WHAT IS UNIQUE AND DISTINCTIVE ABOUT REVEREND MOON'S TEACHINGS
Reverend Moon tells us he received the Divine Principle by revelation through hours of intense prayer and scriptural study over a period of seven years. With a Christian background, raised in the Korean culture of Confucianism and Buddhism, with academic studies in electrical engineering, Reverend Moon was in a uniqueposition to bring to the world a religious revelation that combined the wisdom of East and West, the scientific and the mystical.
A theologian accurately remarked:"Divine Principle humanizes God and divinizes man" .
Divine Principle Humanizes God
Divine Principle reveals God as first and foremost as a God of heart and loving parent who created man to be the object of His love. God is all powerful, and all knowing but, he is "humanized" because according to Divine Principle, God cannot be happy and complete without the reciprocal love of His children. Due to man's separation from God at the fall of man, man did not become his full objects of love and the ideal world planned was not realized. God needs man to be happy through receiving love from His children. As a loving parent He suffers greatly over man's separation and works ceaselessly behind the events of history to bring man back to Him and to realize ideal world He originally planned.
Divine Principle Divinizes Man and Woman
Divinizing man, is meant that DP teaches that God’s original plan is that all men and women are to be sons and daughters of God just as Jesus was God's son. If Adam and Eve hadn’t fallen, all men and women would have been of the same perfection as Jesus and that God works for the day when all men will naturally develop to be “perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect.” God's original plan for each man to become a perfected son or daughter of God will be realized through a spiritual reformation that taking place during this time in history.
The First Theology and Biblical Interpretation to Place the Family at the Center
From beginning to the end, God’s originally planned ideal, humanity's fall from grace, and our struggle to reconnect with God and the ultimate realization of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, all according to Reverend Moon revolve around family. The Divine Principle’s interpretation of the Judeo-Christian scriptures, reveals a repeated pattern of family restoration, beginning from Genesis and ending with the prophecies of the Book of Revelation. That is the first human couple, Adam and Eve, departed from God because they failed to connect themselves to God not only individuals and as a married couple who were to create a family centered on God. Therefore after this fall from God, God worked to restore not individuals but families back to him bit by bit, beginning with Cain and Abel in Adams family, and then on the Noahs, Abrahams, Isaac , Jacob and Moises and finally Jesus family. In fact, according the DP, all God’s providential work in history is to establish one God-centered family- such a family is the foothold that will turn the world around.
Divine Principle is Uniquely Comprehensive
The Divine Principle not only gives explanations of the traditional categories of theology including Christology, trinity, the nature of God and his relation to man, the origin of evil , the Last Days and predestination. It also explains what kind of ideal society God originally planned for man, an interpretation of the primary events in the Old and New Testament, how God has been working in history since Jesus time up to today. Based on events in the Bible DP explains God’s original ideal, the cause of the fall from God, and the process of restoration back to God including the precise historical laws and principles God uses in history to bring back man to God. These laws of restoration and indemnity operation of in the lives of all the central persons and families in Biblical history, post biblical history from Jesus to modern times and in modern times. DP also provides a detailed historical explanation of how God has been guiding events from Jesus time until today and God's plan today to realize his original ideal world.
Divine Principle Elevates the Position and Importance of Women.
First by showing that God is
a being of dual characteristics of masculinity and femininity .This
means that a man is a complete reflection of God only when he is
united in marriage with a woman and vice versa. Secondly, in Reverend
Moons understanding of the key biblical figures, restoration took
place in the family- not just centered on the victories of an individual
man- which means that the role of the women was equally important.
Divine Principle Distinctively Reveals A Suffering God Who As Our Parent Grieves Deeply Over Our Fallen,Tragic Lives
A hallmark of the Divine Principle is the revelation that God above all our Parent and as our Parent He is a God of suffering experiencing untold grief since the fall of man which brought about a world where God's children live in a Hell on earth of fighting, sinning, injustice, poverty and destruction.
Divine Principle is a Theology Consonant with the Latest Scientific Knowledge
DP declares that the time of blind faith has
ended and in this modern age, man can only accept a religious teaching
that is logical and in harmony with scientific knowledge. Those who
listen to DP are struck with the logical explanations , and the logical
internal consistencies of the thought and the compatibility with
modern science.
The Divine Principle Harmonizes the Wisdom and Thought of Oriental Religions with the Wisdom and Thought of the West’s Central religion, Christianity.
Prominent
scholars of history like Arnold Toynbee predicted that the new world
culture will be a combination of the Oriental and the Western. Teachings
like the DP that harmonize both traditions are essential for future
of the a unified and peaceful world.
Divine Principle Holds Man Entirely Responsible: God's Will Has Not Been Done Due to Man's Failure to Fulfill His Responsibility.
According to DP God has always fulfilled His part to make a world of goodness- but human beings have been ignorant and negligent of our responsibilty and therefore the world is not yet the world God has planned from the beginning. We must understand who we are, separate from Satan and restore this world back to God.
True Parents is a Unique Concept of Divine Principle
For Divine Principle the "be all and end all" is for men to become "True Parents." A True Parent is a man one with God in heart and mind who has matured to established a God-centered family and who can love others as our Heavenly Parent God loves others. Unificationists see Reverend and Mrs. Moon as the first True Parents of Mankind and the couple who has pioneered the way to be a True Parent for the rest of mankind. A world where every adult is a True Parent is a world without selfishness and sin that would not need for armies, nor police.
The Divine Principle Concept of the Messiah is Unique
Reverend Moons teaches that all men and women should become messiahs ie persons one in mind and body with God. He teaches that spouses be the “messiahs” to each other, that children are the messiahs to their parents ie through loving them our hearts are perfected, He encourages followers to be Tribal Messiahs that is people who can bring their families to God, and National Messiahs ie to bring their nations to God etc.
The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth Will Be Established Substantially on Earth At This Time
Like Judaism, Reverend Moon believes that the Messiah comes to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. We are not to wait until we die to experience God and heaven. In fact today is the time God has brought everything together to make His kingdom a reality.
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