The fundamental questions about life and the universe can never be solved without understanding the nature of God, who created all things. But how can we know the characteristics of God, who is an invisible being? The Apostle Paul answered this question by saying, "Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20).

Just as we can sense an author's character through his works, so we can perceive God's deity by observing His creation. In order to know the characteristics of God's divine nature let us examine the common factors which can be found throughout His creation.

No being, whether it be man, animal, plant, molecule, or even the atom, the basic unit of all matter, can exist except through the reciprocal relationship of its subject and object parts. For example, mankind is composed of men and women, animals of male and female, plants contain both stamen and pistil, molecules are formed from positive and negative ions, and even the simplest atom is composed of a proton and electron. This clearly suggests that all things exist only through the reciprocal give and take relationship of subject and object.

Furthermore, every created being has both an external form and an internal character. Though differing in value or importance according to their level of existence, the external form and internal character are simply the two relative aspects of each existing being.

As Paul indicated, the creation does reveal what God is like, and it shows us that God, the First Cause of the creation, exists as a harmonized being of Original Character and Original Form, as well as of positivity and negativity.

When we speak of God as a holy God or God of love, we are referring to a part of His Original Character, whereas when we speak of God as a God of power, we are referring to his Original Form. God is the causal being of all things. It is God's character that produced the motives, order and purpose for the created world, and it was His form, which took the form of energy, that produced the created world.

Every created being which is created by God contains the essential characteristics of internal character and external form, as well as positivity and negativity; in other words each created being reflects God's own form of existence and contains the elements necessary to maintain its own existence. But then do things exist as completely independent and isolated beings without interrelationships? Or do they exist with some relationship to one another'? From an external viewpoint all things indeed exist as separate individuals, but because they were created by God, whose own nature is harmonized, then they, by nature, are designed to exist, grow and multiply only through interdependent and harmonious relationships with each other.

Reciprocal relationships strive toward the ideal of having the action of giving and taking, which we call Give and Take Action. An ideal relationship is established when a subject and object, which compose all things that exist, enter into Give and Take Action. This action then supplies all the energy needed for that particular creation; in other words, the energy necessary for existence, multiplication and action is generated. Then, what is the fundamental energy which generates this action of give and take? All things which exist in the created world must first have the energy that works within each being, plus the energy which makes possible action between beings; in other words, the power which serves as the motivating energy to make possible Give and Take Action. We call this energy Universal Prime Force.

The Universal Prime Force coming from God determines the direction and purpose of all give and take actions, and thus all created beings, from the smallest particle to the entire cosmos, are directed into organic relationships with one total purpose. Because Give and Take Action occurs between subject and object only when there exists complete commonality of purpose, we can see that the goal of Give and Take Action lies in subject and object uniting so that they develop into a higher being.

Once a being has been unified within itself it is then capable of higher give and take relationships with other beings, and upon uniting with them in Give and Take Action, is thus elevated into a still higher being. Since all things are directed by two purposes, the purpose of self-maintenance (individual purpose) and the purpose of maintaining the whole (whole purpose), the universe could be said to be one huge organic body, interwoven with the dual purposes of all creation.

When a subject and object, united through Give and Take Action form unity with God, who is the ultimate subject and basis of the universe, this Give and Take Action with God gives birth to a new being, which becomes a new object to God. This process of creation or process of energy projection is called Origin-Division-Union Action. Through this process of origin-division-union, centering around God, the origin, a divided subject and object pair (projected from God) enter into the ideal Give and Take Action with God. God the origin, the subject and object and the new being formed by their union all together form an unchanging foundation of power called the Four Position Foundation. The Four Position Foundation is the basic foundation upon which God can operate and becomes the most basic foundation where God's purpose of creation is perfected.

God is an eternal and unchanging being. Therefore His will and ideal must also be eternal, unchanging and unique. Before His undertaking the task of creation, there was within God His ideal, and in order to realize it, He created man and the universe. Then, what is God's ideal of creation?

Whenever God made a new species of creation, He said that it was good to behold (Gen. 1:4-31). Because perfect happiness is felt when our own personality is reflected through an object, God created man and the universe as His substantial objects of joy. Especially since man was created as God's direct objects of happiness, He gave man dominion over all things (Gen. 1:28). In Gen. 2:17 God commanded to the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, ". . of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." In this commandment God expressed His will and heart of love for man. Therefore, we can see that man is created as an object of love to respond the most directly to God's will and heart. Since the Four Position Foundation is the base upon which God can operate, when man has achieved these four positions centering around God's ideal of love, we become an object of God's perfect happiness, thus realizing God's purpose of creation.

God's purpose of creation of man is well summarized in Gen. 1:28: "And God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion'. . . " First man should attain perfection and unity in heart with God, becoming a man who thinks and acts constantly centering around God, and the fruit of God's vertical love and His object of perfect happiness. This is the state of individual perfection.

Secondly, after both Adam and Eve attained perfection, they were to become eternal husband and wife, forming a heavenly family, thus perfecting the horizontal love of God. God gave them the ability to bear children so that they could experience with their own children the vertical love that God has for us. If Adam and Eve had perfected the purpose of God's creation and formed the first family, bearing children of goodness, they would have become a true father and true mother centering around God, the eternal true parents and ancestors of mankind.

Therefore, the basic unit of heaven is the true family where the Four Position Foundation is established and God's love, both vertical and horizontal, can dwell and be freely expressed. Upon that foundation of such a true first family, centering around God, His will is to realize a true society, true nation and true world. If Adam and Eve had established such a family and world on earth, this world would literally have been the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

The third blessing God gave to man signified man's qualification to dominate the whole creation. God made man as an encapsulation of the structures, functions and essential qualities of all the plants and animals which He had previously created.

Thus, the world of creation was to be the substantial object of man and man was to feel immense joy when he felt his own nature reflected through the created things which resembled him.

The world where the three blessings are realized is the ideal world in which God and man as well as man and the creation are in complete harmony. Such a world is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. As will be described later, man was meant in the beginning to live on earth a life of total oneness with God, the true being of life and goodness, and upon his physical death and passing into the spiritual world he would automatically be in the spiritual Kingdom of Heaven and live eternally under the perfect dominion of God's love.

In other words, the Kingdom of Heaven is the world resembling an individual who has attained perfection. In man, the mind's command is transmitted to the whole body through the central nervous system, thus causing the body to act toward one purpose. Thus in the Kingdom of Heaven, God's will is conveyed to all His children through the true ancestors of mankind, and under the ideal of God, causing all to respond toward one purpose of God. Just as no part of the body would ever rebel against a nerve's command, perfect man would feel no antagonism or rebellion against God's dominion of love. Such a world would have not one iota of contradiction or crime.

Then, let us consider the process of God's creation.

It is recorded in the first chapter of Genesis how God created all things. He commenced with the creation of light out of chaos, void and darkness and took a period of six "days" to come to the creation of man. But as it is said in II Peter 3:8, ". . with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day." From this we can understand that these days were not actual 24-hour days. The universe did not suddenly come into being without a lapse of time, but rather it was created through six gradual periods.

This means that for each creation to mature, there was a period of growth necessary. If things do not need time to mature, then time would not have been necessary in the original creation of all things. If the "morning" mentioned in Genesis stands for perfection, then the "evening" must signify the beginning point of creation while the night must represent the period of growth necessary for a creation to be perfected.

The fall of man as well implies that there was a period of growth necessary for man. If man had been created perfect, there would have been no possibility for man to fall, because a perfect God would not create anything perfect that was also flawed. If He did we would doubt His omnipotence.

Man, just before falling, was still growing towards perfection and was in the position to choose either the way of death or the way of life. God could not have intended for man to remain in imperfection, for His ideal was to have him attain perfection (Matt. 5:48, Gen. 1:27). Therefore, it can be concluded that man fell while still in the process of growth, or in other words, while still imperfect.

Had man gone through the period of growth and become perfect, he would have been dominated directly by God's love, and such a perfected man, in turn, would have directly dominated all things through love. Therefore, the realm of the direct dominion of God, or the dominion of love, is where the ideal of creation is realized.

Then, how does God guide man and all things that are still in the growth period? Because they are still in the growth period, He cannot relate to them directly. Instead, God relates to them indirectly through the Divine Principle, or the order of creation; hence, the period of growth is called the indirect dominion of God. God exists as the author of the Principle, dealing directly only with the results of the growth of the creation in accordance with the Principle.

Just as God created through the stages of evening, night and morning, so the growth period of all things is divided into three orderly stages-formation, growth and perfection. All things are automatically guided through the growth stage by the power of the Principle itself, but man was created to grow spiritually by observing God's commandment. In addition to growing physically through the autonomy of the Principle, man must accomplish his own portion of responsibility in order to grow spiritually.

When in Gen. 2:17 God says, "In the day that you eat of it you shall die," we can understand that man was to grow to attain perfection by observing God's commandment not to eat of the fruit. To trust in and obey God's commandment or to fall, depended not on God, but entirely on man, himself.

Seeing the result of man's failure to fulfill his own portion of responsibility, we might well ask why God gave this portion of responsibility to man. In sum, it was to qualify man to be lord over all creation.

The true right of dominion belongs only to the one who has created. Yet, God told man, who is a created being, to dominate all things (Gen. 1:28). So God had to have man inherit God's creatorship. Though it is just a small portion of responsibility, man is not perfected by God's Principle and power alone. Even though man is created by God, by man's fulfilling his own portion of responsibility to perfect himself, God can bestow upon man the qualification of being co-creator.

This portion of responsibility is not only a duty, but a precious gift from God. By failing to accomplish his own precious portion of responsibility, man fell. In order to save such a man who could not reach perfection on his own, God had to undertake the dispensation of the re-creation of man. And just as in the course of the original creation, man's portion of responsibility is inevitably the essential factor in the dispensation of re-creation (John 3:16, Matt. 7:7, Matt. 7:21).

Now, let us turn to the matter of the existence of a world of life after death and the question of the existence of man's spirit, according to the Principle of Creation. Does a substantial spirit for man actually exist? If so, what does it look like, and what is the spiritual world like in which the spirit lives? What is the relationship of the spiritual world to the physical world? And what are the principles that govern the spiritual world?

Today, all around the world, much research is going on related to the spiritual world. But the vast and complicated realm of spiritual phenomena has never been presented in a systematic and clear way. As a result many people have been confused, and some even dismayed by these important questions and this has affected their religious life. In the Bible, there are references to the spiritual world, such as the three stages of heaven in II Cor. 12, the record of the appearance of Moses and Elijah with Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration and many other consistent descriptions of a "heavenly world."

Just as man has mind and body, in the world of God's creation there is not only the visible substantial world, or physical world, but also the invisible substantial world, or spiritual world. The visible world is where the physical body acts within the limitations of time and space; on the other hand, the invisible world is where the spirit man lives, and it is limitless and eternal. As is implied in Heb. 8:5, ("They serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary") the invisible world is the subject to the visible world, which is object. The invisible world is a greater reality than the visible world.

Then, how does man relate to these two worlds? In Genesis, it is written that God created man from the earth (Gen. 2:7). This means that man's physical body is made up of such basic elements as the earth, water, air and sunlight of the physical world. When God breathed into man the breath of life, this is when He created man's spirit. In Divine Principle, this is called the spirit man.

Thus man's spirit man and physical man are together an encapsulation of the entire cosmos, and man is the mediator and center of harmony of these two different worlds. These two worlds, the spiritual world and physical world, relate to one another through man.

The relationship of the spirit man to the physical man is like that of fruit and tree: the spirit man grows only on the foundation of the physical man. In other words, the degree of goodness of the spirit man depends upon the quality of life lived on earth in the physical body. Just as a ripened fruit is harvested while the vine returns to the earth, the spirit man, because it was created to live for eternity, remains and lives eternally in the spiritual world, while the body returns to the earth (Ecc. 12:7). The death that afflicted man due to the fall is not physical death but the deterioration of man's spirit.

When a man lives his life according to God's ideal of creation in his physical body, he is living in the veritable Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and the world where this spirit man would go after physical death is the Kingdom of Heaven in the spiritual world. Therefore, God's primary goal of creation is to realize the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and then in the spiritual world.

So the purpose of creation should be fulfilled on earth first. This is why God's objective is salvation on the earth. And to achieve this, He sent His prophets and the Messiah to this world, in order to make people on earth believe in Him. Thus, the Bible says, ". . whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 18:18).

God does not determine whether a spirit man goes to the Kingdom of Heaven or to hell. It is man, himself, who determines this through his daily life on earth, and he goes to the place in the spiritual world based on the stage of development that his spirit attained on earth. God, the Messiah, and religion can only teach people how to avoid hell and show how to go on to reach the Kingdom of Heaven.

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