The Heart of God
Can we ever grasp the Heart of God? The new expression of truth should be able to reveal the Heart of God: His heart of joy at the time of creation; the broken heart He felt when humankind, His children whom He could not abandon, rebelled against Him; and His heart of striving to save them throughout the long course of history. • Exposition of the DP, Introduction, p. 8
Divine Principle:
Good Object Partners for the Joy of God
The key to God’s first blessing is the perfection of individual character…Such individuals become the temples of God, achieve complete oneness with Him, and acquire a divine nature. They experience the Heart of God as if it were their own. Hence, they understand His Will and live fully attuned to it… Sharing all the feelings of God as their own, they would never commit any sinful acts that would cause God grief. • Exposition of the DP, p. 34
Unification Thought:
The Education of Heart
An Education for the Perfection of the Individual
An education which enables an individual to grow to the point where he/she resemble God’s perfection is an education of heart. To resemble God’s perfection is to resemble the unity of Sungsang and Hyungsang, which in human beings refers to the state in which one’s spirit mind and physical mind, as subject and object, engage in give and receive action centering on heart and are completely united. Therefore, in order for spirit mind and physical mind to become united, heart must be the center of their give and receive action. In order for the heart to become the center of the human spirit mind and physical mind, it is necessary for human beings to experience God’s heart and be united with it. Thus, an education of heart refers to the education through which one’s heart becomes united with God’s heart. Accordingly, an education of heart turns out to be an education for the perfection of the individual.
An education of heart refers to the education necessary to nurture children so as to become persons who love all people and all things in the same way that God loves all people and all things. In order for children to become such people, it is necessary to guide them in experiencing God’s heart. Then, how do children come to experience God’s heart? The first step is for them to have a clear understanding of God’s heart.
Forms of Expression of God’s Heart
God’s heart has been expressed in three ways during the process of creation and the dispensation of restoration. These three forms of God’s heart are His heart of hope, His heart of sorrow, and His heart of pain.
God’s Heart of Hope
God’s heart of hope is the heart God experienced during the time of creation. It refers to God’s joyful feelings, full of expectation and hope, in anticipation of begetting Adam and Eve, His first, most beloved children, to whom He could devote His unlimited love. When His heart of hope is finally fulfilled God will be filled with indescribable, limitless joy. In reality, God’s heart was filled with indescribable, incredible joy at the moment when Adam and Eve were actually born.
According to modern physics, the universe began to be formed about 15 billion years ago. From the perspective of Unification Thought, God began to create the universe at that time. What was everything for? It was all for the sake of creating Adam and Eve, His most beloved children. In the hope of seeing the moment when His children would be born, God spent much time creating the universe, in spite of the grueling character of the effort necessary in making a total investment. God, being filled with hope, however, did not feel the process of creating the universe as too long or too arduous, its length and difficulty notwithstanding.
We can realize through our own experiences that this is true. When we work for something joyful, we do not feel the work to be so grueling, no matter how many hardships are experienced. We even forget about the time, because we know that joy awaits us in the future. God’s expectation of joy was far greater than any kind of joy we may experience. Moreover, the joy God felt when Adam and Eve were actually born was so profound that it can not be easily compared to anything else.
God’s Heart of Sorrow
God’s heart of sorrow refers to the heart of God at the moment when Adam and Eve fell away from Him into the realm of death, which came to be under the control of Satan. It is analogous to the grieving heart of parents who lose their children. In the early days of the Unification Church, when speaking about the heart of God at that time, Rev. Sun Myung Moon would weep bitterly when he spoke about the fall of Adam and Eve.
God commenced the providence of restoration immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve. Ever since that time, God has been advancing His providence in hope of seeing the world of joy realized in the future when His will is finally accomplished. Yet, fallen people have been painfully indifferent to God’s providence, continually indulging in corruption and violence. Whenever God saw this, it brought profound grief to His heart. God, who has thus been advancing His providence in history, became a God of han, or deep mortification, as well as a God of unfathomable sorrow. Since His expectation and hope at the time of creation were so great, His sorrow and disappointment due to the human fall, was all the greater.
Even among human beings, when a child whom the parents dearly love is dying, they, the mother in particular, will feel unfathomable sadness and grieve deeply. Even when a child’s illness is very serious and the parents are told that the child will die, they will still try everything in their power to keep the child alive, by any means available. This is what the parental heart is like. So, when the child does eventually die, even though the parents knew it would happen, they still feel as though their hearts have been cut to pieces, and they are completely at a loss as to what to do. This is the heart of parents, especially the heart of a mother.
The sorrowful Heart of God at the time of the fall of Adam and Eve and the sorrowful Heart of God, who has had to watch Adam and Eve and their descendants suffering in the world under Satan’s dominion, which is like a prison, was too great to be compared with anything, even with the heart of human parents who have lost their children. Since the beginning of history, there has been no person who has ever grieved as much as God. This is one aspect of God’s Heart, as described by Rev. Moon.
God’s Heart of Pain
God’s heart of pain refers to the bitter feelings God has experienced, having had to endure watching the central figures in His providential history being persecuted by Satan and his agents. God did not abandon fallen human beings, but continually sent prophets, saints and sages in order to bring them to life again. Nevertheless, people did not easily follow the teachings of God’s people but rather persecuted them, and sometimes even killed them. Every time God witnessed the saints and sages suffering from persecution, God would feel as though a nail was being driven into His chest, or His side was being pierced by a spear.
Those saints and sages were righteous men whom God sent to save human beings in the fallen world. Accordingly, God felt as if He Himself had received contempt, ridicule and persecution. This reveals another heart which God has endured in the course of the providence of restoration: the heart of pain.
Understanding God’s Heart
Through an education of heart, children should come to understand the three kinds of God’s heart as described above, especially the heart of God in the course of the providence of restoration… • New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 250–253
A new heart
13 …if you want to be a patriot, you have to know the king’s heart. If you want to be a son or daughter of filial piety, you have to know your father and mother’s heart. Naturally you have to know God’s heart if you want to be a brave soldier for God. You have to know the heart of God before creation, His heart during the process of creation, and His grieving heart after the Fall. You have to understand the sorrowful heart with which He has been leading human history toward restoration, and His heart of hope for a new world after restoration is completed. (14-174, 1964.10.03) • Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book 1, Chp. 2, §1 (p. 53)
During the period when the providence of restoration is to be completed after the Second Coming of Christ, the people of faith on earth and in heaven are to bear the third responsibility to defeat Satan, the fallen archangel, and complete the providence of restoration. They are to achieve this in accordance with the Principle of Creation, which lays out the way for human beings to gain the qualification to rule the angels. Hence, this period is called the age of the providence based on the believers’ responsibility. • Exposition of the DP, (1966) p. 186
19 Now that we have proclaimed the True Parents, from a providential viewpoint we enter an age when we have to restore the standards appropriate for the right of the eldest son, the right of the parents and the right of the king. Therefore the most important thing for us to do is to live according to God’s Principle and laws. In order to realize the ideal of creation, we have to live according to the Principle of Creation. The Principle of Creation is not something vague that is needed just for the providence of salvation. The Principle of Creation will continue when the world that God purposed is realized; everyone will follow the way of God’s Principle. So I remind you that your portion of responsibility remains. The realm of the human portion of responsibility needed protection before the Fall, and it needs even greater protection today in this fallen world. (212-203, 1991.01.06) • Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book 2, §3
32 …The realm of the Fourth Adam has arrived. …Having made all the conditions with which to subjugate Satan, we are now entering the age when indemnity is no longer necessary. This is the age of the realm of the Fourth Adam. It is no longer the age of restoration through indemnity; it is rather the age of restoration in a natural way. (304-160, 1999/10/10) • Chambumo Gyeong, Book 12, Chapter 3, §2