CSG 1.1
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1Through my life of constant prayer and meditation from an early age, I finally encountered God and received His absolute truth. This truth contained astounding content, which revealed the workings of the universe, of life and of history, as never seen before. If we apply this truth to society, we can resolve all social problems. If we apply it to the world, we can resolve all global problems. Furthermore, we can resolve deep religious problems and stalemates in philosophy. This is an unprecedented new worldview, new cosmology, new view of life, new view of God's providence and new view of history. Divine Principle is an integrated thought system that embraces all religious doctrines and philosophical tenets as one whole, while preserving the unique characteristics of each.
2The phrase "God exists" is not an empty one. It is not that we deduce the necessity of God's existence by understanding the subject-object partner relationship through the Principle. It is that God existed before we came into existence, that He existed before we could think, and that He leads our senses and our whole beings. This awareness is more important than anything else. The basic point is that awareness precedes knowledge, not the other way around. If we are cold, we feel cold before we know we are cold. Likewise, since God exists, we should be able to feel His existence in our very cells. Achieving that awareness is what matters. The issue is how we achieve that awareness, the ability to experience these things.
3The most serious issue in human life is to know whether or not God exists. If God really exists, the greatest of sinners is the one who denies His existence. For example, if a son denies his parents' existence when they are truly alive and well, would we call him a filial son or an unfilial son? We would call him an unfilial son. Then, what will happen to the person who denies God's existence, even though God exists? That person will come to ruin. Hence, there is no greater sin than the denial of God's existence. There are even those who say God is dead. There is no sin greater than the utterance of such words.
4We should not perceive the existence of God only vaguely and conceptually. It is impossible to understand the existence of God through logic alone. This is because God's existence, while within the realm of logic, also reaches beyond logic. Can a religious belief in which we know God only through logic guide our lives? Can such a belief perfect us as substantial beings of eternal life? There are many problems with that idea. With only that foundation, how can we expect to stand before God, our true Lord? Our coming to God has been the hope of humankind and also God's providential objective throughout history.
5There is no one who was born because he or she wanted to be born. No man or woman was born out of his or her own desire. We were born because of our parents, not because we desired to be born. The same is true for our parents, their parents, and all our ancestors. It is the same all the way back to Adam and Eve. Even the first human ancestors did not come to exist out of their own desire. Their existence sprang from the desire of someone before them. When we speak of human beings, we refer to men and women. Man needs woman and woman needs man. However, no man chose to be born as a man, nor did any woman choose to be born as a woman. We discover that we are a man or a woman after we are born, and after we grow up we recognize that we need each other and desire to become husband and wife. Knowing this, it is plain to see that human beings are not the fundamental cause, and that if there were no God, neither would there be human beings.
6The vast human race came into existence through the process of men and women meeting each other and living together. Humanity is composed of numerous nations, the nations are composed of numerous tribes, the tribes are composed of numerous families and the families are composed of numerous individuals. Each of us is one of those individuals and a member of a family. The family and blood relationships that bind us were not forged according to our own wishes. God gives us our birth, our family and our relatives. Without God, relationships between teachers and students, or between parents and children, would not be possible. God is the cause and all of these relationships in the world are the result.
7In order for anything on earth to exist, there has to be a cause. The world in which we live is a resultant world; the society and country in which we live and the environment we see around us are in a resultant position. There must be a motivation behind the existence of an environment of relationships. We cannot deny that. We can see that human beings are certainly behind the development of societies, nations, and the world. However, human beings cannot be the fundamental cause of human beings. We are undeniably in the position of resultant beings, behind whose creation there must be a motivation, a purpose and a reason.
8We have to unite mind and body with God at the center. When mind and body unite with God completely, they form a trinity. The reason we need to become one in mind and body centered on God is because God is our cause. God and human beings relate as cause and effect. The mind and body have a reciprocal relationship; this is a basic principle of the universe. Unity between cause and effect, and between subject and object partners, is a fundamental and universal principle. Unless there is oneness between God and humankind as cause and effect, between this subject partner and object partner, there cannot be an ideal environment, nor can we become ideal beings.
9Human beings are by no means causal beings. We are resultant beings, brought about for some reason. There is no way for a result to come about without any relationship with its cause. No matter how tortuous its course, the result needs to relate to and fit with the cause. Human beings are the way they are because they resemble some causal being. If we say that this causal being is God, we can draw the conclusion that human beings resemble God.
10God is the causal being of the universe. He is the causal being behind all action, the causal being who exerts force, the causal being who gives direction, and the causal being who endows purpose. We call Him a God of personality because He always acts with a clear motive, a sense of direction, and a purpose. Therefore, everything in the world advances in the direction of the purpose that is based on the cause. This is what we mean when we say that God is the being that causes everything.
11To a greater extent than we can ever fathom, human beings are the masterpiece of creation. If human beings have a subject partner, an absolute God who created them, would that God have rendered them incapable of knowing what He says, sees or feels? Let us compare God to an artist. To create a masterpiece, an artist conceives it in his or her imagination and designs it with his or her intelligence. The artist aims to create a unique work of art, the best in the world. If the masterpiece turns out perfectly, as envisioned, the artist feels infinite joy. If the work is even better than planned, no artist in the world would say, "This isn't what I intended," and then destroy it. If a piece of art is better than originally intended, he or she will cherish it as the treasure of a lifetime, and will want to display it with pride to others. Such is the heart of an artist. If human beings have a tendency to always desire something higher and better, God must have the same tendency. If He had that mindset when He created human beings, how wonderful they must be! We can conclude that God wanted to create us as His greatest masterpiece.
12Consider the structure of the human body, which is truly a palace of wonders. It is amazing that while each of the numerous cells is a separate entity, each cell cooperates with the other cells, without conflict, to form each of us as freely functioning individuals. We can conclude that this vast world moves and acts to perfect each of us individually. We can conclude further that everything is in motion for the purpose of fulfilling God's Will.
13The most important part of a person is the face. The most important part of the face is the eyes. If we think about it, we can say that our eyes came from our parents. Then from where did our parents' eyes come? Tracing back through our ancestry, we come to our first forebears, Adam and Eve. When the very first eyes came to be, do you think they knew of the sun's existence? No matter how much we analyze it, we can only conclude they did not. The eyelids could not have known that on Earth, moisture evaporates in the sun's radiant heat. The eyelashes did not know of airborne dust, even though one purpose for which they were created was to protect the eyes from it. We can understand that the eyes by themselves are a palace of infinite mystery, in that even before they were formed, the being who brought them into existence designed them with the sun, the airborne dust, and evaporation in mind. "God" is the name by which we know this subject partner who gave us birth.
14Consider your ears. They face the front. What if they were positioned to face the other way, or what if they were missing? We would not be able to pick up sounds from in front of us. We would also not be able to hear voices from a distance. The ears were formed to catch the sound of voices coming from in front of us. Why? It is because people face each other when they talk. No one talks to the back of your head. The ears face forward because when we meet people, we talk face to face. The fact that they face front means that someone knew in advance that the ears were to hear the sounds that come from in front of us.
15Why were the ears created? It was to capture the vibrations that pass by in the air and to harmonize them. Look at the ear carefully. It has a large auricle and a small auricle, providing the ability to screen sounds appropriately. When a loud sound is caught, the large auricle cleverly reduces the volume. If a loud sound were to enter the ear straight, it would shock the eardrum. That is why the large auricle lowers the volume, buffering it to the small auricle. Without this, the ear would have a problem. The ears did not know anything about this, but the causal being, who had a purpose for them, knew it from the beginning. That is why the ears were made the way they are. Someone knew and shaped them like that. We do not know whether this is the Creator or not, but there is someone or something there.
16When you see the bushy eyebrows on your face, you may be displeased with them and wonder, "Why do I have these bushy things here?" Without them, wouldn't you have a cleaner, better-looking face? So why are they there? If the human face were covered with fur, would we need eyebrows? Animals, which crawl on the ground, do not need eyebrows, although they have a brow line. Yet human beings, who walk upright, absolutely need eyebrows. The eyebrow area usually protrudes slightly, like a sculpted mountain range. It is the spot most likely to indicate good fortune. Why is it made like this? Because someone knew that human beings would walk upright.
17If human beings crawled, they would not need eyebrows. It is truly good to have them. The hair of the eyebrow grows in one direction. Why is that so? It is to send raindrops that land on the forehead off in one direction. Since the eyebrows grow in one direction and are curved slightly sideways, when water flows, it is bound to flow to the side and down. What if we had no eyebrows? Sweat and raindrops would go into our eyes and irritate them. Wouldn't that be difficult? If you look carefully at the eyes, you will see that the Creator considered that the eyebrows alone were not enough, and so equipped the eyes with eyelids to protect them. Tears are designed to flow to the side through a carefully molded channel. Safety measures are in place. I do not know who designed all of this, but it must have taken tens of thousands of years to do the research.
18What if the nose were upside down? A shower would cause a big problem. Think how serious this would be. It is not a laughing matter. The nose symbolizes the unique position of human beings in all creation. Human beings have to observe the heavenly law. That is, they have to honor the order of relationship between high and low. So why does the nose become wider the lower down you go? If it did not, it would be a big problem for the mouth, because things like raindrops would flow into it. For this reason, the nose widens at the bottom. It is marvelous to think about this as we look at the human face.
19If you look at the lips, you will find they are amazing. The lips and teeth work well together. How far apart are they? Not more than a few millimeters. This is very dangerous; even a small mishap could create a big problem. But do we worry about this? When we are eating, we just think about eating and don't give it a second thought. Isn't the tongue awesome as well? Inside the mouth, the tongue pushes and pulls, moving in and out between the upper and lower teeth while they are working together like a thresher. Yet the tongue and the teeth work in accord, without running into conflict. They fit together like a magic box. I speak very quickly. Even though I speak so fast, and it is the first time for us to meet, I can resonate with you well and we can become very close through words. Truly the tongue is an amazing instrument of harmony. What if the tongue only worked like a finger? It would cause a serious problem.
20How can we know whether God exists or not? We know air exists, even though it is invisible. How do we know? We know because we live by breathing it. Does the air have any taste? It has no taste and it is invisible; still, we know without a doubt that air exists. Similarly, we have a mind. Even though it is invisible, we know with certainty that we have it. You cannot use its invisibility as a basis to say there is no mind. Yet we do not know what the mind looks like. It is indeed a mystery.
21Where would God's dwelling place be? God would nestle in the most precious place of all -- love. Speaking of a man and a woman, where would God be? He would be at the point that stands perpendicular to their deepest love, based on their complete and unchanging unity. Where man and woman come into oneness, that place becomes the central point. If you reach a mystical state in prayer, enter the realm of spiritual experience, and call out to God, "Heavenly Father," you will hear the answer from deep inside, "Why are you calling me? I am right here. Here!" "Here" refers to the center of your heart. It is the central point of love where you are totally united in mind and body, the perpendicular space where God can dwell. Where is the center of the individual, family, tribe, people, nation, world and cosmos? That center, no matter how small, is the conscience. One's conscience upholds the place where the axis of universal love resides. Such is the conscience of one who has attained unity of mind and body.
22God is the root of love, the root of life, the root of lineage and the root of conscience. This is an undeniable fact. If there is such a God, why can we not feel Him? It is because He and we are one. He is one with love, one with lineage, one with life, and one with conscience. God is the root. If you want to manifest God, you have to spread your love in all four directions. That is, you must invest your love. If you sacrifice everything, even your life and love, and return to the zero point, then God will take ownership. At the zero point, centered on God, everything connects horizontally. As a result of the Fall, this vertical aspect was suppressed. However, once you enable the horizontal connection, God becomes the Lord of your conscience.
23Try as hard as you may, you will never disprove that each person has a conscience. No one can deny having one. Fallen people generally do not know whether God exists or not. However, God does exist. He is the Creator and we are His creation. If this is so, we must have some part that functions to unite us with our Creator based upon a shared purpose. There must be a certain force that urges us to align with, move toward, and achieve God's purpose of creation. Without such a force, human beings could not have come to exist. Since God is the Absolute Being, there must be a primary foundation upon which He and His creation can come into contact, an initial base upon which the two can unite. Therefore, God had to create human beings with something that functions within them to drive them toward their intended purpose and goals. Without that, there is nowhere that both God and human beings can be happy.
24The standard according to which God, the Absolute Being, created human beings could not be different from the standard He expected us to pursue as created beings. God and we human beings can be happy only when we share a single standard. Within us there must be a function that drives us to seek the absolute God. Without such a function, we would not be able to reach Him. There must be a force to stimulate us and push us forward. That force is the conscience, which we cannot ignore. The conscience wants to elevate us, so it urges us: "Become better! Do better!" We cannot deny this force. The conscience never urges us to be worse; it always pushes us to go higher, to be better tomorrow than today, to be better the next day than tomorrow, to be better next year than this year. The conscience is the force that urges us to become a better, more valuable individual.
25The human conscience is always in the position of the object partner rather than the subject partner. There is always a subject partner, even though we may not know who or what it is, that spurs us to take action according to certain principles. The subject partner and object partner work not to harm each other, but with the hope of common benefit and betterment. The conscience always works to lead us toward something better, bigger, more valuable and more universal. Therefore we can conclude that the conscience does not function on its own; it integrates the shared purposes of the subject and object partners.
26The subject partner and object partner interact based on the conscience. It is a heavenly law and principle that the conscience cannot work without a subject partner. When we see that our conscience is working constantly in pursuit of something higher, we can conclude that there is a subject partner on a higher dimension. We cannot deny the existence of the subject partner of our conscience, whom we call God. God absolutely exists. If you say God absolutely does not exist, you have to deny the functioning of the conscience. As long as you clearly recognize the existence of your conscience, you have to recognize the existence of God.
27The conscience is working every moment within every human being. If you wake up from a deep sleep, open your eyes and start to conjure up an evil scheme, your conscience, acting as your guardian, will say, "You scoundrel!" You cannot deny the working of your conscience. Humans are resultant beings, each with a conscience. When we admit this, we have to openly acknowledge that we surely have a subject partner, because all actions stem from a relationship between subject and object partners. The conscience always urges us upward toward higher things and never urges us to go downward. Why is that so? It is because of an overriding aspiration that compels it to unite with a higher subject partner and attain a higher value.
28God did not just come into existence at this moment in history. He does not only relate to one's personal emotional life. God has existed from the past to the present; that is, He has existed all throughout history. But in passing down His work from generation to generation, His intention is not to remain in the background of time, traipsing after people who pursue their private purposes, immersed in themselves. God will surely continue to advance the providence and pursue His Will through those who first become aware of the providence, and who brighten history based on the foundation they build in their lives. These are people who take a position that is public, not private.
29By what means can we hold on to God? It is through our sincere devotion. Nowadays we enjoy freedom of religion, with no persecution. God brought about this time in which we enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. This is preparation for the Last Days. That is to say, religious freedom has been bestowed thanks to God who willed it. Thus, in this age, we can put our lives on the line and devote ourselves to God without limit and we will not be persecuted. As the time of persecution has passed, we must become people of heart. We must treasure within us the heart that God experienced throughout history. God is not the God of one particular time period; He is the God of history. He is the God who has toiled hard through countless saints and sages who represented Him throughout history. To save all of you, to this day He has allowed many people to walk a path of persecution, even to the point of martyrdom. That is why I say He is the God of history.
30When we look at our history, we see that the world's cultures are being absorbed into larger cultural spheres based on religion. We witness the Christian cultural sphere in the democratic world, the Far Eastern cultural sphere of Confucianism, Buddhism and Zen, the Hindu cultural sphere in India, and the Islamic cultural sphere. Over thousands of years, human cultures have been gradually absorbed by these religious spheres. This is similar to a situation where all the component parts are gathered in a repair shop to be assembled into a whole. Through this we can discern the presence of God and His work.
31There is no place in the universe where God is not present, and yet we live unaware of His presence or absence. Air surrounds us, but ordinarily we do not feel it; it is only when we are suffocating that we realize that air exists. Further, right inside of us, our heart beats about seventy times a minute, but we are usually unaware of it. If we were forced to match our steps or the blinking of our eyes with the rhythm of our heart, we would collapse within three days from nervous exhaustion. So, it is good that we are unaware of such things. Suppose that God, who is omnipotent, omniscient, and in total control of heaven and earth, were right here with us. With His power, He could blow away mountains and put a hole through the earth. Seeing such things, do you think we could survive in the visible presence of such a God? It is good that God is invisible. If He were visible, we would have a nervous breakdown and pass away within an hour. We should therefore be grateful that God is invisible.
32We live every day under the rays of the sun, but we do not feel grateful. We do not greet the sun with gratitude, saying, "Thank you, sun." We tend to take such magnificent things for granted. What if God decided to remove all the air in the world, leaving only one gallon? If God were that mischievous, world unification would be easy. It would be done in five minutes. If God took away all the air and asked, "Will you unite or not?" all people would shout in unison, "Well unite!" God could unify the world in an instant this way. That God does not do this is something for which to be thankful, because without the air we would die. Air is absolutely necessary for life.
33The wise, all-knowing and almighty God thought it most convenient to reign as an incorporeal being who could move around freely in the midst of things. Since God has no form, He can pass through things at will without causing any problem. God can come to your body and pass through it without your awareness. When you doze off, God can step onto your body and walk on it as He pleases, and you will not even notice. How convenient! So it is logical to say that, after much consideration, God chose to remain invisible because He felt it would be most convenient.
34We know that air is circulating around us, but we do not feel it. If we are unaware even of the air circulating around us, how can we expect to be aware of God's presence? For God, it is most convenient to remain without form. At the same time, He has to be more than big enough to govern and wrap Himself around this huge universe. Although the incorporeal God can be as big as He wants, the universe is too small to contain His heart; He desires something even larger.
35You do not keep your most precious things in a place where people can just see and touch them. You secure them in a place where no one can steal them. If you had a most precious, prized and unique treasure, you would secure it where no one could take it. You would keep it in the deepest part of your heart, the place to which you alone had access. Your heart is the only place where you can meet God oneon-one. God too does not want to meet you in an exposed place. He seeks a unique place where He can meet you as an individual with unique character, thinking and feeling. That is the reason God made the conscience incorporeal.
36Let us imagine the world contained one treasure such that, if it were lost, on that very day the world would turn upside down. Would you keep that most precious treasure on the surface of your heart, or at the very center of your heart? I am sure you would keep it at the center of your heart. Still you would not feel at ease, and you would wrap it up, not only once, but many times over. You would not want just anyone to walk in and look at it, so you would cover it, layer upon layer, so that others would never set eyes on it. The human heart has this kind of desire. If God were visible, all the diamonds in heaven and on earth would pale into insignificance by comparison. Where would you house this God, the Absolute Being who is unique in the universe, who is of infinite value, who is the infinite source of life, and who is priceless beyond imagination? You would keep Him in your heart. You would hide Him where no one could find Him, even after seeking for tens of thousands of years. So it is good that God is invisible.
37God is a being without form, so the question arises: how can the incorporeal and the corporeal come together? How can the incorporeal world and the corporeal world become one? Logically, this is difficult to answer. A physical being cannot become the center that binds a spiritual self and a physical self. Then how can there be unity between the spiritual Parent and the earthly parents, that is, between God, who is spirit, and the unfallen human ancestors of the original standard, who have substantial form? Further, the vertical and the horizontal have to unite, but how? It is through love, the true love between them, traveling by the shortest and most direct route.
38God's heart exists not only in the Word but also in everything He created. God's heart is everywhere throughout heaven and earth. Thus we say there is nowhere that God does not exist; that is, God is omnipresent. Since God's heart is in all things of creation, if you want to be in His heart you should embrace everything that exists in heaven and on earth as your own. Our heart desires to go beyond our people, the world and all created things and be with God. In our heart we yearn to go to the place where we can even claim that God is ours. A person who has such a heart is with God.
39How can we feel God's ubiquitous presence? We should feel the air as God's breathing, and when a storm hits, we should feel as if He were sneezing. When we see flowing water, we should perceive it as the sweat God has shed as He overcame His course of suffering for the sake of the world. When we look at the sun, it should bring to mind the life elements of the entire universe, and teach us God's love. God created nature as a textbook for us, His beloved sons and daughters, to provide us deep experiences of His heart and bring us joy.
40The words, "In heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one" and "I am omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, and nothing comes into existence except by me" were spoken with love. Through love, we can be omnipresent. In love, there is nothing to hide. Everything is obvious. The moment you love, everything is open. God wants to be omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, with love at the center.
41If God did not exist in the universe, the universe might as well be empty. But since God exists, the universe is completely full. It is full of love. Hence, once we come to know that God exists, we feel that the universe is full even when we are alone. God is everywhere. We come to feel that He is everywhere. In the midst of such love, God's omnipresence deeply moves us. But if we do not know God, everything is empty.
42If you ask whether God exists, I will answer that God definitely exists. Where is He then? He is in the place nearest to us. That is why we cannot see Him. He is so extremely close to us that we cannot see Him. Can you see your eyes? They are too close to you to allow you to see them. Likewise, we cannot see God because He is so close to us.
43Man and woman each represent God. God is not somewhere else; He is in our hearts. So prayer is a conversation with the heart. God is the root of the heart. As we go deeper into the heart we will find God at the deepest root of our conscience. Next, God is the root of love, the root of life, and the root of lineage. Thus we need to be grateful whether we are at home or out in public. Wherever we go, in the country or in the world, we should always be grateful. Even when we go to heaven the same principle applies; if we follow this rule, we will pass freely wherever we go. It is the same whether in the kingdom of heaven on earth or the kingdom of heaven in heaven.
1If the Absolute Being created us with the intention that we practice His love, it is clear that He had a motive and a purpose in creating us. In order to clarify that motive and purpose, we need to know the nature of this Absolute Being; that is, we first need a correct view of God. A correct view of God will reveal His purpose and motivation for creating us. It will also clarify why we have to practice absolute love for the sake of peace.
2In the world there are two kinds of people, men and women. They do not change their position. We were born as one or the other not by our own desire. Even though we did not think about this or want it, and did not understand the process or the result, we were born as we are. No matter how successful a person is, no one can deny that he or she is a resultant being, not the causal being. This implies that there has to be a first causal being. Whether called God or something else, that causal being must exist.
3Human beings certainly are not the first being, but secondary beings. In order for a secondary or resultant being to exist, there must be a first, causal being. Ultimately, no force can separate these two beings. The first and second beings engage in a relationship. They each desire to become one, as cause and effect. If God, the causal being, becomes the center of all human beings, they, as resultant beings, need a process through which to fulfill His ideal. That is the process of life by which they mature, and from a broader perspective, the process of history.
4All of creation is composed of things existing in pairs. The mineral world comprises positive and negative ions that engage in give-and-receive action. Flowers have stamen and pistil, and the animal kingdom has male and female animals. Recently it has been discovered that even bacteria are male or female. If in the microscopic world, invisible to our eyes, there are male and female, what about the world that we can see with our eyes? Did all these male and female entities in this vast, limitless world come into existence by their own will? Or was it by another will? It was by another will. Hence, I repeat: no matter how great we are, we are resultant beings, not the primary causal being. Simply put, we are beings occupying the object-partner position.
5Human beings originated from the first cause. What is the first cause? It does not matter what name we use; that being is absolute and has an absolute ideal. We are not "primary" beings, but are resultant, "secondary" beings. For each of us, our immediate primary beings are our mothers and fathers. Our parents' primary beings are our grandmothers and grandfathers. If we keep going back we come to our first ancestors. If God is behind our first ancestors, we go all the way back to God.
6God is the motivation within our hearts. He is our original source, and the root of our ideals. Without a cause there can be no result. Therefore, the universe cannot exist apart from God. Dwelling on this earth, we are like orphans who have lost our parents. Imagine the joyful shout of someone who finds his or her lost parents. That joy would be incomparably greater than the joy of a general who conquers the world and gains a material fortune. The heart is what is important. No matter how praiseworthy your successes, if you do not go before your father and mother, you cannot stand as a true child.
7History began on the individual level and has unfolded throughout the world. Where will it conclude? It will continue until we establish an eternal relationship with the Absolute Being of the highest goodness. The highest goodness is eternal and unchanging. There can be no higher level. When we look at the current world, we see that people of different nationalities are gradually coming to share the same attitudes and feelings about life. Also, many who are seeking truth based upon their own beliefs are coming together and moving in the same direction. The root is the same. History as a whole is marching toward the one point of absolute value. We can say that the worldly values people pursue are in reality only relative.
8God is the Original Being of heart, intellect and will. As such, what is God's sense of purpose? God must have been conscious of His purpose before He began His creation, not only afterward. Were this not so, He would never have been able to guide human history. Behind history lies a force that we cannot consciously perceive or feel. But for this, God could not lead us toward the world He intends to see. God has a purpose for the world, which He holds in the depth of His heart. Even though we have fallen, He is determined to find human beings who can be instilled with this purpose, which has nothing to do with the Fall.
9God created human beings because of love. Yet love cannot be experienced by one person alone. Therefore, the only thing that God absolutely needs is an object partner to whom He can give His love. In other words, God needs His beloved object partner. He can love only when He has a partner to love. God is the origin of love and heart, and His motive in creating the universe was love. As Genesis 1:27 reveals, God created human beings in His own image, as His substantial object partners.
10God is the ultimate being of love and the origin of heart, which is deeper than love. God's Word, deeds and philosophy are rooted in His heart. None of these can exist by itself. Each stems from God's vertical heart. We therefore need to share God's heart toward history, toward the present, and toward the future.
11It is said that God is the origin of truth, the origin of goodness, the origin of love and the origin of life. What do these phrases mean? They all refer to the same thing. For there to be truth, there must be love and life. To become a person who can speak the real truth, you must have the will and desire for truth pulsating within your own life. As the origin of life, love and truth, God is the Father and also the Mother of all humankind. The core is that God is the Parent. Seen in this way, it is easy to understand God.
12No one can change the fact that True Parents were born in this country. How precious it would be to be one with the people of the nation that will remain for all eternity the nation that gave birth to the True Parents! All resultant beings want to be united with these original beings, who are eternal and unchanging. To be in an intimate relationship with these original beings is the highest hope in the world of heart.
13God, for whom we seek, is the origin of hope. At the same time, He is the origin of glory, encapsulating the value of the universe. Therefore, to restore God's dominion over the entire creation, we have to possess God within ourselves. We should be able to welcome and attend God. He is the Creator of all things, the one who has been toiling to exercise His dominion over all creation. When you say that you possess God, He is your God. As He is eternal, so are you. As He is the governor of all things of creation, so too can you govern them as His substantial embodiment. If you cannot be such a person, do not say that you possess God.
14We have to eliminate the elements of sin onto which we have held until now. We have remained in the grip of the power of death, but we should attain a standard of faith that liberates us from that. To do this, we have to find the path of life that eradicates doubt. If there were no such path in our world, God would not be able to come to us. God is an actual being. He can stimulate our conscience to make us aware of our mistakes and repent for them. This being so, we should fulfill God's desire by attaining the highest standard of hope, of life, and of human ethics. Such a time, the historic Last Days, must come in the end. This destiny involves the whole universe, but how seriously have you thought about it? We live in an environment in which we can nurse doubts about the universe, about society, about the world, even about ourselves. God is the central being who can provide solutions to all these questions. God is also the only one who knows everything we are pondering, and the only one, the Absolute Being, who can solve our fundamental problems.
15God is the central being of the cosmos. He is the Parent of the universe, the Parent of all creation. God is the Creator who will surely bring His purpose to pass. The True Parents on earth are the ancestors of humankind. They are the ones who inherit the parental heart of the Creator and give birth to humankind on this earth. From this perspective, we find three sets of parents in the cosmos: the eternal Heavenly Parent, the True Parents on this earth, and the parents in our families. What do these parents pursue in their public life? Not money or material things, not knowledge or power. They live with love as their center. God, True Parents on earth, and the parents in the family are the owners whose governance is based on love.
16To humankind, God is the Parent and King of kings, as well as the center of all things of creation. Hence, He is to lead and guide filial sons and daughters, patriots, and saints who represent the world. When this takes place, God will reach the highest position. God can be the Parent as well as the King. These positions are not separate; God is the central being who combines them. If it were possible, a person should combine the highest qualities of filial piety, loyalty and holiness, and attend God. Surely God would like to be attended by persons with the qualities of a filial child, patriot, and saint of saints.
17The Creator, standing at the center of the universe, protects it with a strong sense of responsibility. He protects and nurtures the universe well. Not only that, He takes responsibility for all things, good and bad. He never runs away from that responsibility. As the great Lord of the universe, God takes responsibility, protects and nurtures it. Thus all beings desire to create unity with God at the center.
18God has boundless blessings to give. He is the central being of all blessings. His blessings are the most valuable benefits. You cannot purchase them and you would never exchange them for anything in the world. He is in possession of everything that you could want. What He possesses is more precious than your beloved wife, more valuable than your father and more precious than the sons and daughters whom you love with your life. Therefore, the person who can call God his or her own is the one who can claim to be the most victorious and successful person on earth.
19God is the Lord of heaven and earth. He possesses the highest ideal; He is the standard around which our motivation and purpose converge. Therefore, God is the motivation for and purpose of our existence. Then where do this motivation and purpose lead? God's motivation is to have a family that centers on His Will, a family that can fulfill His purpose for the world.
20God is absolute, omniscient and omnipotent; hence, space and time do not restrict Him; He transcends them. Circumstances do not bind Him; He is able to break through them. If such a God still has an unresolved hope that He has been pursuing until now, that hope cannot be for Himself. His hope is for nothing other than to recover humanity as His children. He cannot fulfill that hope by Himself. Human beings have to resolve this and then return to God.
21We are not the origin. Our life did not originate with our parents, society, people or nation, but with the one transcendent origin, namely, the Absolute Being, God. Hence, we need to connect our life to the transcendent and absolute cause. This connection should not derive from a particular time, environment or social condition. In order to make a leap and go beyond these particulars we must link our origin to that transcendent cause and transcendent purpose. We have to link our life to the transcendent motive, for life did not begin from us. It began from the absolute God. When we link our life to the transcendent motive, even if we die, it will be according to His Will, through a course that is transcendent of us. This is not a purpose swayed by the environment or based on worldly relationships. This Will moves toward a transcendent conclusion. It has a transcendent motive in transcendent relationships. The transcendent motive is God, the transcendent process is His Will, and the transcendent purpose for which He advances is the good of the world.
22God is the vertical Father and vertical subject partner, and human beings are the horizontal subject partners. Only when the vertical and horizontal become one is a being perfected. A threedimensional being must unite in relationships of vertical, horizontal, and front and back. The vertical relationship is the parent-child relationship. The horizontal relationship is that between east and west, husband and wife. The relationship of front and back is that between brothers and sisters. Connecting relationships in this way establishes the spherical form of the ideal of love in each family, which is the ideal of creation. Where is God in this sphere? He is at the center. God's ideal of creation is the father, husband, mother, wife, son and daughter, older sibling and younger sibling, each representing God, who stands as the central being.
23God always takes the position of subject partner to those who dedicate their lives for a public purpose with a loyal heart. Thus, when we struggle and shed tears, God, as our subject partner, struggles and sheds tears more than we do. When we walk a public path with a burning heart of love, we stimulate God, who is the subject partner and center of love, and He always comes to us as our partner. God is also the subject partner who, as the source of energy, provides us the energy to achieve these purposes. In this world, it is hard to find a partner with whom to work in order to fulfill the purpose of love. How happy we would be if God were our partner! Partnership with God would be better than with our parents, our siblings, our teachers, or anyone else who loves us.
24Our subject partner is God. We should be happy together with God; we should sing with God and dance with God. If we could, how wonderful that would be! Our purpose is God. What are we looking for in our journey through life? We are looking for God, the real God.
25God is the owner of each individual, the owner of each couple, the owner of each family, the owner of each nation, the owner of the world and the owner of the cosmos. From the very core of His being, through His own love, He wants to take the role of the owner. In the position of subject partner, He wants to establish the world of peace through His object partners. Christianity teaches that the Creator is holy while humans are sinful. Yet they say this because they do not know the value of human beings. This is what I would like to teach: God created human beings as His substantial form; that is His first purpose for creating us.
26God is the most public-minded of subject partners. Then, what is God's most important lesson for us? It is that we should devote ourselves at the risk of our lives for His sake. That is even better than working for a public mission for the world. The one who puts his life on the line is the superior person. Therefore the Bible says: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." (Matt. 22:37-38) In light of this, what kind of being is God? He is the owner of the whole cosmos. Therefore, love God. The whole world will belong to the one who loves God.
27God is the subject of life. Where there is life, there must be love that is maintaining it. You were born through the love of your parents, but someone with love, life and purpose is behind them. He is the subject, but not a subject partner like you. He is the root of the whole. As His counterpart you can think of yourself as a cell, and He is like the root of everything, the nucleus of all beings in the universe. He is the nucleus of all life force. If there is a love force, He is its nucleus. If there is a purpose, He is the cause and the nucleus of that purpose.
28When the sun rises, the buds of each tree face the sun. What is it in the sunlight to which the buds respond? It is life elements. For us human beings, love is our life element. God is the sun of love. You have to engraft to the ideal of love and harmonize with it in order to develop your love and life, and to cultivate your character in harmony with the eternal world. Otherwise you cannot assume the position of counterpart to God; you cannot live in the realm of love partnership. Human beings are that precious. God created us as His partners of love.
29God is the subject partner of love, subject partner of life and subject partner of the ideal. Therefore, we can conclude that human beings are the object partners of love, object partners of life and object partners of the ideal. Because God is absolute, we also seek an absolute position. Because God is unchanging, we seek to be unchanging. Because God is unique, we seek to be unique. Because God is eternal, we seek to be eternal. From this point of view, it is human destiny to have an eternal life; we inevitably arrive at this conclusion. No matter how much love God has, no matter how much life He has, and no matter how high His ideals are, if we do not also possess these it is all in vain.
30God is the subject partner of our life. Because He is the subject partner of our life and love, we should appreciate the force of life and the force of love within Him. However, due to the Fall, we do not live in a world where God's force of life and God's force of love are valued. Hence, we ought to again seek such a world and recover it. The world we are living in now is not the world God desires; nor is it the one we desire.
31God is the subject partner of all living things, of all things in which there is action. He is their subject partner, not only today but all throughout time. Thus every living thing, whatever it may be, has an original nature that desires to be with God eternally, to live with Him and even share death with Him. God has to maintain His position as the subject partner. But He is beyond doing it as a duty; He is working passionately to govern all things through relationships of love based on heart.
32Until now we have called upon God based only on a concept. We have referred to God as our subject partner only in a religious sense. Yet God is the subject partner of our very existence. Furthermore, He is the subject partner of our daily life and the subject partner of our philosophy of life. However, no matter how deep and wide our philosophy and view of Him as our subject partner may be, if we cannot explain and experience God in daily life, emotionally and practically, what good is it? If there are people whose philosophy of life enables them to experience the value of God as their subject partner in daily life and to be so united with God that they would not exchange Him for the world, they must be the people for whom God is seeking.
33God is the foundation of happiness. Among all seeds, He is the seed of life. It is because life comes from God that life is great. God is the seed of a life that manifests the ideal. What is it that enables us to connect from the base of God's happiness to God's ideal? It is true love. God is the origin of life and the origin of love. He is also the origin of man and woman. He is the origin of the mother and father, of brothers and sisters.
34God values life, because He is its root. God values the Word. Also, God values action and love. When a person recognizes Him as the root of his or her existence and speaks His Word, God loves seeing that Word bear fruit as He has spoken it. Once that Word is spoken, it bears fruit. Then God does not leave the fruit of that Word alone, but continues to love it. In this way, God speaks the Word, a person puts it into action, and through action that person emerges as the embodiment of the Word. Then it is for God to develop that person into the embodiment of love.
1God's Word is not spoken blindly. Because God's Word is based on the Principle and because it is to create beings of limitless value, no one can dispute it. Everyone absolutely will have to unite with it. God Himself has faith in the Word, which contains principles and laws, and He made it into substance, the embodiment of Himself. It is through this substance that God's children emerge with the infinite value of His object partners. Then, through an explosion of love from that point, the bond between God and human beings is formed. It is the same whether referring to God creating His children, or to those children looking at God.
2God existed before the creation. Out of His existence, God conceived of the Word. The Word is that through which substance is created. God did not intend simply to create something and leave it alone; He wanted an eternal relationship with His creation. God intended an ideal of total oneness, an inseparable relationship that no one could break, that even He Himself could not break. Therefore, from the time the first human beings were created, God and human beings were meant to be together, not separate. From that starting point, God and we human beings were meant to stay together for eternity.
3God did not create human beings without having a clear idea. In creating them, God had conviction: "It will surely be like this." His faith contained a concrete plan. That plan was based on the Principle with its laws. God had faith in His creation according to the Principle. The moment of creation was to be when His faith united with His Principle to form the substance of His creation. The moment of creation came when His faith, the Principle and the substance were in complete accord. With faith and the Principle together, the purpose of God's Word was to create the substance.
4God's Word is a covenant between God and human beings. A covenant states, "If you do this, I will do this for you." The Bible teaches us that everything is given in a covenant. If you do your part, God will do something for you. If you fulfill the covenant, God will make you prosper. If you fail to do so, God will not interfere if you go to ruin.
5The Word has provisions for judgment. The law is the standard of judgment, the standard that distinguishes good from evil. Thus, the truth should explain the origin of good and evil and define the standard of good and evil. That standard should be the Unification Principle. Do you accept it as absolute? If you defy or go against the Word, the Word itself will restrict you. It is a principle that the Word benefits you. If you are aligned with the Word, you ultimately will achieve the perfection of your character. However, this achievement must not be centered on yourself. Even if you do everything in your daily life in accordance with the Word, you should not hope that the result will be yours. It belongs to God. This means that you should center your life not on yourself, but on the whole. Your perspective must change.
6Since we can call God our Father, we should be able to speak His Word. God's Word, wherever it is heard, leads to good results, resurrection, and the miracle of re-creation. Thus we should become people who can eradicate evil, bring about the work of resurrection and wield the power of re-creation. The place where such people reside is the kingdom of heaven.
7The purpose of our life is to connect to God's love. We who live on earth are the ones who can proclaim God's Word, the Word that connects us to God. Because the Word we convey on earth is God's, human beings can be created anew through that Word. You can reach the standard of perfection through giving and receiving. This is the viewpoint of the Principle. Because God is there, the one who hears His Word can resurrect. When we unite with that person as our counterpart, we can form a substantial base; on that foundation we can experience God's heart. Depending on the depth and breadth of our preparation, our capacity to experience God's heart grows. Within the Word, God's heart is beating. Therefore, once we hear the Word, even we fallen people feel God's heart beginning to bud within our heart. When our hearts thus begin to bud, we acquire the strength to love our enemy, and the power to subjugate Satan's world is activated. Thus you must never keep God's Word to yourself; you need to gain the ability to activate God's heart within you.
8We are not speaking of secular truth, but of God's words of love. God's truth is delivered to the earth through specific providential figures. God's truth is absolute. Absolute truth is like an all-powerful master key. By applying it, we can solve any difficult problem.
9When you receive God's Word, you should recognize it as the true eternal law and the truth for your own life, and be able to say, "This is the Word for my life." Further, you should have the experience of that one point in time in the beginning when God created human beings with the Word. Unless you experience it, unless you feel God's Word touching your skin, you cannot become God's son or daughter.
10If you really want to find the truth, do not pay attention to just anyone's words. You have to listen only to that which is true. Then what are the words of truth? Words of truth are those that stir a feeling of repentance in your heart, that move you so deeply that you become completely immersed in them, and that remain in your mind no matter how much you try to forget them. When you discover such words, you have found the words of truth that convey the principles of heavenly relationships.
11God has to re-create in accordance with the Principle. What should He do with human beings, who are like lumps of clay fallen into an unprincipled realm? God's position is the same as when He created Adam and Eve from clay. He has to do the work of bringing them to unite with the Word. The Word is not ambiguous; it is given in the Principle and its laws. The Word is like a blueprint with laws and regulations, instructing that human eyes should be like this and the nose should be like that. Human beings should follow this blueprint.
12God's Word is the root of all truth; hence it is the absolute truth. Further, it is the internally coherent truth. Due to the Fall, we lost God; we lost absolute truth and absolute values. We lost both the internally coherent truth and the internally coherent values. An absolute view of value stems from absolute values and absolute truth. "View" refers to viewpoint, opinion and theory. The establishment of a correct view of absolute values is the step that will resolve today's worldwide confusion.
13Why do we need God? It is because God has the unchanging truth. God's Word never changes. The Word that He spoke one thousand years ago will still apply one hundred million years from now. Human words, no matter how eloquent and flowery they are, wither away and fade from view. But God's Word transcends all changes wrought by time.
14God created everything through the Word. Unless the Word, the truth, is perfect, its substance cannot be perfect. It is inevitable that if the truth is imperfect, the creation will be imperfect. Our life of faith is the same. Unless we stand in a place that is perfect, our life of faith cannot be perfect. Therefore the perfect truth that God and the cosmos desire must emerge.
15God began His creation with the eternal and unique Word. He wanted Adam and Eve to fulfill the purpose of His Word, their bodies becoming temples where He could reside substantially forever. This was His purpose in creating Adam and Eve. When God breathed life into Adam and Eve, He wanted to reside in their hearts as the subject partner of their eternal life, and create for them the resting place of the Sabbath. God created Adam and Eve for this great purpose, to form an unbreakable relationship with them.
16When God speaks through the Principle, He is not speaking arbitrarily. God speaks in perfect accord with the Principle. This supports unity with His object partners. That is why we need faith. As God believes in us, we have to believe in Him. We should not be vague about this. We must center on the Principle and unite with it. We should not leave the Principle on the shelf, but should keep faith in it and substantiate it. By perfecting ourselves as the substance of the Principle, we become sons and daughters whom God can love.
17For what purpose did Jesus Christ proclaim the Word, as he came to the earth, shed tears, and followed a path of suffering for more than thirty years? First, it was to recover the relationship between God and human beings. Next, it was to introduce the kingdom of heaven. Jesus introduced the kingdom of heaven through his words. That is, he introduced the kingdom of heaven through truth. Through Jesus Christ, God gave us the Word, to establish an eternal, unchanging relationship with us and to realize the kingdom of heaven on earth. God revealed the real truth through Jesus. Jesus Christ came to build the relationship between God and human beings, and to testify to the real truth. He introduced and proclaimed the truth in order to build the kingdom of heaven for which God, humanity and all creation had been longing. Jesus proclaimed the truth in order to recover the relationship between God and human beings, but the people of Israel, who should have believed the truth Jesus brought, distrusted him. The Word was proclaimed but its purpose was not accomplished.
1God is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal. These are His four attributes. Accordingly, every one of His creations is absolute and unique. Because each entity is absolute, God wants to place it in its own absolute position. That is why all entities are unique and do not randomly intermix. The way of love is unique and, therefore, unchanging and eternal.
2God is absolute, unique and unchanging. Based on this, one should become the subject partner of absolute love, unique love, unchanging love and eternal love. Such a person becomes a representative of God. One who reflects God's attributes can become His representative. With what did God endow His partners when He created them? He endowed them with creativity that is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal. He gave them absolute creativity rooted in love. God's love is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, and through that love we share His suffering and His joy, and participate in everything with Him. We thereby inherit everything from Him. If we have the love of the absolute God, we become the object partners of the absolute God.
3God is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal. To unite with Him, we likewise have to be absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal. Then and there, eternal love can begin. We can be perfected as men and women only through a life relationship that is eternal. We become eternal true men and eternal true women only when we go through a process of growth and settle in the position that is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal. Then we become the unchanging owners of love. This is where love is perfected, where the life of a man and a woman unite. At the same time, they come to create a new life, connecting to a new relationship of lineage.
4God exists centered on love. Therefore, God's absoluteness is centered on love, His uniqueness is centered on love, and His constancy is centered on love. All of them are centered on love. The attributes of love are also absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal. All people want such love, absolute love. "Absolute" means there is only one. So we know that God's nature is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal.
5Love unfolds in mutual relationships. Therefore even God, who is absolute, has to be absolutely obedient in front of love. Otherwise He would not be able to teach human beings about the core principle of relationships. God wants to teach Adam and Eve, "Your conjugal love is absolute; you cannot change it for eternity" Why? It is because they are the manifestations of God's attributes. God is one, absolutely not two. Adam is the manifestation of God's attributes, and therefore he is an absolute being. Adam manifests God's male attributes; Eve manifests God's female attributes. These attributes themselves are absolute. Love brings together internal and external attributes. As such, love is absolute, and that is why even God absolutely has to obey absolute love. Hence, the couple that appears with this absolute love is one and only one, not two. It is absolute, and at the same time, unchanging and eternal.
6The goal set up by God, the Creator, cannot change. God is the center of each person's conscience and the objective of all people's hope. No matter how much time passes, no matter what course history takes, He can never change. Before eternity and after eternity, God cannot change. That is why God said, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." (Rev. 22:13)
7God is the root and origin of love. God is also the root of life. God is the root of lineage and the root of conscience. We know that love, life, lineage and conscience exist, even though we cannot see or touch them. Likewise, we cannot see or touch God, but we can come to know that He exists. Then where is God, who is the root of life and the root of love? He is not up in the air. He dwells in the root of our love and life. That is why we cannot feel Him.
8God is the root of true love. Elements from the root reach the shoots through the trunk. Then the branches stretch out in all directions, east, west, south and north. The further the branches stretch, the more the shoots, the trunk and the roots grow. This symbolizes God, the vertical Father of true love, and the human world. God, the Creator, is our Father centered on vertical true love.
9The root of love is God. God is the root of all roots. We have to engraft ourselves to that root of love. When we unite with it, we can connect to the root of love and new shoots can emerge and grow into a tree that eventually will flower and bear fruit. There, the Lord's hope can bloom. New shoots have to come out and grow into branches. A shoot by itself will perish. A shoot wants to grow into a branch. Multiple branches have to grow from the main trunk and then, after a proliferation of leaves, flowers will blossom. This is the order of growth. This process leads eventually to the stage of perfection.
10God is the Lord of love and the root of love. Among all roots, there is one central root. We need to seek the love that reaches to that main root. To do this, we have to become just like God. As God's mind and body are absolutely united, we should become sons and daughters whose minds and bodies are absolutely united.
11The God of goodness is a God of sacrifice and love. Love cannot exist apart from the essence of sacrifice. When we sacrifice for the one we love, we do not think of it as sacrifice. The more we sacrifice, the more we feel enriched. Love has that unusual quality. When we reflect upon our level of love, we find that we can measure it only on the scale of sacrifice. Big or small, high or low, the extent of our sacrifice is the measure of our love. Great sacrifice reflects great love; little sacrifice reflects little love.
12God is the being of absolute love. God created human beings as His object partners, desiring to pour His love into them. In doing so, God expected that, through man and woman, His love would return naturally. If that had occurred, God would have felt infinite joy. Adam and Eve would have become the perfect object partners of God's love only when the two achieved perfect unity in their love. But Adam and Eve had to go through a period of growth in order to become a mature couple, resemble God, receive God's love, and finally return love to Him.
13God created heaven and earth for love. Who are the object partners of His love? They are human beings. This shows us the value of human beings. As the King of love, God desires to possess the love of parents, the love of couples, and the love of brothers and sisters. God is the King of love. As the subject partner whose original nature encompasses east, west, north and south, and front, back, right and left, He is ready to meet any counterpart who desires true love.
14What is the nature of God's relationship with human beings? To have a relationship with human beings, He has to be a personal God. And in order to be a personal God, He should be like us. Human beings have mind and body. We can deduce the concept of God's dual characteristics from the premise that God, as our Creator and original being, in order to share with us a common purpose, has to resemble us human beings.
15God, the Creator, would not create without purpose. Since human beings have emotion, intellect and will, it follows that God, our Creator, has to be the original being of emotion, intellect and will.
16God is a personal being. As a personal God, He has emotion, intellect and will. Thus, God and we can communicate with each other. For instance, when we laugh, God should be able to laugh. Then does the absolute God, who can do whatever He wants, shed tears? Yes, God also sheds tears.
17Today many Christians have the view that since God, the Creator, is a unique and absolute being in the position of the Most High, a being of supreme goodness, He cannot have a relationship with human beings, that is, beings that He created. In other words, they say that His creatures are profane, whereas He is absolute and divine. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of love, no matter how lofty and righteous God is, and no matter how lowly His creatures are, in order to share a love relationship they need to have the same qualities of character and heart. That is, God and human beings must be able to share the same heart. It means God naturally must have the same qualities as human beings. Hence human beings resemble Him, and we believers say, "God is our Father, and we are His children." Saying this means that human beings resemble God. How does resemblance come about? It comes through the bloodline, the lineage. The fact that we are bound to God through lineage means that we bind to Him through love.
18God is a personal God, having emotion, intellect and will. Above all, this personal God desires love, so He created human beings as His object partners of love. Christian theology states that the Creator is sacred and His creatures are lowly, but this cannot be the whole story in light of the ideal of partnership, for the fulfillment of which God absolutely needs to find an ideal object partner of love. Since God is divine, the object partner of love whom this divine being is seeking also has to be divine. This is the basis for the privilege and authority of human beings.
19The final destination of philosophy is to find God. What God? The God who is absolute, unique and unchanging. But most of all He must be a personal God, because this is the kind of God that human beings need. In order to relate to us, God has to be a personal God who shares all our thoughts, ideals and desires, including both internal and external aspects. He has to be the One who can relate with us deeply in all dimensions -- emotional, volitional and intellectual. Unless He can form a complete relationship with us, even though He exists He would really have nothing to do with us. From the perspective that God has to be a personal God, philosophers have been ignoring the most essential meaning of God.
20Love is what God needs, and He will love those who resemble Him. Therefore, to share love, God needs a partner with whom He can be pleased. If human beings are indeed God's partners, it follows that God must have a personality that can harmonize one hundred percent with the attributes of human beings. God must be the One who can harmonize with all the elements of the body and mind. Hence, God must have emotion, intellect and will.
21When we look at God, we can see He is a personal God. Since He is the subject partner of human beings, He has the character to perfectly relate to us. If God is like this, He surely has His own views about morality in human relationships and the rules of conduct by which we should live. Just as we have views about morality that are based on human relationships and the human heart, God must have views about morality that are based on our relationship with Him and on His heart. God, as the subject being, has His own love and His own rules of conduct. Accordingly, human beings should possess love and uphold rules of conduct appropriate to being His object partners. It makes no sense to believe that human rules of conduct, morals and heart exist but divine rules of conduct, morals and heart do not.
22The I Ching says, "The cycle of change is the law of heaven; benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom are supreme in human nature," showing that benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom are important. The I Ching explains the constant changes in nature, the cycle of the seasons, and the cyclical path of change in the universe. But it makes no mention of a personal God. Further, the book explains the law of yin and yang in the natural world, but falls short with respect to love, lineage and perfection. It does not explain the being who, while existing as the harmonization of subject and object partners, and of internal character and external form, brings east, west, north and south into balance.
23The God who governs heaven and earth is a personal God. This personal God wants to become the Parent of an ideal family and, in the position of a husband and wife, lead the children to form a tribe, lead the tribe to form a nation, and then unite the world as one great family of God. Then the world will become one single people. Jesus' proclamation that he was the Son of God was amazing. He also spoke of the bride and bridegroom. He taught us the highest standard that a person is to attain. John 14 explains the essence of this. Jesus also said he would come again. He must come again to find the bride and the bridegroom, form the family, tribe and nation, and unify the world.
24We cannot talk about love unless God is a personal God. God needs to have the same qualities of emotion and character as human beings. Christianity, alone among religions, reveals this God. Christians call God "Father" and "Jehovah." That we can call God "Father" was a great discovery.
25God is the God of the Principle. Conversely, Satan stands in an unprincipled position. Therefore, if you are unprincipled, it puts Satan in charge; if you are principled, it puts God in charge. When we consider the positions of the beings at the time of God's creation, God came first, next were Adam and Eve, and then the archangels. This is the view based on the Principle.
26What is the purpose of a religious life? It is to realize one's original nature. Original nature is the core of the Principle. Since God is the owner of the Principle, He can govern by the Principle. But God can govern only what is within the original nature. Since the original nature and the absolute God are one, the original nature also strives to stand in the absolute position. Because of this, the mind can command the body absolutely, and this is principled. The Principle determines the core of everything. The more principled something is, the closer its position will be to the center.
27A good and upright person represents the whole. In measuring goodness, the closer a person is to the position of the Principle, the better he or she is. Our original nature inclines us to engage in actions that move toward oneness with God, because He is the center of the Principle. This inclination toward oneness with the center results from the action of the conscience. Had our ancestors not fallen, the conscience would have directed and disciplined the body. That is the Principle. But due to the Fall, the body became an unprincipled base. Thus, the Principle inevitably engages us in action to fight against that which is not of the Principle. This is the action of the conscience.
28All that is true is necessarily centered on God. All things become true if and when we human beings lay the fundamental foundation upon which to bring forth order and good governance. Absent such a foundation, nothing is really true. God is the source of what is true; trueness is possible because God exists. When God departs, so does trueness. In that void, the origin of evil emerges. True results can only come from truth. In other words, the fulfillment of God's desire comes from the existence of the true God. Please understand that concepts such as truth and goodness are established in relation not to human beings, but to God.
29What is truth? To man, the greatest truth is woman. To woman, the greatest truth is man. To God, the truth is human beings; to human beings, the truth is God. Truth is not found elsewhere. Since God is true, and is the truth, all that stems from Him is true, and is the truth. How can truth reach perfection? When man and woman become one and, as a couple, unite with God in true love, perfection is attained. There can be no perfection without true love. Seen in this way, man represents the perfection of truth and woman represents the perfection of truth. Thus, for man and woman to become one is to perfect God and the universe.
30God is the subject partner of the truth and the original essence of the truth. Accordingly, it is said that all things are possible through Him. This basic principle is effective because God is the truth. As the subject being and the subject partner, God is in the position to take responsibility for all things, whether under His or another's dominion. Because He takes responsibility, He has been the center of history and will remain the central being forever.
31If God ignored His own law, with which He created everything, He would not be able to govern His creation. Because He established the law, God takes dominion over His creation by observing that very law. Thereby, He becomes the God who makes the law His own. If he were to oppose it, He could not own it. By observing it, God becomes the God of law. Because He is one with the law, He can judge according to the law. He can forbid things and give commandments. Otherwise, He cannot judge according to the law or pass sentence by the law.
32Christianity describes God as the omniscient and omnipotent Father, but His omniscience and omnipotence do not function apart from a basic principle. God does not act arbitrarily. The law established by the eternal God is eternal. The fact that He is the One who established it does not justify His being arbitrary and changing it.
33Christian ministers may think, "The omniscient and omnipotent God, with the power of creation, can do whatever He wants, even now." But that is far from the truth. All things existing in heaven and on earth operate by the fundamental law, the Principle. Even God cannot act in violation of His law. Even the president of a nation has to respect the constitution and the laws the legislature passes according to it. Since God is the being who is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, His law is also absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal. He needs a partner who conforms to this law. For Him this is the highest necessity. He needs a partner who, representing the world, abides by the law and liberates the people.
End of God's Existence and Attributes