God's Ideal for the World

Sun Myung Moon
Circa 1983

My topic is "God's Ideal for the World." This subject is vast in nature and rather complicated in content. I will try my best to stay on the central point.

Throughout history there have been great philosophies and philosophers who searched for the true meaning of human behavior and happiness. Each one of them must always answer one fundamental question: Does God exist? Every philosophical battle returns ultimately to that one fundamental question and still this question has not been solved. Could a definitive decision be reached if philosophers gathered together at a convention to take a vote? If they voted yes, would God exist from that moment? Or would God be there even if they voted no?

Will God suddenly come into being when human beings discover Him, or has He always existed? Philosophers try to prove or disprove God through logic, but God is so big that He doesn't fit into human logic too well. Can you show me your mind and explain it to me? If you could grasp your mind 100 percent then you could create your mind, but you cannot do that because you don't know your mind totally. This shows the greatness of your mind. Human beings have a mysterious aspect, and human logic can never perceive the greatness of God or human existence.

This is a very important statement; if you could prove God's existence through logic then God would be small enough to fit into human logic, meaning that human beings could create God and know all about Him. Religious people are much wiser; they have already made up their minds that there is a God, and not only that He existed from the very beginning, but that He will exist throughout eternity.

God created all things, but in all His creation humanity occupies the supreme and central position. It is therefore very important for us to have a clear understanding of the relationship between ourselves and God. Historically, there have been many theories concerning this relationship. Varying opinions, theological concepts and academic schools abound, but the true, living relationship between God and human beings remains an unsettled question.

Because the relationship between God and ourselves is so fundamental to life, our understanding cannot proceed until we have clarified this question thoroughly. Although various religions have developed through human history, there must be one principle common to all religions which can clarify the relationship between God and ourselves. God wants us to understand this principle in its ultimate sense, and through His revelation to our hearts today, this understanding is possible. If there is a God, He definitely needs human beings, and He will do everything possible to develop this relationship.

To begin our discussion, let me ask you the question, "What is the most precious thing in your life?" What will you answer? Some might say, "Power." Some would undoubtedly say money: "Money is everything." And others would suggest, "Wisdom or knowledge." Then, are those elements -- power, money, knowledge -- the most important things in life? When we look into this question deeply, other thoughts emerge. We soon come to the conclusion that the most precious thing is love; love is the most precious thing in life. And second to love, life itself is most precious. If we have love and life, we need one thing further-an ideal. These three elements-love, life, and an ideal-are not just precious and profound in value, they are the very things that make our lives worth living.

All people long for eternal life; so too we feel an innate desire for our love and ideals to be eternal, unchanging, unique, and everlasting. Many writers in history have described the beauty of eternal love. What writer has ever felt moved to glorify the love that changes night and day? The many religions of the world which testify to a life beyond this earthly one testify to the reality of our desire for eternity.

Furthermore, "love" and "ideals" are empty and without meaning by themselves, in isolation. Love exists only when there is someone to love and someone to be loved by. An ideal needs to be shared with someone. Love and ideals come alive as soon as they are manifested in a reciprocal and complementary relationship of give and take established between a subject and an object. We are in the position of the object and always need someone to be in the subject position. Love and ideals will bud and blossom into full flower only when two elements are in a subject-object relationship. Thus, those things which are of supreme importance in human life come about only through relationships.

Are human beings the cause, the source of the universe, or did someone create us? How can we be the cause of the universe when we did not even create ourselves? It is obvious that we are resultant beings. We are the products of some cause. Therefore, a subject or cause must exist. There must be a cause for the existence of human beings. This subject, or cause, then, is the essential reality. We should be as certain of this as we are of our own existence. Whatever name you choose for that cause doesn't matter. The most important thing is that He is there. And we call him, "God.

Let us put our question to God. "What is the most precious thing to you, God?" God will answer, "Love, life, and my ideal are the most precious things to me." Does God need money? He created all things. Everything belongs to Him anyway. He does not need money. Does God need power? He is already the Source of all power. What about knowledge? God is omniscient and the Source of all knowledge. Yes, God is all these things; but can He have love, life, and His ideal all by Himself? He wants to share, to have give and take with someone in a reciprocal relationship. Even almighty God cannot experience the values of love, life, and His ideal when He is alone. That is why God created His object, His image, man and woman.

Now I shall ask, "Why do we human beings act the way we do?" The answer is simple: Because God acts that way. All human traits originate in God. Why are we the way we are? Because God is the way He is. This is the meaning of our being created in the image of God.

We are mirrors reflecting the characteristics of God. God is just like you and me. God is the Origin. Therefore, our love comes from the love of God. Our life comes from the life of God, and our ideals come from the ideal of God. We feel these are the most precious things because God first felt these things were most precious. God is the Subject of love, the Subject of life, and the Subject of ideals. We are the objects of love, the objects of life, and the objects of ideals. Therefore, if God is absolute, we are to be absolute. If God is unchanging, we are to be unchanging. If God is unique, we are to be unique. If God is everlasting, we are to be everlasting. Our eternal life is not just a fantasy. It is reality. Since God is eternal, His objects, men and women, must be created for eternity. Otherwise, we cannot reflect the nature of our eternal God.

If there is a God of love, life, and ideals, and that God does not manifest all these qualities in human beings, His object, then God has defeated His very purpose of creating. God either projected the full value of Himself in His object, or He created nothing at all. God is the Subject to man and woman, and we are the objects to God. The object is the full reflection of the subject. So man and woman together are the visible form of God, and God is the invisible form of man and woman. Subject and object are one. God and human being are one. Human being is incarnate God. If not, we would not be able to reflect fully God's image. God could not realize His joy, the purpose of His creation. When we as objects are not as perfect as God Himself is perfect, we cannot reflect fully the love, life, and ideal of God. So man and woman, the object of God, is as important in value as God Himself.

In the same way that our own minds are real to us, God would have been a living reality to us. Your mind dictates your actions, and the relationship between God and human beings should have been the same. In our present state we must be careful of our words before we speak, but what about a perfected person? A perfected person is automatically a reflection of the universal mind, that is, God. No one of perfection would be able to deny God. In addition, the dignity and integrity of true original parents, of true Adam and Eve, would remain for thousands of years, so that all their descendants would maintain the same dignity and integrity as persons that Adam and Eve enjoyed.

The relationship between God and humanity would have been of perfect oneness; God and people would have walked together for eternity. You cannot separate yourself from your own mind, and in the same way men and women would have been unable to separate themselves from God. That would have been human perfection. If there had been no fall and that perfection had prevailed, such people would have become the nucleus of the universe.

The perfected home would have become a unit or model for the heavenly society, nation and world, such that no matter how far the human world expanded, it would always resemble one human being. Then who should be the center of the universe? Actually the central axis of the universe is formed by God and Adam and Eve. Why would God need Adam and Eve? Why do they need Him? For two purposes.

First of all, God's ideal of love would be fulfilled through Adam and Eve. Second, and this is very important, the incorporeal God would have been made visible through men and women. In other words, Adam and Eve were supposed to be the visible form of God, and through them the invisible God could have made a relationship with the visible, physical world. God's ultimate purpose for the creation of Adam and Eve is this: After being perfected here on earth in oneness with God, Adam and Eve would have passed away into spirit world. There Adam and Eve's own spirit selves would be like the body of God, and inside them God would be dwelling as their minds; God Himself would be the mind of Adam and Eve.

Today we have our mind and body, with an inseparable relationship between the two. Similarly, when Adam and Eve were perfected here on earth and then were elevated to the spirit world, God would have been the mind of Adam and Eve and they would have been the spirit body of God, so that God and people in spirit world would have been inseparable, one body. In this world people speak about dying, but actually there is no such thing as death. Instead of dying you just pass into a new realm after giving up your physical body. Your spirit self becomes your body in the spirit world, and God will become the center of that body as the mind of your spirit self.

I want to illustrate the value of relationship, even for God. If I made vigorous gestures and shouted, but without directing such gestures and shouts to anyone else, I am sure that anyone who saw me would wonder, "Is that man crazy?" But if I have someone to have give and take with, some object out there to respond to me -- even one small child in front of me -- and I pour out my heart and soul to that person, then I am considered normal. The sole difference is the presence of someone as object.

Thus we can understand the value of an object with which to share relationship. The object in fact through full relationship comes to have value equal to that of the subject. As we are the objects to God, He has placed us in a position equal to Himself. Thus, human beings share the same value as God and are just as important as God. Even though God is most high and noble and mighty, He too must have His object. Can He otherwise feel joy? Joy comes when you receive stimulation from the object. Not even God can be joyful alone. I hope you see my earlier point, that if there is a God, He must need human beings. You must realize that God created human beings and the universe for joy. But God's joy remains dormant until He can have full give and take with us.

So far in Christianity, many churches placed God so high up in heaven, and pushed humanity so low in hell, that there has been an uncrossable gap between us and God. A wide and raging river has separated humanity from God. People have not dared to reach out to God as a living Reality. We have been unable to realize that God is so close, so real, so approachable, that we can even dwell with Him. St. Paul taught that we are supposed to be the living temples of God. Yet conventional Christianity has been unable to make that a reality.

No matter how wealthy and famous you may be, unless you have someone with whom to have give and take so that you can share your joy, your sorrow, your opinions, and your ideals, you are just a poor man or woman. We feel joy and sadness because God's heart can feel joy and sadness. Not until this time in history did we ever believe that God could feel sorrow. And God can feel excitement or indignation, just as we can. We, the objects of God, have this ability to experience emotion because our Subject, God, has the same capacity for emotion. God is the first Personality, and human personality comes from God. How then can we become true objects to God? By our efforts and hard work alone? No. There is but one way to come together in oneness with God. That way is through love-oneness in love with God.

Let me illustrate. Suppose there is a famous man. Opposite him is a woman who is unassuming and meek and without beauty or education. However, once this great man and this humble woman establish a circuit of give and take in love, she will instantly achieve his level of prestige. Let's say the man's name is Jones and he falls in love with this woman and marries her. She then becomes Mrs. Jones and returns his love with all her heart. Whatever power, authority and prestige Mr. Jones enjoys, Mrs. Jones would share in every respect. Now, what does this teach us? Once we have a relationship of love with God and become one with Him, our value increases instantly to the level of God's value. This is the value that Jesus has-divine value. And such love as this is everlasting, unchanging, and unique.

Today is the time when we must fulfill this fundamental relationship between God and ourselves. The subject and object must be one just as cause and effect are one. The Bible says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." (Rev. 22:13) Within God, two are one. He is the beginning and we are the end. He is the first and we are the last. And the relationship between God and human beings is a circuit because beginning and end come together in oneness.

Peace, happiness and joy are the fruits of harmony in love. Therefore, in God's ideal of creation, He planned the relationship between Himself and us to be lived with harmony in love, with harmony in life, and with harmony in ideal.

I have stated that God is Subject and we are the objects and that the object is just as important as the subject. We now want to know precisely what our position as God's object means.

When God created man and woman He gave them wisdom and ambition. Wisdom gives us the power to compare, and ambition gives us the desire to strive for the best. If there are two choices before us, A and B, we will automatically compare them to determine which is better. Our human desire leads us to choose, and our ambition does not let us rest until we have obtained ultimate fulfillment.

Let me employ another analogy for illustration. Let's say there is a most handsome man. He is not only handsome, but all-powerful and all-wise. You would have the ambition to have some kind of personal relationship with this great man. What would you want it to be? Would you like to be just his servant? No, in your heart you know there is a position better than that of servant. Would you like to be only his friend? No, you would still not be happy. Would you like to be only his adopted son or daughter? Will this position bring you complete happiness? No, I don't think so. You would still crave some closer position. But there is one relationship beyond which there is nothing more intimate. That is to become a true son or daughter of this man. With this relationship you will have reached the ultimate fulfillment and you cannot have ambition for anything more.

Why, then, do we have the ambition to become true sons and daughters? Because that is the position in which to receive love most fully. There is no closer or deeper relationship in human society than that between the parent and child. Once you have your parents' love, you possess everything they have. Every joy of the parent, all the power of the parent, all skill and wisdom and ambition and desire of the parent-all will then be yours. In receiving the love of a parent there is no procedure, no paperwork or ceremony necessary to grant those things to a child. The parent and child are automatically one. This principle is expressed in human families, and it applies as well between us and God.

Then, what kind of relationship would you like to have with God? Would you be content just to be His servant? Or would you prefer to be His friend? Would you rather be His adopted child, or would you like to find a way to become God's own true child? I know you will be satisfied with nothing short of the ultimate position as sons and daughters of God.

God's ultimate purpose in His creation of human beings is to give to us all His love, all His life, and all His ideal. You are to occupy the entire love of God, to the depth of His heart. By becoming His true sons and daughters, your desire will be fulfilled. That is your ultimate destiny. Then you will be saturated with the love of God. You will be filled with joy and feel overwhelmed by a total satisfaction in life.

There is no limit to joy. Happiness has no end. When you are standing in the love of God, every cell in your body jumps for joy. You breathe in and out with the entire universe. In this state your life is fulfilled. This is how God means us to live, intoxicated in love and joy. And through our joy, God receives His joy. The joy of human beings is the joy of God; the joy of God is the joy of human beings.

If humankind could have been one with God as our Father, abiding with Him, living with Him in the greatest love, how happy we would have been! And on God's part, how happy He would have been to live with His true children. Being the highest in every sense, He would have been overjoyed with happiness! He would have lived with us in the greatest love. Have you ever stopped to imagine how hilariously He would have laughed and danced and rejoiced to see us and to live with us? It is our great remorse not to have been able to live with such a Father, from whom every joy, every happiness, every dance, everything good and happy begins. Everything good would have started from God. But we have never seen, never experienced goodness to such a full and complete extent.

Early in my life God called me for a mission as His instrument. I was called to reveal His truth for Him, as His prophet. I committed myself unyieldingly in pursuit of truth, searching the hills and valleys of the spiritual world. The time suddenly came to me when heaven opened up, and I was privileged to communicate with Jesus Christ and the living God directly. Since then I have received many astonishing revelations. God Himself told me that the most basic and central truth of this universe is that God is the Father and we are His children. We are all created as children of God. And He said there is nothing closer, nothing deeper, nothing more intimate than when Father and child are one: One in love, one in life, and one in ideal.

Love, life, and ideal are at the central point where father and child meet. Once we unite there, then God's love is our love; God's ideal is our ideal; God's life is our life. And there is no other relationship where you can have unity of life, unity of love, and unity of ideal any more than in the parent-child relationship. This is a fundamental reality of the universe.

How do we come into being in this world? The father and mother become one through their love, and bring together their lives and ideals. Their love precedes our birth. Love is the force which unites. Husband and wife become one in love. This means the husband's love, life, and ideal become the wife's, and the wife's love, life, and ideal become the husband's. This is the way that two live as one, and two become one flesh. Upon this foundation of oneness in love, a new life can be generated.

When a child is born, that child is the manifestation of his or her parents' love, life, and ideal. When you look at your own child, you are actually seeing another you. You are looking at the fruit of your love, the fruit of your life, and the fruit of your ideal. You are looking at your second self-another visible form of yourself.

Now let us expand this truth onto a universal scale. God created men and women as His sons and daughters. He wants to see Himself in human beings. Therefore, the Bible says, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Gen. 1:27)

Human beings are created in the likeness of God. In other words, God made Himself incarnate in human beings. We are the mirror of the living God, and His every virtue, characteristic, and quality is reflected in this mirror. God surely wants men and women to reflect His love, life, and ideal. Human life is the fruit of God's love, life, and ideal. God desired to substantiate Himself in the world, and He finally approached that point with the birth of the original parents, Adam and Eve. God is the Father of Adam and Eve, and naturally He must have some resemblance to them. It was a moment of great revolution for God Himself when He finally came to encounter Himself in His children, substantially in the flesh. Naturally it was a romantic, exciting moment when God saw Adam and Eve!

The morning of glory for God in the creation of the entire universe was the moment of Adam and Eve's birth. When you ask what God looks like, the answer is that God is like Adam and Eve. Before Adam and Eve fell they were the walking, physical God here on earth. As the visible form of God, they were to take over Lordship of the physical world, whereas God remained the invisible Lord of the entire spirit world.

You may ask an important question: Why did God create human beings? God wanted to assume tangible form and the day Adam and Eve were born was almost like the day of God's own birth. As Adam and Eve grew to completion, God spiritually grew into a greater fulfillment together with them. God and His children were one and the same person actually, and therefore when Adam or Eve laughed, God laughed. When they were moody then God was also moody. When they worked, God worked.

Why should it be like that? Everything is geared toward fulfillment, both here on earth and in heaven, with God and human beings growing together. The growth of men and women is the growth of God Himself as well. We talk about perfection, but what is it? Perfection means the perfection of love, with no lack of any kind, a perfectly round love.

Do you know there is love because you have seen it? We do not see love, but we know it is there. Do you handle love or does love handle and embrace you? The latter is true. Love can say, "You are mine," but you cannot say, "Love is mine." Love doesn't belong to anyone; love belongs to all. Suppose there were a terrible dictator who wanted to conquer love all for himself. No matter what that dictator might say, love would laugh at him because it will never come under the control of one person. Could Eastern and Western people be brought into unity by military power, or by the power of culture and religion? One unique power can unite them -- love.

How wonderful, how simply wonderful it is to live this perfected life of God! This is the true life of joy, unequalled by any earthly joy. Once you reach this state of perfection you don't need prayer. Why should you? You meet God face to face, and you live heart to heart with Him. You converse with God. You no longer need religion, and you don't need a savior. All these things of religion are part of the mending process, the process of restoration. A person of perfect health does not need a physician. The person in perfect union with God does not need a savior.

Life in union with God is the one great way to live-life with God, life in God, and God living in you. This was the spiritual state of Jesus when he said, "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?..." (John 14:10) God and human beings will embrace in one all-consuming love. This is the state where God is made the living Reality. You no longer believe, but you know. And you live the truth. If you really experience this kind of love and oneness with God, then you have tasted the supreme experience of life. Of the many Christian leaders in America today, how many have had that wonderful experience, receiving the profound love of God?

God made us to live our lives in intoxication. We are meant to be intoxicated by the love of God. Since we lost this original capacity we seek unnatural, artificial intoxication -- getting drunk on alcohol, marijuana, or drugs. The perfect man or woman, however, is created to be intoxicated in the love of God. There is nothing that can go beyond this feeling of joy. Every cell in your body will explode with joy. Your eyes and ears, the tissues in your face, your arms and legs-everything will be newly alive in a rapture of joy. Nothing else can ever match this quality of joy. Once a person discovers the way to be intoxicated in the love of God, even though you urge him or her to try drugs, alcohol or whatever, they would refuse. Those things are flat compared to the taste of the love of God. The love of God is precisely like electricity, which can be conducted by any part of the body. If the love of God touches your mind, your mind will jump. If it touches your emotions, they will jump. If it touches your ears or your eyes, they will jump.

Have you really experienced God's love that vividly? Feeling the love of God is similar to receiving an electric shock; when it hits a person he or she may appear unconscious but inside they are actually trembling with ecstatic joy. Once you feel the living, active love of God you want to close your eyes, but your eyes cannot close. Your whole body is so activated that you cannot stop reacting to that love. God is almighty and can do anything, so certainly He wants everyone to be part of such an explosive, gigantic, dramatic love, not love which is flat and pale-tasting like three-day-old beer.

Put yourself in the position of God. You are capable of doing anything. You want to create love of such magnitude that when it moves the entire universe will be excited, not listless. When God laughs He wants to have the entire universe laugh in the joy of love. Such a joyful love cannot be created by selfish people. When you totally release yourself in giving, you can taste such love; that's God's love. This is the plan of God's original creation. When you say, "Heavenly Father," do you really have a living and vibrant feelings of God's presence? Don't you want to hear God answering, "Yes, my child?"

Here is my gift to you tonight: I want you to realize that the true relationship between God and human beings is a subject and object relationship. You are His sons and His daughters. Once you have achieved unity with God, nothing can trouble you. Neither sorrow nor loneliness, sickness or anything else under the sun can discourage you. God is the ultimate security. You could pay many millions of dollars and still not buy that kind of security. It is priceless. No money can buy it. This is the total experience of life. We are meant to live with God.

Once you become such men and women you will be the center of the universe wherever you go, whether to Mars or to the moon, to the spirit world or physical world. No matter how small a portion you may occupy in the center, you are still in the image of God. You will fit into any place in the universe and be accepted.

Your life is therefore the most valuable thing in this universe. That is why Jesus said, "For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?" (Matt. 16:26) Jesus is talking about life with God. Life without God is like a burned-out electric bulb which cannot give out light. A life without God is death.

Jesus Christ is the one man who lived God's ideal in its fullest realization. He was the first man of perfection ever to walk the earth, and he came to restore the true relationship between God and human beings. But after Jesus' crucifixion, Christianity made him into only God. This is why the gap between God and ourselves has never been bridged. Jesus is a man in whom God is incarnate. But he is not God Himself, the Father. It is written in I Timothy 2:5, "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,..." The dwelling of God within Jesus was a total reality. He said, "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?..." (John 14: 10). Jesus is, indeed, the only begotten son of God, but God does not want only Jesus as His son. All mankind is created to be able to say, "I am in the Father and the Father in me." The entire purpose of Jesus' coming can be summarized in one sentence: Jesus came to bring the resurrection needed so that human love can be perfected to the point where we can come into the direct dominion of God's love. This is the fully attainable goal of everyone.