The first human ancestors began life as a couple full of mutual resentment and accusation, each blaming the other for the predicament into which they had fallen instead of taking responsibility for their own role in the disaster. Having lost their original, intimate relationship with God, they lacked the heart and love to help each other out of the situation. With the Servant having become Satan, the unrepentant master of false love instead of a wise teacher, there was no one to show them the way back to God.

The promise of the creation was shattered by the fall, and the very fabric of human relationships based on true love, out of which the ideal world was to have been made, was torn asunder. This left only incomplete and inadequate love relationships as the foundation for human society. The result was the creation of a world ignorant of God, populated by people pursuing purposes far removed from God's purpose for them. In their ignorance, fallen men and women have struggled against each other to gain a dominion of self-centered power over other people and the world of nature. Their pursuit of unrighteous desire for selfish purposes has made the world a place of conflicts and misery instead of an environment of love and peace.

Adam and Eve's experience of love was colored by the fall. They had never received the true love of parents because the Servant had used the authority given him by God for his own purposes, contrary to God's will and love. They had not achieved true brother-sister love (as evidenced by Adam's neglect of his sister when she entered a relationship of great jeopardy with the Servant) because the Servant had sought Eve for himself rather than educating Adam and Eve about their proper roles and relationship. Their experience of conjugal love had been completely distorted as it was based on the unprincipled relationship between the Servant and Eve. Even though they felt shame and remorse for their error and God felt parental sympathy for His fallen children, God had to abide strictly by the Principle in leading them back to their original, pure positions.

The universal experience of fallen people is frustration caused by their inability to experience the true love that every human being wants and seeks in life. The love relationships between parents and children, brothers and sisters, as well as husbands and wives have always fallen short of the ideal. This is because the patterns of human love are based on those established by the first man and woman. Imperfect love has been passed from generation to generation. Children raised with inadequate love are unable to perfect their own love and consequently on reaching adulthood are not qualified to give true love to their own children. Human love has been associated with fear and guilt instead of fulfillment and joy.

The only way this cycle of imperfect love can be broken is through the creation of a new lineage, free from Satan's domination. A true man and woman must create a true family founded on relationships of true love. This family will be the beginning point of a new, pure lineage and tradition that will fulfill the original ideal of God's creation. The central goal of history after the fall of Adam and Eve has been precisely this: the restoration of fallen men and women to the purity of Adam and Eve before the fall, through the mission of true parents. The true parents have to restore the true love, life and lineage that were lost in the fall.

Adam and Eve lived in confusion, aware that they had made mistakes but unable to free themselves of the consequences. With their spiritual senses darkened, the God they had been growing to know and love was suddenly veiled to them. He was hidden from view behind the haze of their unprincipled lives which were dominated by the fallen love learned from the Servant. With this love God would have no relationship.

Their loss of God's love was accompanied by a loss of God's truth. Instead of gaining a clear, God-centered understanding of their purpose and how they were to fulfill it, they became fundamentally ignorant of their reason for being, of how to live a good life, create a good family and establish true dominion over nature. Thus the home of Adam and Eve became an environment of false love and ignorance instead of a dwelling place for God's love and truth. Their children were brought up knowing only distorted love and partial truths. Coming from this unprincipled home environment, Cain was raised with satanic tendencies which eventually led him to murder Abel. Thus the ignorance of Adam and Eve was inherited by their children.

Adam and Eve's ignorance was the result of their inversion of the mind-body relationship. A true man or woman grows to maturity by the mind maintaining the subject position over the body. God communicates His will to the mind of human beings, so the body must obey the mind if an individual is to become fully the image of God. When the interests of the body are placed above those of the mind the basic order of creation is violated and chaos results. This is rather like a rider putting his horse in charge of following directions on a map to reach a hidden treasure. The result will not be success: horses are made to follow humans, not to lead them. Following the instinctive desires of the body, human beings are totally lost in this world, stumbling through life until they arrive at the end of their physical existence, when, on beginning life in the spirit world, they are confronted with the consequences of their ignorance: an existence in darkness and confusion far from the light and truth of God.

The fundamental ignorance of human beings since the fall has been their inability to distinguish clearly between good and evil, to recognize how their lives contradict God's will. According to the Principle, the distinction between good and evil is clear. Any thought or deed that contributes to the fulfillment of a person's God-given purpose, the achievement of the three blessings, is good. Conversely, any thought or action that stands in the way of human fulfillment is evil. Put in a different way, any base that people make for God to work is good, whereas any base for Satan to work is evil.

Things in themselves are not intrinsically good or evil. The way they are employed (for or against God's will) determines their value. For example, a hammer used to build a family home is 'good', whereas the same hammer is 'evil' if used as a murder weapon. By the same token, a gun used in the defense of a nation against unrighteous attack is 'good', but used to kill an innocent person is 'evil'. The hammer and the gun are not good or evil in themselves, but their use by people is.

The Principle does not agree with classical dualism which places good and evil in the same category as night and day or black and white. Good and evil are not complementary dual characteristics of God and His creation; rather, good is the result of God-centered activity and evil the result of any activity contrary to the will of God. Since God is only good, everything He created has the original nature to do good. Evil results when created beings do not act according to the purpose for which they were created. Thus good and evil are diametrically opposite to each other and cannot be reconciled (hence the discomfort of fallen people), whereas dual characteristics are complementary aspects of creation which are mutually dependent and essential to its existence, activity and multiplication. There is no evil in God's ideal world.

The Servant's invasion and destruction of the true love relationships of Adam and Eve made him, as Satan, the great enemy of pure love. Satan was able to maintain his influence over Adam and Eve because they obeyed him instead of God, and thus voluntarily established a base within themselves that remained responsive to him. They could not clearly identify this base within themselves since they had lost the purity with which to judge the impurity of Satan's influence. Thus Adam and Eve fell under an evil influence that they could not understand.

This has been Satan's hold on the descendants of Adam and Eve. They have experienced various resentments and lusts without knowing the origin of those feelings and without the purity to recognize them clearly as foreign to their true, original natures. Satan has been like a criminal kingpin who walks freely in society, unrecognized and unprosecuted, because his crimes remain unknown.

The efforts of fallen men and women to do good are conditioned by the evil they have inherited from their ancestors, stemming from Adam and Eve. All fallen humanity has been burdened by the evil legacy of Adam and Eve, the original sin. Thus the standard of goodness of fallen humans is relative. Only the standard of goodness of a sinless person, completely free of Satan's influence, is absolute. To point to this standard, God has sent prophets and saints, revealed scriptures, and sent Christ. Without such guidance, fallen humans cannot clearly distinguish good from evil. Ultimately, true parents will replace the first ancestors and establish an absolute standard of goodness.

The original nature of man and woman is the image of God. This nature can never be completely lost, but it is smothered by fallen impulses and characteristics that became a dominant part of human nature as a result of the fall. This fallen, evil nature inclines people to follow ways opposite to their original direction and true purpose.

It is never the original nature of men or women that leads them into relationships of illicit love or inspires aggression and violence against others. Nor does it lead a man to hate his own brother or sister, or condemn a husband and wife to share a life of resentment and bitterness. It does not incite children to rebel against their parents, nor does it cause parents to neglect and abuse their children. It does not cause humans to abuse the rest of creation. Only the evil minds of fallen people produce human wrongdoing and cause human suffering by leading individuals to disobey God.

There is a continuous struggle between the evil mind and the original mind in fallen humans. These internal conflicts are the cause of conflicts between individuals and families, tribes and nations. The original mind, though faint, calls out to fallen people to unite with God's will.

The struggle between the original mind and the evil mind is greatly exacerbated by the intervention of spirit men and women in the affairs of people on earth. Good spirits, that is those close to God, have a beneficial influence on the spirits of men and women on earth. However, evil spirits, who are close to Satan in character and direction, have a bad influence on the spirits of people on earth. Because of the dislocation of spirit and body brought about by the fall, fallen individuals are generally unaware of the influence of good and evil spirits in their lives. They tend to attribute fallen spiritual influences to their own moods, sentiments and inspirations.

Whenever the spirit of a fallen man or woman unites with the thoughts or activities of evil spirits he or she multiplies the power of Satan and evil in the world. Satan's power will end only when people cease to interact with his ideas and activities. By encouraging faith and obedience to God, religions have enabled people to cast off their relationships with evil spirits and strengthen their relationships with good (guardian) spirits and angels. As with Adam and Eve, it is each person's individual responsibility to choose either the path of faith in God or the way of the world with its negative spiritual influences.

Due to the fall, the original good human nature became twisted into fallen nature. Careful analysis of the fallen nature of humankind reveals that it has four major components that derive from four fundamental errors at the time of the fall.

First, fallen humans fail to see people and situations as God sees them. Because of disbelief and distrust, they do not appreciate the value of their circumstances and those of others, leading to erroneous concepts and actions. All human sins (thoughts and actions which alienate human beings from God) are the result of individuals taking positions contrary to God's point of view. This tendency is inherited from the Servant's failure to see Adam and Eve as God saw them. While God loved Adam and Eve as His children and wanted them to grow to fulfill the three blessings, the Servant came to want a relationship with them for his own benefit. The Servant was willing to sacrifice Adam and Eve for his own pleasure. This self-centered rather than God-centered point of view led the Servant to act in error, destroying God's ideal. The Servant's disbelief and distrust of God led to his outright rebellion against God. This faithlessness was passed on to Adam and Eve and their descendants as the most fundamental aspect of fallen nature.

Second, fallen people, lacking God's perspective, have a tendency to misjudge their own value, to be arrogant and to go their own way in seeking power and prestige at the cost of the fulfillment of God's will. They are not satisfied with what they have and seek to gain for themselves what belongs to others. This fallen nature comes from the Servant's dissatisfaction with his position as the teacher and servant of Adam and Eve. Failing to recognize his own value and special role in the creation, the Servant aspired to stand above his God-given position and thirsted for the position of Adam as the first son of God and spouse of Eve, a role specifically forbidden to him. This type of arrogance blocks the human path to God and is the root of adultery.

Third, as a result of the second fallen nature, human beings tend to dominate those whom they should follow. This reversal of dominion causes chaos in human relations. For example, the prophets and saints sent by God typically have been rejected and persecuted by the very people they tried to assist, bringing disaster to those people. This aspect of fallen nature is inherited from the Servant who inverted the natural order of God's creation by claiming a position over Adam and Eve. Adam was to have been in the subject position to Eve, and both of them were to have been subject over the Servant. In effect, the Servant usurped God's position as Adam and Eve's parent and lord. In life one frequently sees unrighteous usurpation of position, with resultant chaos and suffering; as when the proud lord it over the meek, unrighteous people kill prophets, students rebel against their teachers, or sailors raise a mutiny. On a national scale, violent revolutions typically lead to widespread misery and bloodshed.

Fourth, fallen humans tend to seek others to share in their wrongdoing rather than taking responsibility to correct it themselves. They justify their evil deeds and try to win approval and participation from others. This multiplication of evil is responsible for the fallen culture in which widespread complicity in unprincipled behavior prevents its eradication. This nature comes from Eve, who, under the Servant's influence, wanted to rid herself of the guilt and shame she felt after her relationship with him but, instead of repenting, repeated an unprincipled act of love with Adam, thus multiplying evil instead of reversing it. In fallen society it is common for people to want to minimize their sense of guilt by including others in what they know to be wrongdoing. This behavior is precisely the opposite of taking responsibility for your own and others' mistakes. Irresponsible action causes the multiplication of evil.

The four aspects of fallen nature became deeply rooted in the first family, from which they were passed down to subsequent generations as inherited fallen nature. The reality of this inheritance was made fully evident by the behavior of Cain, the first child of Adam and Eve: he failed to recognize God's special love for Abel; he refused to accept his position as having made a sacrifice inferior to Abel's; he dominated his younger brother by killing him; and he multiplied evil by committing murder in imitation of Satan's spiritual murder of Adam and Eve.

Human beings must rid themselves of all four aspects of fallen nature if they are to become free to unite with God. As the root of the human tree, the behavior of Adam and Eve affected all their descendants. The tree itself is intrinsically good, but it is suffering from an ailment that has spread from the roots to the leaves. Fallen nature is something that all men and women inherit, and it affects their lives, whether they are aware of it or not. All religions have teachings which help humans overcome the various aspects of fallen nature, and the best of humanistic philosophies also teach such ethics. It is an essential part of every person's responsibility to strive continuously to resist these fallen tendencies and to live by true moral and ethical standards.

Considering the world of evils that sprang from the fallen lineage of Adam and Eve, one might well wonder why God did not intervene to prevent the fall. The answer lies in human responsibility. Since Adam, Eve and the Servant all had free will, they were free to obey or disobey God. They had been created by God with free will because He wanted them to love Him out of their own volition. There is no true love other than that given freely.

If God had intervened to prevent Adam and Eve from falling when He saw them deviating from their true path, He would have violated His own principles, which require human beings to fulfill their own portion of responsibility in order to grow to maturity. The implication would have been that God had erred when he made human beings, and that He then had to act to ft the mistake. But God had not made a mistake. Human beings had to have free will to fulfill their purpose. Only through exercising their free will with responsibility could Adam and Eve fulfill their purpose for existence.

In sum, then, God did not prevent the fall because, according to His perfect principles, the purpose of creation can only be fulfilled when humans fulfill their own portion of responsibility.

The fall of Adam and Eve meant the postponement of God's will until such time as a new Adam and new Eve could take their place and fulfill the three blessings. It also meant that fulfilling humanity's original purpose became nothing more than a hope for fallen people, a promised Kingdom of Heaven instead of a reality from the beginning of human existence.

In the fallen world, false relationships and institutions prevail, and every initiative from God's side has to fight against the tide of fallen humanity. Children are born with contradictory natures that are both inclined to goodness and burdened by the legacy of fallen behavior inherited from their ancestors. This legacy tempts them to violate God's laws and makes them susceptible to the false love that dominates the fallen world.

God has sent special persons and groups to teach and enlighten confused people in the fallen realm. The history of religion is the history of these representatives of God and the efforts they have made to challenge the fallen status quo with God's love and truth. They have always been met with hostility and suffered persecution because the dominion of evil is most threatened by men and women who devote their lives to God and the service of humankind.

The struggle for God and against Satan begins within the individual. Unless the mind gains dominion over the body, the original nature over the fallen nature, one cannot succeed in subjugating the evil of the outside world. This has been understood, practiced and taught by all the great figures in God's providence, from Noah to Mohammed, as well as the saints of modem times.

As long as people are born into the fallen lineage of Adam and Eve, the sinful legacy prevents them from completely separating from evil and becoming one with God. Thus the whole object of human history, seen from God's viewpoint, has been to create a new first family so that a new, pure lineage can be established in the midst of the fallen world. This new lineage will eventually supplant the lineage dominated by fallen nature. A new Adam and Eve will be true parents who restore love, life and lineage to God's dominion and who thereby create the God-centered families, tribes, nations and world that God has always wanted and for which virtuous human nature has always yearned.

The fall resulted in the creation of human relations devoid of true love. Instead of the first ancestors establishing a model family to be emulated by their descendants, they created a world in which people are alienated from God and do not know themselves or how to establish true relationships of love with other people and nature. Realizing the three blessings became a remote ideal as men and women burdened by a legacy of sin and ignorance have struggled with themselves and one another, as individuals and groups. History has been shaped by this sad condition of humanity.

To end the dominion of evil and create a world of true love centered on God, true parents must come to restore fallen love, life and lineage to God. This purpose has been the central thrust of history. Part III of this book, which follows, examines the principles and historical processes related to the coming of true parents.

 Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
Table of Contents
Information
Tparents Home