Our study of the attributes of God focuses first on their content and then on their structure. Content concerns each of the attributes, whereas structure refers to the mutual relationships among those attributes. The content can be further divided into those of Divine Image and Divine Character. Divine Image refers to the aspect of form among God's attributes, whereas Divine Character refers to the aspect of nature and ability. First, I will deal with the Divine Image.

From the statement in Genesis that "God created man in his own image" (Gen. 1:27, Rsv), we can learn that God, though invisible, has the aspect of form. These are the dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang, the dual characteristics of Yang and Yin, and the Individual Images.

Among God's attributes, we find the characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang. God's Sungsang is the cause of the internal, invisible aspect of created beings, and God's Hyungsang is the cause of the external, visible aspect of created beings. In God, Sungsang and Hyungsang form a harmonized body in the relationship of subject and object. Forming a harmonized body means that Sungsang and Hyungsang are not separated, but exist as a union, since they are united. In order to distinguish God's Sungsang and Hyungsang from those of created beings, God's Sungsang and Hyungsang are sometimes called Original Sungsang and Original Hyungsang.

The Original Sungsang, or God's Sungsang, is the part of God corresponding to mind and represents the fundamental cause of the invisible aspect, or functional aspect, of all created beings. The invisible aspect of created beings correspond to mind in human beings, to instinct in animals, to life in plants, and to physicochemical character in minerals.

God's Sungsang is manifested in the created world in various dimensions, forming the different levels of invisible aspect. To specify, in minerals, God's Sungsang is almost dormant and manifests itself only symbolically. In plants, God's Sungsang manifests itself on a higher dimension. In animals, it manifests itself on an even higher dimension. In human beings, God's Sungsang manifests itself to the fullest degree.

A further analysis of the original Sungsang shows that it contains the aspect of function and the aspect of form, which are called Inner Sungsang and Inner Hyungsang, respectively. The Inner Sungsang has the faculties of intellect, emotion, and will; and the Inner Hyungsang contains ideas, concepts, original laws, mathematical principles, and so forth. The Inner Sungsang is the subject part within the Sungsang and the Inner Hyungsang is the object part within the Sungsang.

The intellect is the faculty of cognition; the emotion is the faculty of feeling -- the faculty to feel joy, anger, sadness, comfort, etc.; and the will is the faculty of volition the faculty to desire, to intend, to determine, etc. Furthermore, the intellect has the faculties of perception, understanding, and reason. Perception refers to the ability to receive representations, or images, triggered by an object. Understanding refers to the ability to make judgments by using concepts. Reason refers to the ability to infer by using concepts and to comprehend universal truths and the essence of things.

For example, consider the incident that allegedly took place when Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727) discovered the law of universal gravitation. Through the working of his perception, Newton learned that an apple had fallen from the apple tree. Through the working of his understanding, he made the judgment that the apple had fallen because it had been attracted by some force. Finally, through the working of his reason, Newton inferred that the reason the apple had fallen was that there exists universal gravitation.

In saying this, however, I do not mean that God engages in logical thinking by His understanding based on His perceptive recognition, and further, based upon that, engages in comprehensive thinking by His reason. Within God's intellectual faculty, the three functions of perception, understanding, and reason exist in oneness, but when they manifest themselves in human beings, they come to be differentiated into the sequential stages of perception, understanding, and reason.

Next, I will discuss the Inner Hyungsang. The Unification Principle says that "though the internal character [Sungsang] cannot be seen, it assumes a certain form. . . ."² This indicates that within the Sungsang there already exists an element of form, namely, the Inner Hyungsang. The Unification Principle also states that "the Hyungsang may be called a second Sungsang." This means that the form within the mind (the Inner Hyungsang) appears as the external form (the Original Hyungsang).

When we see a flower, a bird, or a mountain, the images of what we see remain in our mind. From those images we derive ideas or concepts. In the case of human beings, the idea or concept of something appears in our mind only after we have experienced it. ⁴ God, however, already possessed ideas and concepts even before creating the universe. It is written in Genesis that when God said, "Let there be light," light did appear, and when He said, "let the dry land appear," dry land did appear. After God proclaimed that something should exist, "it was so" (Gen. 1:3-9, Rsv). This means that everything turned out exactly as God had conceived it or thought about it. Therefore, when God created the universe, He already had ideas and concepts, and according to those ideas and concepts, He created the universe.

Ideas and concepts here are images, or representations, within the mind. Ideas are concrete representations of individual created beings, and concepts are representations of the common elements abstracted from many concrete things. Plato (427-347 B. C.) claimed that non-material ideas are the true reality. It call be said that Plato grasped the ideas and concepts within the Original Image.

Original laws refer to fundamental laws. Laws discovered by humans have diversity and some aspects that change with the times. Original laws, however, are absolute. The laws that exist within God are original laws. When original laws manifest themselves ill the created world, they appear in two aspects, namely, the Sungsang aspect and the Hyungsang aspect. The Sungsang aspect refers to the norms in human society, such as ethics and morality; in contrast, the Hyungsang aspect refers to the laws of the natural world.

Moreover, God is a mathematical being. Within His Inner Hyungsang, God has mathematical content, such as an infinite number of mathematical values and formulas. Pythagoras (ca. 570-496 B. C.) considered numbers to be the root of the universe; thus, he was able to grasp the mathematical principles within the Original Image. Throughout history, scientists have discovered a great number of numerical formulas. Each of them has grasped the manifestation of some part of the mathematical nature that God possesses. Paul Dirac (1902- ), a British physicist who contributed to the formulation of quantum mechanics, said that God is a high level mathematician, and that one cannot but admit that God used high level mathematics in forming the universe. ⁵ In this way, Dirac testified to the fact that God is indeed a mathematical being.

Edmond Husserl (1859-1938), founder of the phenomenological movement, spoke of the structure of pure consciousness. According to him, pure consciousness is consciousness from which our judgment concerning beings in the external world is suspended. Pure consciousness, he held, has a functional part and an objective part in other words, a thinking part and a part to be thought about. He called these two 'noesis' and 'noema'. These correspond to the Inner Sungsang and the Inner Hyungsang in Unification Thought. Husserl dealt with human consciousness; but the reason for the existence of both a functional part and an objective part in human consciousness is that God's Sungsang is structured in that way, and human beings are created in the image of God.

The original Hyungsang, or God's Hyungsang, is the aspect of God corresponding to body and the attribute of God that is the fundamental cause of the visible, material aspect of all created beings. Hyungsang corresponds to what is generally referred to as "matter." It is the material that forms all created beings, and at the same time, it is the potential that can manifest itself in a limitless number of forms.

God's Hyungsang is the fundamental cause of the material aspect of human beings, animals, plants and minerals. In other words, the human body, the body of animals, and the materials of plants and minerals are manifestations of God's Hyungsang in different dimensions. The visible aspect of all created beings consists of matter and form, the essential cause of which is the fundamental matter and the potential for a limitless number of forms within God's Hyungsang. As mentioned earlier, the cause of these forms lies in the Inner Hyungsang.

What is the essence of matter? The ancient Greek philosophers called the root of all things, or the fundamental matter, archi. Thales (ca. 624-546 B. C.), of the Miletus school, identified archi as .water"; Anaximander (ca. 610-547 B. C.) called it apeiron, or the "limitless"; and Anaximenes (ca. 585-528 B. C.) said it was "air." What Artaximander called apeiron could also be called chaotic, limitless matter. Fleraclitus (ca. 490-430 B. C.) identified archi as "fire"; Enipedocles considered it to be the four elements of fire, water, air, and soil; and Dernocritus (ca. 460-370 B. C.) thought of it as the fundamental particle that cannot be further divided, that is, the .atom."

On the other hand, the Chinese, from ancient times, had regarded chi to be the origin of the universe. Chi is something that can be described as matter filling the universe. The theory of yin and yang, which originated with Tsou Yen (305-240 B. C.), explained that the Great Ultimate (Tai-chi) engendered yin and yang. Yin and yang, in turn, gave rise to the "four images," namely, great yin, little yin, great yang, and little yang. These four images produced the "eight trigrams" (Pa-kua), which, through interaction and multiplication, produced the universe. Later, the Great Ultimate was interpreted as being the fundamental monistic chi which engendered yin and yang. ⁶ Thus, in the theory of yin and yang as well, the origin of the universe was considered to be ch'i.

According to modern physics, all matter is composed of atoms; atoms are composed of elementary particles; and elementary particles are made of energy. Hence, the essence of matter can be regarded as energy. From the viewpoint of Unification Thought, the essence of God's Hyungsang is a kind of energy. That energy, however, is not the same as physical energy in the created world. It is energy in a state before it is phenomenalized as energy in the created world. The energy of God's Hyungsang can be called "pre-energy," or "pre-matter," in the sense that it call become matter. ⁷ In any case, since the ultimate nature of matter is ail object of study of science, we must rely on future developments in science for its clarification.

When, centering on purpose, the original Sungsang and the original Hyungsang (i.e., pre-energy) engage in give-and-receive action, ⁸ energy, or force, is generated. (See the discussion on give-and-receive action in the section "File Structure of the Original Image" of this chapter.) Depending on the different purposes, two kinds of energy may be generated, namely, acting energy (or acting force) and forming energy (or forming force). The acting energy is the force of God; it is called "Prime Force." The Prime Force acts on all created beings and is manifested as the force that causes give-and-receive action between subject and object. As such, this force is called "Universal Prime Force." On the other hand, forming energy forms the mass of particles in the created world.

Matter (hyle), as mentioned by Aristotle, originally refers to pure material without any determination. Why, then, does Unification Thought call it "Hyungsang; " which, in Chinese characters, has the connotation of "form"? The reason is that Hyungsang has the potentiality to assume specific forms. This can be explained by taking water as an analogy. Water has no form of its own, but it can assume numerous forms depending on the container in which it is contained. Therefore, it can be said that water, though formless, has a limitless number of forms. Likewise, hyli is also formless, but it has the potential to manifest a limitless number of forms. For that reason, it is appropriate to call it "Hyungsang. ¹¹

According to contemporary science, elementary particles are said to be formed of energy. To be specific, from a vacuum state without mass, elementary particles are engendered from energy. When, however, energy vibrates and engenders elementary particles from the vacuum state, the vibration of energy is not continuous but occurs at graded levels, or states. just as there are scales in music, there are graded states in the vibration of energy, and as a result, there is a limit to the variety of elementary particles that can come into being. This implies that energy itself has a type of vibration scale, and therefore, a certain form. Though invisible, energy already possesses a kind of form, and according to that form, the elementary particles come into being. In this sense, also, it is appropriate to use the term "Hyungsang" for matter."

At this point, the question of whether or not Sungsang and Hyungsang in the Original Image are essentially heterogeneous will be considered. If Sungsang and Hyungsang are essentially heterogeneous, then God must be viewed as a dualistic being. Unification Thought, however, does not regard Sungsang and Hyungsang as essentially heterogeneous. I will explain this point by using the states of water as an analogy.

Water and steam are quite different in their physical natures, but they are essentially identical in the sense that they are both made of the same molecules, namely, H₂0. Water and steam only differ in state, due to a difference in ratio between the kinetic energy (i.e., the repulsive force) and the molecular attraction (i.e., the attractive force) of the water molecules. Therefore, water and steam are not essentially heterogeneous. Sungsang and Hyungsang can be thought of in the same way. Though the Sungsang fundamentally consists of mental elements, there are energetic elements in it as well-but in the Sungsang there are more mental elements than energetic elements. Similarly, Hyungsang consists fundamentally of energetic elements, but mental elements exist in it as well "and in the Hyungsang there are more energetic elements than mental elements. Thus, Sungsang and Hyungsang are not essentially heterogeneous; both have mental as well as energetic elements.

In the created world, Sungsang and Hyungsang are manifested as spirit (or mind) and matter (or body). These are heterogeneous to each other, but still they have something in common. Hence, it can be said that in the mind there is an element of energy as well. For instance, if an electric impulse is applied to the nerve of a leg muscle removed from a frog, it is well known that the muscle will contract. But the mind, also, can move muscles, just as can physical energy (i.e., electric energy). This is an evidence that there is energy within the mind. Moreover, the fact that there are people who can move another person's body through hypnotism indicates that there is energy within the mind. Furthermore, as stated earlier, when energy emerges in the form of elementary particles, only those elementary particles that have specified kinds of regularity will appear. This indicates that, there is some Sungsang element inherent in energy itself.

Thus, there is some Hyungsang element in the Sungsang, and likewise there is some Sungsang element in the Hyungsang. In the Original Image, Sungsang and Hyungsang are united into one. They are essentially one and the same absolute attribute, from which is engendered the difference of Sungsang and Hyungsang. When this absolute attribute is manifested in the created world through creation, it becomes two different elements. This is analogous to the drawing of straight lines in two different directions from a single point. One of the lines, in this case, corresponds to Sungsang (or spirit), and the other corresponds to Hyungsang (or matter) (Fig. 1-1).

Fig. 1-1. The difference between Sungsang and Hyungsang from the viewpoint of the Theory of Oneness.

It is written in the Bible that one can understand the invisible nature of God by observing created beings (Rom. 1:20). If we observe created beings, we will notice that they have the dual aspects of mind (spirit) and body (matter), of instinct and body, of life and body, and so on. From this we can infer that God, who is the causal being, is, likewise, of dual characteristics. In God, however, the dual characteristics are in oneness. In reference to this point, the Unification Principle states that "God is the subject who consists of the dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang." ¹⁰ We call this viewpoint "Theory of Oneness," or "Unification Theory." ¹¹

Let us now examine certain important points of Aristotle's view of substance and of Descartes' view of dualism. According to Aristotle (384-322 B. C.), substance consists of eidos (form) and hyli (matter). Eidos refers to the essence that makes a substance into what it is; and hyli refers to the material that forms the substance. Aristotle's eidos and hyli, which became two basic concepts in Western philosophy, correspond to Sungsang and Hyungsang in Unification Thought. There are, however, fundamental differences between the two views, as is shown in what follows.

According to Aristotle, when we trace eidos and hyli back to their ultimate origin, we arrive at "pure eidos" (or prime eidos) and "prime hyli." Pure eidos, or God, is pure activity without any form; it is nothing but thinking itself. Thus, God was regarded as pure thinking, or the thinking of thinking. Prime hyli, however, was considered to be entirely independent of God. Hence, Aristotle's ontology was a kind of dualism. Also, in regarding prime hyli to be independent of God, it differed from the Christian view of God as the Creator of all things.

Incorporating Aristotle's thought into Christianity, Thomas Aquinas ( 1225-1274) considered pure eidos, or the thinking of thinking, to be God. just as had Augustine (354-430) before him, Aquinas claimed that God created the world from nothing. God created everything, including hyli and since no element of hyli existed within God, Aquinas could not but affirm the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo ('creation from nothing'). The doctrine that matter comes from nothing, however, is unacceptable to modern science, which holds that the universe is made of energy.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) held that God, spirit, and matter are three types of substance. He held that God's substance is absolutely one, but that in the created world, substance is dual, namely, spirit and matter (or mind and body). For him, spirit and matter are totally independent from each other, though each of them is dependent on God. Hence, Descartes proposed dualism. As a result, it became difficult for him, and for Western philosophy after that, to explain how spirit and matter can interact with each other.

The Flemish philosopher A. Geulincx (1624-1669), who succeeded Descartes in developing the doctrine of dualism, sought to solve the problem of how mind and body interact with each other by explaining that God mediates between the two. In other words, the occurrence of a mental state gives God the occasion to cause a physical action corresponding to it; and the occurrence of a physical state gives God the occasion to cause a mental state corresponding to it. That was the essence of occasionalism. ¹² This explanation, however, is an unacceptable expedient, which no one takes seriously now. The root of Descartes' problem was that he conceived of spirit and matter as totally heterogeneous entities.

Thus, the concepts of eidos (form) and hyli (matter), as well as spirit and matter, as grasped by Western thought, have presented difficult problems. It can be said that the Unification Thought concepts of Sungsang and Hyungsang have solved these difficult problems.

Since God is explained in the Unification Principle as a harmonious "subject consisting of the dual characteristics of Yang and Yin,'" Yang and Yin are also dual characteristics in God, in addition to Sungsang and Hyungsang. Then, what relationship (to the dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang have to the dual characteristics of Yang and Yin?

The Unification Principle explains that "God's essential positivity [Original Yang] and essential negativity [Original Yin] are the attributes of His essential character [Original Sungsang] and essential form [Original Hyungsang. ¹⁴ This means that God's Sungsang and Hyungsang each have the attributes of Yang characteristics as well as Yin characteristics. In other words, both the Sungsang and the Hyungsang of God have the potential to manifest Yang and Yin characteristics. Therefore, the dual characteristics of Yang and Yin are on a dimension different from that of the dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang. That is, within the Original Image, Sungsang and Hyungsang are primary attributes, whereas Yang and Yin are secondary attributes.

In the Sungsang, Yang and Yin are in the relationship of subject and object; and in the Hyungsang also, Yang and Yin are in the relationship of subject and object. (Concerning the relationship of subject and object, see Section III, "The Structure of the Original Image.") In the human mind, the Yang of Sungsang appears as brightness, excitement, activeness, and so on; whereas the Yin of Sungsang appears its dullness, calmness, passiveness, and so on. The Yang of Hyungsang in the human body is manifested as protrusions, and the Yin of Hyungsang is manifested as recesses. Yang and Yin are manifested universally in the natural world such as light and dark, high and low, dynamic and static, strong and weak.

Why, then, do the attributes of Yang and Yin exist in addition to the attributes of Sungsang and Hyungsang? Yang and Yin exist in order to manifest change, harmony, and beauty in the creation. The higher a created being is, the more complex its shape is, assuming a convex and concave contour rather than a merely globular shape. The natural world displays many types of changes, such as the variety of seasons, the rhythmic change of day and night, and the alternation of mountains and valleys in a landscape. When such changes are harmonious, we experience beauty from them. Through change we can experience harmony in diversity, but none of that would be possible if beings had been created with only Sungsang and Hyungsang.

In Oriental philosophy it is held that all things are composed of Yang and Yin, and most of the arguments in Oriental philosophy concern Yang and Yin. Yet, Oriental philosophy contains ambiguous and unclear points in its conception of Yang and Yin. Sometimes it deals with Yang and Yin as substances; other times, as attributes. For instance, such substances as the sun, the male being, and the mountains , as well as such qualities as bright, hot, and high, are described as Yang; such substances as the moon, female beings, and valleys, as well as such qualities as dark, cold, and low, are described as Yin.

The characterization of Yang and Yin as substances, however, is not in agreement with Unification Thought, which views Yang and Yin merely as attributes. A man, for instance, is not regarded as all entity of Yang itself, nor is a woman regarded as an entity of Yin itself, man and woman are each entities with Sungsang and Hyungsang, where man assumes Yang characteristics and woman Yin characteristics. In other words, the male is an entity with Yang Sungsang and Yang Hyungsang, whereas the female is and entity with Yin Sungsang and Yin Hyungsang. Let us first consider the Hyungsang. In their Hyungsang aspect, both man and woman have Yang elements and Yin elements, but males have more Yang than Yin elements, and females have more Yin than Yang elements. This difference in the Hyungsang can be called a quantitative difference. In their Sungsang aspect also, both man and woman have Yang elements and Yin elements, but there is a qualitative difference between the type of Yang and Yin elements possessed by a male and the type of Yang and Yin elements possessed by a female. This point will be further discussed in "Ontology."

Western philosophy, up to the present, has discussed the concepts of eidos and hyli (or spirit and matter), but has had no concepts comparable to Yang and Yin. In contrast, Oriental philosophy has focused mostly on Yang and Yin. Oriental philosophy also has the concepts of Li and Chi, which correspond to spirit and matter, but it did not develop these concepts to the extent that they were developed in the idealism and materialism of Western philosophy. Generally speaking, it can be said that eidos and hyli in Western philosophy correspond to Sungsang and Hyungsang in Unification Thought, and that Yang and Yin in Oriental philosophy correspond to Yang and Yin in Unification Thought.

Western philosophy and Oriental philosophy each have a history of over 2,000 years; but these two philosophies, until now, have never been successfully united. In Unification Thought ontology, however, the Western theory of eidos and hyli and the Oriental theory of Yin and Yang are completely united as Sungsang-Hyungsang and Yang-Yin. This means that the ontologies forming the foundations of Oriental philosophy and Western philosophy can be united through the ontology of Unification Thought, and that, therefore, Oriental culture and Western culture can be united on the basis of Unification Thought. The culture established through the unity of Eastern and Western cultures can be called the unified culture. The unity of the dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang and the dual characteristics of Yang and Yin can be expressed in a diagram, as in Fig. 1-2.

Fig. 1-2. The Dual Characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang and Yang and Yin in the Original Image.

In the discussion above, I explained Sungsang-Hyungsang and Yang-Yin as contents of the "Divine Image." Sungsang-Hyungsang and Yang-Yin together are also called the "Universal Image," since these attributes of God appear universally in all created beings. Yet, every created being has an attribute that is peculiar to itself, in addition to the universal image. The peculiar image comes from God's Individual Image. A discussion of God's Individual Image follows.

The attribute of God that is causal to the peculiar attributes, or special features, inherent in each created being is called "Individual Image." Created beings have their own special features; human beings, especially, have clearly distinguishable facial features, physical constitution, and personality.

From a biological perspective, human beings have different genes (or DNA), which exist in their chromosomes. Why is the DNA of each person different? Each person's DNA is different because the Individual Image, which exists within God, dwells in the chromosomes in the form for DNA. In creating human beings and all other creatures, God envisioned a form and nature peculiar to each created being. The peculiar form and nature exist as an idea in God's Inner Hyungsang. That idea is precisely what the Individual Image is. Accordingly, the Individual Image is located in the Inner Hyungsang of the Original Sungsang.

That each created being has its own unique features means that in each created being the Sungsang and Hyungsang are individualized, and the Yang and Yin are individualized. Hence, the Individual Image does not exist independently of the Universal Image; actually, the Individual Image is nothing but an individualized Universal Image.

What is the purpose of so many differences in peoples' features and personalities? These differences exist in order to bring greater joy to God. God's intention was to obtain a special and unique kind of joy through each particular person. Of course, all beings in creation have their own unique character, but the character of other beings is not as clearly distinguishable as that of human beings. The reason is that human beings were created in a direct likeness to God, whereas the rest of creation was created in a symbolic likeness to God.

God's Individual Image manifested in a human being is that human being's individuality. Thus, human individuality is precious and should be respected absolutely. With regard to all things, their individuality originates from God as well and must be respected; but the preciousness of their individuality cannot be compared to the preciousness of human individuality. It is for this reason that the human being is the Lord of Dominion over all things.

Here the following question may arise: is it not true that the individuality of a person comes from his or her parents rather than from God? Though certain aspects of the parents are passed on to the children, not all of the unique characteristics of the parents are inherited. Moreover, people are born with new unique characteristics that their parents did not possess. One must conclude, therefore, that God creates human beings by using their parents' unique characteristics as the material, but also by following a unique idea envisioned in God's own Inner Hyungsang.

According to Thomas Aquinas, it is hyli that is the "principle of individuation" (principium individuationis). All things consist of eidos and hyli, but eidos is universal and not individuated. Hence, all things are individuated through hyli, according to Aquinas. Such a view, however, amounts to saying that individuality comes about by chance. Aquinas' theory provides no philosophical basis for guaranteeing the absoluteness of human individuality.

In contrast, humanists start out by claiming that human individuality must be respected; but their claim is ambiguous because humanists, also, have failed to offer a philosophical basis for guaranteeing the absoluteness of human individuality. Communism, on the other hand, maintains that a human being is an animal that has evolved to a high degree and, at the same time, a product of the social environment. It also maintains that, as the environment changes, human beings must change as well. Therefore, for communists, human individuality is not that important; what is important is the social environment and social institutions. The occurrence of genocide during communist revolutions and of mass purges in post-revolutionary power struggles provides evidence for the claim that in communism there is no theoretical basis for respecting human individuality.

In contrast, Unification Thought maintains that human individuality comes from God's Individual Image, and therefore is not determined by the environment. Undeniably, there are certain aspects of individuality that are influenced by the environment; nevertheless, the aspects that originate from God's Individual Image are primary, and those that are influenced by the environment are merely secondary. Hence, Unification Thought maintains that human individuality is absolute.

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