God created man and woman as His objects, which are meant to resemble Him (Gen. 1:27). That is the most important foundation for education. Based on this foundation, education can be described as the process of raising children to attain resemblance to God. In other words, education is an effort to guide children to resemble God. To resemble God is to resemble the Divine Image and Divine Character. Basically man and woman have the Divine Image inherited by birth. So, to resemble God for them is to grow and come to resemble the relationship within the Divine Image and also to inherit the Divine Character, namely, Heart, reason-law, Creativity, and so on, of God. When God created man and woman, He gave them the three blessings to grow, to multiply, and to have dominion over all things. God gave them blessings (commandments), saying, "Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the earth" (Gen. 1:28). Here the first item, "be fruitful," means to grow; .multiply and fill the earth" means to give birth to children; and finally "subdue it [the earth]" means to have dominion over all things. By realizing these Three Great Blessings (or three great commandments), man and woman come to inherit God's Heart, reason-law, and Creativity, and resemble God's natures of perfection, multiplication, and dominion (Fig. 5-1).

Jesus said, "You must ... be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). This is a call for people to resemble the perfection of God. Perfection refers to the round and harmonious nature of the mutual relationship of Sungsang and Hyungsang, or the unity of Sungsang and Hyungsang. In God, Sungsang and Hyungsang are in harmonious give-and-receive action in the relationship of subject and object centering on Heart, and are united in oneness. This state is perfection.

Accordingly, for people to resemble God's perfection means that their Sungsang and Hyungsang are united in oneness, centering on Heart. In a human being there are four kinds of Sungsang and Hyungsang, as mentioned in Ontology, but here I refer specifically to the spirit mind and physical mind. In order for the spirit mind and physical mind to be united, the spirit mind must become the subject, and the physical mind, the object-that is, the spirit mind must have dominion over the physical mind. The spirit mind

Fig. 5-1: God's Resemblance and the Three Great Blessings

pursues the values of trueness, goodness and beauty, whereas the physical mind pursues food, clothing, shelter, and sex. Thus, in order for the spirit mind and physical mind to be united, the life of trueness, goodness, and beauty should be primary, and the life of food, clothing, shelter, and sex, secondary. The center of give-and-receive action between the spirit mind and physical mind is Heart arid love.

In summary, a life of flood, clothing, and shelter must be led centering on the life of trueness, goodness, and beauty, based on love. This is what is meant by resembling God's perfection. When people are young, they do not understand well tile values of' trueness, goodness, and beauty; but as they mature, their hearts gradually develop and they come to lead-centering on love-a true life, a good life, and a beautiful life. Thus, gradually they come to resemble the perfection of God.

Since the human being is a dual being of the spirit person and physical person, human growth involves both the growth of the spirit person and the growth of the physical person. The First Blessing, namely, "to grow," refers not only to the growth of the physical person, but primarily to the growth of the spirit person, namely, the improvement of a person's spiritual level. Moreover, people are promised that, if they grow to maturity, they will inherit God's perfection. Therefore, this is the First Blessing, given to human beings as a promise.

Next, people must resemble God's nature of multiplication. Resembling God's nature of multiplication means resembling the mutual relationship of the natures of Yang and Yin in God. God is the Harmonious Being of Yang and Yin. Therefore, man and woman are supposed to resemble this harmony of God's Yang and Yin. The harmony of Yang and Yin in human beings refers to the harmony of husband and wife. People came into being through the harmony of God's Yang and Yin, which constitutes God's nature of multiplication. Therefore, in human beings as well, Yang and Yin (man and woman) become harmonized, and through that harmony, children come into existence.

The call to resemble God's nature of multiplication is a call for man and woman, or Yang and Yin, to become engaged in harmonious give-and-receive action in the same way as Yang and Yin in God are engaged in harmonious give-and-receive action. For this, man and woman must develop the qualifications for marriage and multiplication. That is to say, man should become perfectly equipped with the qualifications of a man, and woman should become perfectly equipped with the qualifications of a woman. Thus, the call is for them to become able to fulfill man's duty as a husband and woman's duty as a wife, respectively. When they collie to possess such qualifications, they should get married and have children. Therefore, this is the Second Blessing, given to human beings as a promise.

Furthermore, man and woman must resemble God's nature of dominion. To resemble God's nature of dominion means to resemble God's Creativity, which is the ability to create objects centering on Heart (love). Therefore, God created human beings and all things with Creativity, and intended to have dominion over them. Since human beings were originally endowed with this Creativity, they were created to have dominion over all things, centering on Heart. To be precise, it is only after human beings are fully developed that they come to possess this ability. Therefore, this is the Third Blessing, given to human beings as a promise.

For example, industrial activities are activities of dominion over all things. Farmers cultivate the land, which is a form of dominion over the land. In a factory, workers produce goods out of raw materials-by using machines. This is a form of dominion over raw materials and machines. Fishing is a form of dominion over the fish and the waters, and forestry is a form of dominion over trees and mountains.

To have dominion over all things means to manifest creativity. Seen from the viewpoint of the formation of the four-position base, creativity refers to the ability to form an inner four-position base and an outer four-position base. Accordingly, in agriculture, farmers cultivate the fields making creative efforts, based on their own ideas, to obtain a greater harvest. In commerce, too, people will not be successful without ideas and creative will. In short, agriculture, mining, industry, commerce, forestry, fishery, and other human industries are all forms of human dominion over all things by manifesting creativity. Science and art, also, come into the category of dominion over all things. Dominion over society, namely, participation in politics, also comes into the category of dominion over all things.

Yet, due to the fall, people failed to inherit God's Creativity (which is Heart-centered Creativity) and came, instead to manifest self-centered creativity, often inflicting damage on other people and on nature. Therefore, in the new education we are proposing here, teachers must guide students to manifest creativity by resembling God's nature of Heart-centered dominion.

Human beings were created to resemble God. This resemblance, however, does not occur instantaneously from the moment of birth. In order to come to resemble God, people need time to develop themselves. Thus, human beings are made to grow through the three stages of Formation, Growth, and Completion, and then to resemble God in perfection, multiplication, and dominion. Growth, therefore, is a process of coming to resemble God, whereby people come to resemble God's Personality, God's harmony of Yang and Yin, and God's Creativity.

The Three Great Blessings given by God imply that it is after growing completely that people will be able to inherit God's perfection, multiplication, and dominion. Therefore, the Three Great Blessings are, in fact, the Three Great Promised Blessings; they are Commandments with the condition of Blessings. Due to tile fall, however, the Three Great Blessings, or Commandments, were not fulfilled. Nevertheless, even though people fell away from God, those commandments given by God have not been canceled but remain valid even until today. This means that tile Will of I-leaven has been urging human beings, through their subconsciousness, to fulfill the Three Great Commandments. That is why human beings have been endeavoring to fulfill the Three Great Commandments, even if unconsciously. Accordingly, even in fallen society, people have endeavored, according to this Will of Heaven, to mature themselves in personality, to find a good spouse and form a family, and to improve society and rule nature. It is for this reason that tile desire to grow, the desire to get married, tile desire to rule, the desire to improve oneself, and so on, have been irrepressible desires in all societies and at all times.

Thus, the human being must grow through completing the Three Great Blessings. Things of nature grow through the autonomy and dominion of the Principle. This means that they naturally grow as life within them propels them to growth. As for human beings, however, the physical person grows through the autonomy and dominion of tile Principle, like the other creatures, but not tile spirit person. In order for the spirit person to grow, humans must fulfill their "portion of responsibility." This means that humans perfect their personality through their own responsibility and effort. They grow by experiencing God's love while observing the norm (the Principle) with their own free will.

The first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, should have grown through observing God's commandment, should have become husband and wife, and should have actualized God's love. Since Adam and Eve represented all humankind, they were responsible not only for themselves but also for their descendants. For that reason, God totally refrained from interfering with their responsibility. If Adam and Eve, in such a severe situation, had fulfilled their portion of responsibility, and had grown through observing God's Word, then their descendants would have been able to grow through fulfilling a much lighter condition. In other words, in the case of Adam and Eve, they had to fulfill the Three Great Blessings solely on the basis of their severe responsibility; in the case of their descendants, however, they would have been able to perfect the Three Great Blessings through a light responsibility, that is, simply by following, obediently, the teachings of their parents. This is the origin of the need for parents to teach their children, or, the need for education.

Therefore, in its most fundamental form, education is the guidance that parents give to their children so that the children may fulfill the Three Great Blessings. Hence, the original form of education is family education. In fact, aboriginal types of education seem to have been primarily family education. Yet, as civilization developed, the amount of learning and information increased, and life styles became diversified. Thus, education took the form of private classes, and later adopted the educational system of public schools. Such is the situation today. Since it is difficult for parents to provide education to their children, this task is left to teachers, who impart education in schools on behalf of parents. Therefore, teachers must instruct students as the representatives of parents, with parental heart. This is the original way of education.

The purpose of education is to help human beings achieve resemblance to God's perfection, to God's nature of multiplication, and to God's nature of dominion. From these goals, the ideals of education are established.

First, from the resemblance to God's perfection, the perfection of individuality is established as an ideal of education. The perfection of individuality is the First Blessing. So, education should be given in order to perfect one's individuality.

Secondly, from resemblance to God's multiplication, the perfection of the family is established as an ideal of education. The aim is to educate children to grow and get married, to manifest conjugal harmony, and to build a harmonious family. In other words, it is education for guiding children to be able to fulfill the Second Blessing.

Thirdly, from the resemblance to God's dominion, the perfection of dominion is established as an ideal of education. The aim is to equip children with the ability to exercise Heart-centered dominion over nature and society, following God's Creativity, and to fulfill the Third Blessing.

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