Here David is used to mean the Lord, 'his throne' to mean His Kingdom, 'the sun' love, and 'seed' faith.