While the aspect of form in God is called "Divine Image," the aspect of function, or ability, is called "Divine Character." In traditional theology, the natures of God are regarded as omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, unchangeability, supreme goodness, supreme beauty, supreme love, and so on. In Unification Thought, however, Heart, Logos, and Creativity are emphasized as the most important of the divine natures. Love is also one of the important divine natures, but love derives from Heart, which is its source. The natures of Heart, Logos, and Creativity will be discussed.

Heart, or Shimjung, is the core of the attributes of God. Heart is an emotional impulse to obtain joy-and true joy is obtained through love. Therefore, the emotional impulse to be joyful is one with the emotional impulse to seek to love. Accordingly, Heart is the "emotional impulse to obtain joy through love."

God's Heart is an irrepressible impulse. It is an irrepressible emotional force and desire that well up from within God. For that reason, an object for God to love was absolutely necessary. That is the very reason why God created the human being and all things. God created the human being as the object of His love; and in order to bring happiness to the human being, God created all things as the objects of the human being.

A person feels joy when he or she loves an object. If the object resembles the subject, the subject feels even greater joy. For this reason, God created the human being in His own likeness as His object of love; and in order to bring happiness to the human being, God created all things in the likeness of humankind, as the objects of the human being.

No religion or philosophy, until now, has been able adequately to explain the reason why Cod created the universe. Religious and philosophical discussions about God and the universe have usually just assumed God's creation as an established reality. For instance, Chinese philosophy, as set forth in the I Ching, explains that from the Great Ultimate (or Tai-chi) there came yin and yang, and yin and yang, in turn, gave rise to the "four images" of great and little yin and great and little yang. These four images produced the "eight trigrams" (pa-kua), which produced all things. Nevertheless, Chinese philosophy offers no explanation as to why Tai-chi engendered yin and yang and developed into the four images, the eight trigrams, and all things.

Similar remarks can be made with regard to Christian theology, where God is said to be omniscient and omnipotent. That God is omniscient and omnipotent does not mean that He would have to create anything; God might have remained silent and self-satisfied, doing absolutely nothing, and still be omniscient and omnipotent. Therefore, omniscience and omnipotence cannot be regarded as the motivation that drove God to create the universe. Furthermore, in Christianity the essence of God is regarded as love. The highest form of Christian love is agape, which is the self-sacrificial love manifested in Jesus' crucifixion. The purpose of that love was to save sinful humanity. Ultimately, then, agape cannot have been the reason why God created human beings and the universe.

Unless, however, the reason why God created humankind and the universe is clarified, it becomes quite difficult for us to be convinced of God's existence. This kind of ambiguity leaves room for atheism to arise. In fact, the claim has actually been made that, instead of God having created the human being, it was the human being that created God-as Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) proposed.

According to Feuerbach, the essential characteristics of the human being are reason, will, and love. Though a human being, as an individual, is finite, he or she seeks to attain perfection in thinking, desiring, and loving. Feuerbach concluded that perfect reason, perfect will, and perfect love are nothing but the essential nature of humankind. He referred to these essential characteristics as humankind's "species-essence" (Gallungswesen). ¹⁶ He then went on to assert that God is nothing but the objectification of the human species-essence, or the essence of humankind. A painter creates a painting by objectifying the concepts envisioned in the painter's mind. In the same way-Feuerbach argued-human beings worship the ideal of the human species which is within them, by objectifying it. ¹⁷ In other words, God did not create the human being; it was the human being that created God, according to Feuerbach.

When confronted with attacks like this, Christianity was unable to refute them satisfactorily. If Christians had clearly known the reason why God created humankind and the universe, they would have been able to refute Feuerbach's attack with confidence. But Christians did not possess that knowledge; hence, statements such as those by Feuerbach were allowed to stand, and in the soil of Feuerbach's atheism, Marxism found a place to grow. Through Unification Thought, however, such matters are clarified. Since God is a being of Heart, He could not but have created humankind as His object and the universe as the object of humankind, out of His irrepressible impulse to be joyful through love.

Since human beings were created in the likeness of God, they, also, have air emotional impulse to obtain joy through love. This is the impulse of Heart, which actually consists of two kinds of impulse, namely, one for joy and one for love. First, then, every human being has an impulse to be joyful. Those who seek to be rich, or gain power, or acquire knowledge-all of them do so because, through doing that, they want to become joyful. It is because of their impulse to seek joy that children desire to play with toys; and it is because of their impulse to seek spiritual joy that martyrs sacrifice their very existence in the physical body.

Accordingly, everyone has the impulse for joy. It is clear, however, that even if a person earns money, gains power, or acquires knowledge, the joy he or she obtains from those things will not last long. Then, how can one obtain true joy? The only way to obtain true joy is through love. More precisely, when a person engages in economic, political, or scholarly activity while at the same time loving others and being loved by others, he or she will obtain joy from the heart.

Love is the emotional force that the subject gives to the object. ¹⁸ Therefore, for the subject, the impulse is to love; and for the object, the impulse is to be loved. For instance, a child's impulse to seek to be loved is irrepressible. If that impulse is not satisfied, the child may even become rebellious or sick. The parents' impulse to love is irrepressible as well. There are numerous examples of parents that, when confronted by a dangerous situation involving their children, are ready to do anything they can to protect their children, in utter disregard for their own personal safety. The reason is that only through love can true joy be obtained.

In this way, the impulse toward joy is connected with the impulse toward love. Love, here, does not refer to secular, or self-centered love. Rather, it refers to true love, which is altruistic love centered on God. The joy obtained through secular love is relative and temporary, whereas the joy obtained through true love is absolute and eternal. True love seeks to give before receiving. The Japanese writer Takeo Arishima once said, "Love plunders without restraint'! -- but the love he referred to is not true love. True love gives without restraint. True love tries to please the object first, for by so doing, one can obtain joy for oneself as well. God created human beings and poured limitless love upon them. God sought to be joyful by seeing how human beings themselves are joyful.

Heart is the core of the essence of God. To describe this figuratively, we could use the image of concentric circles, such that the innermost circle is Heart, around which there is Sungsang, and the outermost circle is Hyungsang (Fig. 1-3). Since Heart exists within the Sungsang as the nucleus of the Sungsang, God's attributes remain the dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang. What, then, is the relationship between emotion and Heart? Emotion and Heart are both elements of the same emotional function, but Heart is causal and emotion resultant. We become joyful when the impulse of Heart is satisfied; but when it is not, we become depressed. This joy and depression are resultant emotions, or feelings, and these are what people usually refer to when they speak of emotions. Heart is the inner, causal emotion; whereas emotion in the Inner Sungsang (i.e., intellect, emotion, and will) is the outer, resultant emotion.

Fig. 1-3. Sungsang and Hyungsang centered on Heart.

And what about the relationship between Heart and love? Both Heart and love are at the root of intellect, emotion, and will, but Heart is the emotional, impulsive force to seek joy, whereas love is the emotional force to connect the subject and the object. With the impulse of Heart as the motivation, an emotional force flows from the subject toward the object -- or from the object toward the subject. That emotional force is love. Therefore, Heart is the source of love, or the starting point of love.

In the intellect, emotion, and will of human beings, the faculty of intellect pursues learning, the faculty of emotion pursues art, and the faculty of will pursues ethics and morality. But since Heart is the core of the Sungsang, the faculties of intellect, emotion, and will should be centered on Heart. The purpose of Heart is to realize the purpose of creation, which is to build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. In other words, everyone's activities should be conducted on the basis of Heart for the purpose of building the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

God's creation was started with Heart as its motivation. Accordingly, in the Original Image give-and-receive action between the Original Sungsang and Original Hyungsang was performed centering on Heart. In this give-and-receive action, the impulsive force of Heart in the Original Sungsang was united with the energetic element of Original Hyungsang, and that unity manifested itself as the Prime Force. This Prime Force acts on all things and is manifested as the force that brings about give-and-receive action, which is called the Universal Prime Force. In human beings, it is manifested as the force to form reciprocal relationships among people, or the force of love.

Since religions and philosophy, until now, have not adequately explained that God is a being of Heart, they have not been able to clarify the reason why God created the world. In contrast, Unification Thought offers the "Heart Motivation Theory," which explains the reason behind God's creation.

The Heart Motivation Theory strongly affirms the Creation Theory and gives us confidence in the existence of God as the Creator. The Heart Motivation Theory puts an end to the controversy between Creation Theory and Emanation Theory. Creation Theory asserts that God created the world, but leaves unclear God's motivation for creating it; besides, it has the additional problem of asserting that matter was created from nothing. On the other hand, Emanation Theory asserts that everything existed within God and flowed out from God; hence, this theory has blurred the distinction between God and the world and has led to pantheism. In contrast, the Heart Motivation Theory explains that all tile causes of the world exist within God, but the world itself did not flow out of God. God created the world motivated by Heart, engaging His own Sungsang and Hyungsang in give-and-receive action with each other.

We must now discuss the difference between God's love and the Christian concept of agape from the viewpoint of Unification Thought. What Unification Thought means by "God's love" is His love at the time of creation, which was full of hope and was the source of life. It is also the love embodied in the ideal of creation, which surely would have been realized if Adam and Eve had not fallen but had, instead, established a family centered on God.

In contrast, agape is God's self-sacrificing and encouraging love, which seeks to save fallen humankind. The original purpose of Jesus' coming was to realize, on earth, God's original love. He was crucified, however, as a consequence of the disbelief in him of the people of his time. Accordingly, Jesus was not able to accomplish that ideal. Instead, he showed God's love as agape, so that he could lead fallen humankind back to God.

In the Gospel according to John, first chapter, it is written that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. he was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made" (John. 1: 1-3, Rsv). The meaning of this Biblical passage is that all things were created through God's Word. The Unification Principle is in agreement with this view and understands that God created the universe with His Word. Word, here, is the same as Logos. The identification of the Word with God is said to have been the expression of John, who had been influenced by Philo of Alexandria (ca. 25 B. C. - A. D. 40), who regarded Logos as the Second God. If the Word is identified with God, however, a problem arises. Hegel is a case in point: considering Idea, or Logos, to be God, Hegel described the creation of' the universe as tile self-development of Idea (or Logos). As a result, the personal aspect of God became excluded from his philosophy.

From the perspective of Unification Thought, Logos is the thinking of God as well as the Word uttered by God. Logos as the Word uttered by God is the conception, or blueprint, of each created being at the time of creation. Therefore, Logos is a multiplied entity (i.e., a created entity) that arose within God's mind.

When the Inner Sungsang and Inner Hyungsang engage in give-and-receive action, centering on the purpose of creation, there arises a conception, or a blueprint-and this is what we call Logos. As an example, let us suppose that God, centering on Heart, establishes the purpose of creating a bird, for the sake of human beings. In trying to realize this purpose, God engages in thinking by exercising His volitional and intellectual functions, especially His reason. He might ask Himself, "In what shape shall I make this bird? In what color? In what form and structure shall I make its wings? How shall I form its skeleton and flesh?" By proceeding this way, God comes to envision the image of a bird through associating various ideas within His Inner Hyungsang. This process leads to a tentative conception of the bird. At that point God's emotion comes into play, allowing Him to feel whether this or that aspect of the conception is good or bad. If God feels that something in the conception of the bird is not good, He reconstructs the conception by again exercising the faculties of will and intellect. Through such a process, God finally completes His conception.

The Inner Sungsang consists of intellect, emotion, and will; oil the other hand, the Inner Hyungsang consists of ideas, concepts, original laws, and mathematical principles. When the Inner Sungsang and the Inner Hyungsang engage in give-and-receive action and form a Logos, the elements that play especially important roles are reason in the Inner Sungsang and law in the Inner Hyungsang, Thus, if we focus on the special roles played by reason and law in the formation of Logos, then Logos can be understood as the unity of reason and law, or "reason-law."

Since the universe is created through Logos, and since Logos is reason-law, within each created being there can always be found an element of reason and an element of law (or a mathematical element), and these two elements work in unity. Reason has the nature of freedom, since it is part of the functional aspect of the mind, whereas law appears as necessity. Thus, freedom and necessity are always united in the function of reason-law. In the human being, the function of reason operates in a relatively strong manner, whereas in other beings of nature, the function of reason is weak when compared with law, or necessity, which operates in a relatively strong manner.

Logos is reason-law, but it is also known as the "Law of the Universe," or the 'Way of Heaven." Actually, the reason-law that is at work in the natural world could just as well be called simply "law"; this, however, does not mean that there is no freedom in the natural world.

It is said that the universe has been developing over the past 1520 billion years, but it is also true that there is a certain direction to the development of the universe. A certain system of planets (i.e., the solar system) came into being through a condensation in a primitive galaxy of a gaseous state, and in it the earth was formed. On earth, there appeared plants, animals, and finally human beings. What characteristics does this development of the universe have?

Concerning this question, the following viewpoints have been proposed. The first viewpoint is that the universe came to be what it is by accident, out of many possibilities. The second viewpoint is that the universe has been developing in a definite direction, and is doing so necessarily, according to natural laws. The third viewpoint is that the universe has been developing autonomously in a definite direction, and is doing so by excluding many other possibilities.

Materialism would naturally opt either for the first or the second viewpoint. In contrast, Unification Thought definitely chooses the third viewpoint, since it affirms that the universe was created through reason-law. Unification Thought maintains that the direction of the development of the universe was determined through the function of reason on the basis of the operation of laws. According to Unification Thought, behind the universe there exists something called cosmic consciousness, which is the life of the universe; out of many different possibilities, the universe has been developing in a definite direction.

To elucidate this point further, let us consider the growth of a plant. A sprout comes out of a seed; a stem grows; branches and leaves come out; eventually flowers blossom, and the plant bears fruit. Life dwells within the seed-and through [lie operation of life, the plant comes to grow in a definite direction while adjusting itself' to the environment and making various choices. Therefore, in the growth of a plant there is the operation not only of law, but also of reason, which is a mental element. In animals, tile rational element is operating more strongly than in plants.

In human life, reason-law operates as the unity of freedom and ethical law. Human beings are to act according to free will while following certain laws. If these laws are not observed, family breakdown and social confusion will arise. The proper way for human beings to live is to act based on free will while observing ethical laws. In God, Logos is formed on the basis of Heart, and the purpose of Heart is to be fulfilled through love. Consequently, ethical laws exist for tile purpose of actualizing love.

The Reverend Sun Myung Moon says that the universe is governed by the law of love. This means that the universe operates centering on the purpose of actualizing God's love. For example, the earth revolves around the sun through the function of universal gravity. In so doing, the earth maintains its existence, but at tile same time it forms an environment in which human beings can live. Scientists, thus far, have generally focused only oil laws; but the time has come for them to discover the element of reason, the aspect of purposefulness, and the law of love operating in the natural world.

Creativity refers to the ability to create. Human beings have always striven to enrich their lives by developing new ideas and by producing new things. That is the expression of the function of creativity. God's Creativity, with which He created the universe, has been given to human beings.

Logos is formed in the Original Sungsang through the Inner Sungsang and the Inner Hyungsang engaging in give-and-receive action centering on purpose. A created being is formed through Logos and the Original Hyungsang engaging in give-and-receive action. Here, the ability to form a multiplied body by initiating give-and-receive action is none other than creativity. The give-and-receive action between the Inner Sungsang and the Inner Hyungsang in the Original Sungsang is called Inner Give-and-Receive Action, whereas the give-and-receive action between Logos and Hyungsang is called Outer Give-and-Receive Action. "Inner" and "outer," in this case, are concepts centered on the Original Sung-sang. Creativity can be described as the ability to form Inner and Outer Four Position Bases by engaging in inner and outer give-and-receive actions. (A more complete explanation of give-and-receive action and four-position base will be given in the next section, 'The Structure of the Original Image.") At the time of creation, give-and-receive action took place centering on purpose. But Heart lies behind purpose, since purpose is derived from Heart. Accordingly, God's Creativity is based on Heart.

When God created human beings, He endowed them with creativity. By doing so, He intended for human beings to exercise dominion over all things with their creativity. God's Creativity is based on Heart; therefore, only when human beings become perfected and inherit God's Heart, do they become qualified to inherit creativity from God completely. In other words, a person is qualified to have dominion over all things only when he or she grows to maturity, perfects his or her personality, forms a couple through marriage centering on God's love, and perfects his or her family. Human beings, however, have fallen, and therefore have failed to inherit God's Heart; therefore, the creativity they inherited from God has been incomplete and, moreover, has become a creative ability based on self-centered reason. That is why, up to now, hardly any human creative activity has had anything to do with God's love.

In its original meaning, creativity must be based on love. This means that, in order to control the natural world, science must be conducted on the basis of values. To date, however, values have been disregarded in the development of the sciences. As a result, while human life has become very convenient, the achievements of science have often come to be used for oppression, wars, and the destruction of nature, causing enormous damage to human beings and nature.

The Bible says, "The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now" (Rom. 8:19-22, Rsv). This means that, because of the human fall, human beings have failed to manifest true creativity centered on love, having instead been cruel and destructive to nature, and that, therefore, things are in sorrow. When, however, human beings come to receive God's love and manifest true creativity, there will no longer be any cruelty or destruction of nature, and along with that, creation will cease to suffer. In that kind of world, the results of science will contribute only to the realization of happiness.

Conservation movements today are popular, and the issue of creating unity between the sciences and values has come into focus. Such developments can be regarded as the manifestation of people's effort to restore their lost original creativity.

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