Unification Thought |
|||
By Dr. Sang Hun Lee |
Chapter 1 - Theory of the Original Human Nature (part 1)
The theory of the "Original Human Nature" is a field of philosophy unique to Unification Thought and until now no other philosophy has taken up this issue as an independent field. In this chapter, the differences among the Original Nature, the Second Nature and Existence are explained. Particularly, the limits of the Original Nature are clarified through a critique of the existentialist view of the human being. Then the standpoint of Unification Thought concerning the Original Human Nature is propounded.
Section A - Meaning and Necessity of the Theory of the Original Human Nature
(i) Necessity of the Original Human Nature
The theory of Original Nature discusses what the original nature of different beings, especially that of human beings, is like. It is a philosophical field established for the first time by Unification Thought.
There are two reasons we take up the Theory of Original Nature regarding it as a special philosophical field.
One is that the philosophies of the past did not always clarify the qualitative difference between human beings and other natural things. According to Hellenistic thought, which originated in Greece, human beings are regarded as part of nature and are placed within nature. On the other hand in Hebraism, the basis of the Judeo-Christian tradition, human beings are considered different in value from nature; however, even here the difference was not explained satisfactorily.
According to the Unification Principle, there is a clear difference in position between human beings and nature (things). This is the first reason the Theory of the Original Nature is necessary.
(ii) Original Nature and Fallen Nature
Secondly, we think that although human beings were originally created in the "image of God" (Genesis 1:24), man has lost his Original Nature through the fall. If this is true, without clarification of the Original Human Nature in some way or other, we will not be able to know how great the gap between our present selves or society and the Original Nature is, and how this gap can be closed. Thus we will have to eternally continue our incomplete and unhappy lives which have deviated from the original state.
We are of the opinion that the theory of the Original Nature must exist so that we may know our original state, and so that we may come back to the state from which we fell.
Section B - The Original Nature
The Original (Human) Nature is the true character of man as created by God. Human beings have fallen and deformed their Original Nature. Thus, in order to come back to the Original Nature man must know what it is like.
a. The Original Nature and Essence
'Essence" is the specific quality of a thing (being) which makes the thing uniquely itself, and generally is the inner invisible universal aspect. On the other hand, the outer aspect appearing out of the thing is called a "phenomenon." Essence and phenomenon are usually used as relative concepts,
Unlike essence, the Original Nature does not refer to the inside as opposed to the outside, but rather expresses the originality of both the inner and outer aspects. That is to say, both the original essence and original phenomenon, or the original content and original form are together called the Original Nature. This then, is the basic difference between the concept of essence and that of the Original Nature.
b. The Original Nature and Existence
The concept of existence (Existenz) came about in reaction to the rationalistic philosophies of Descartes and Hegel who saw human existence only from an abstract, universal viewpoint, and ignored the individual, concrete phase of an actual living man. It is said that Kierkagaard was the first to use the word existence to characterize his own philosophical standpoint.
According to Kierkegaard and Heidegger, who deepened the former's thought from the standpoint of ontology, existence is not the mere fact of the existence of general things, but rather the peculiar fact of the life of an historical, subjective human being, or the fact of existence most fundamental for a human being. Among these philosophers, a sincere search for the meaning of life is usually seen. They ask, "What is original nature of man?" or "What is man fundamentally?", or say "I must seek for my true nature and maintain it to the end."
Thus we can say that the concepts of existence and that of Original Nature are closely related. At the same time, however, there are various differences between the two concepts. The word existence comes from the Latin "existentia. - At first it meant to exist (sistere) out of something (ex), that is, it meant more to happen rather than to exist. Then in scholastic philosophy it came to be used as the word showing the actual existence or movement of a thing to distinguish it from the essence or true nature of the thing. Thus the word was generally used throughout history as the concept opposite to essence or true nature, and, as will be stated in the next section, today's existentialists also use the word as the concept opposite to essence.
Especially Sartre says, "Existence precedes essence." He asserts that man appeared not from essence (God or an idea) but rather from nothing and then defined himself and gave essence to himself. Viewed from this standpoint, there is no basis on which to define man before his appearance; essence or Original Nature is nothing but what man freely creates according to his responsibility, and thus a discussion about an Original Human Nature is meaningless.
It is difficult to claim therefore, that that which is sought after through the word existence is not the same in its content as that which is sought after through the words Original Nature, even though their attitudes of pursuit are not common to each other. Thus we shall criticize and examine the concept of Existence advocated by the existentialists, and then explain our theory of the Original Nature.
Section C - The Original Human Nature Pursued by Existentialism
It may be said that the representatives of existentialism are Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Heidegger and Sartre, and there is also Nietzsche who influenced Heidegger and Sartre. We are going to explain and criticize these five philosophers' theories on existence and man.
First, taking a bird's eye view of the mutual relationships of these five men's thoughts, Kierkegaard's and Jaspers' are basically Christian, while Nietzsche's, Heidegger's and Sartre's are atheistic. The philosophies of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are ethical, while those of Jaspers and Heidegger are ontological, and that of Sartre behavioralistic.
1. The Existentialists' Views On Existence And Man
(i) Kierkegaard's "Individual"
Kierkegaard (1812-1855) was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and given a strict Christian education by his father. When he was 26 years old, however, he found out that when his father was young, he had cursed God. This struck him very much and deepened his consciousness of sin and fundamentally changed his view on life. He called the experience a "great earthquake." Later Kierkegaard fell in love with and became ' engaged to Legiene Olsen, but to his great regret the engagement was broken, creating another experience to further deepen his thought.
According to Kierkegaard, man is a spirit which is the self, and the self is a relation which relates to its own self. Who in the world lets him have this relation with his self? It can not be his self, and so it must be a third person other than his self. Actually it is God who lets him have this relation. Thus man's self has a basic construction which makes him always face God.
In spite of this fact, man often wrongly thinks that his freedom or independence does not depend on God but rather on himself, and he tends to go away from the fundamental rule (God). That self which originally had a close relation with God and left the relation, is in a state in which the self is alienated from true self, that is, in sin. Since an individual who is in sin has lost his original ground (God), he can not help but wander in a world of nothing, and because of this, man has anxiety and despair.
However, this consciousness of emptiness allows man to decide to recover his true self and to return to his original self. The process of the effort to regain the original self, which starts from this consciousness of self-loss and from the subjective decision to have faith in God, and the growing process through which self becomes the original self-this process is "to exist."
Actually, however, there is a strong power which makes a man stay in emptiness. That is to say, by this power, the concrete unique and individual being is "leveled" to be a part of "a group of abstract, unindividual beings." This manifestation of nothingness (leveled group) is called "public" (crowd).
The public (crowd) is not a nation, nor a generation, nor an age, nor a group, nor a community, nor a certain human being. Because all of these exist just as they are, only by their concreteness ... The public is something gigantic or abstract, an emptiness which is all men and at the same time nothing. (Criticism on the Modern Age)
Kierkegaard advocates the concept of the "Individual" to truly sublate (auffieben) the public which is itself nothingness. Man can truly "exist" only when he is an individual. Only then can he be a concrete being and no longer an abstract being such as the public. As an individual, man truly stands before God. This is Kierkegaard's basic view on existence.
He classified the process of the return to the original self, that is, existence, into three stages. They are the aesthetic, ethical and religious stages.
(1) The Aesthetic Stage-This stage is formed by the aesthetic attitude which solely seeks after pleasure to satisfy desires. The satisfaction of one desire only brings about dissatisfaction soon after, and a man wanders around seeking after his next satisfaction. Thus, in the aesthetic stage, there is a constant alternating repetition of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Some pleasures are noble and others vulgar, but they are all common in their lack of seriousness toward life. However attractive it may appear, a life of seeking after pleasures is a life of despair because it brings about a vicious circle.
(2) The Ethical Stage-A man enjoying the aesthetic stage will finally fall into deep melancholy. In order to escape from its vicious circle, he must regain a seriousness toward life and leap to the ethical stage. Here he takes into consideration the standpoint of other people as well as himself. In this stage he finds meaning in life through performing his duties and responsibilities. He may occupy a responsible position in his community and therefore does not fear the monotonous repetition of daily living. While the aesthetic person lives in moments, the ethical person lives in time and history. For the aesthetic person, pleasure and displeasure, and beauty and ugliness, are the standards of judgment; while for the ethical person good and evil become the standard of subjective decisions and deeds. But in this case, he comes to find that he can not do good however eagerly he may try. That is, he finds sin latent within himself and thus falls into serious ethical self-contradiction.
(3) The Religious Stage-With this moment of the self-consciousness of sin, man comes to be conscious of his true self through the medium of God who is the source of man's self. Man's life in this world can be carried out only when it is connected with the eternal life, and his central life is faith or hope which is not outer but inner in character. The aesthetic person lives in moments, the ethical person in time and the religious person in the expectation of eternity. The third mentioned person is not satisfied with human sincerity and seeks after more internal seriousness than that.
According to Kierkegaard, these three stages of existence do not develop by themselves naturally or necessarily; they can be crossed only through decisions and a leap of faith. At the time of the leap of faith from the ethical to the religious stage, paradoxical faith emerges through which men should believe what they can not understand with reason.
For instance, in discussing the faith of Abraham who was ordered by God to offer his only son Isaac, Kierkegaard says: "Abraham was great ... by the power in which powerlessness was strength, by the wisdom in which stupidity was the secret and by the hope in which madness was its figure." (Fear and Trembling). Since faith includes strife such as this, he called the process for overcoming sin by this strife the paradoxical dialectic.
Within Kierkegaard's theory of existence, various questions are left unsolved. Did God create man only as an individual who must continue to repent of his sin before God? What is the full meaning of the dialectical process of existence by which man is gradually elevated from the aesthetic to the ethical and then the religious stage? Why does the so-called paradox of faith occur?
(ii) Nietzsche's Superman Thought
Kierkegaard tried to regain the lost self by striving against sin and by self-extinction before God. On the contrary, Nietzsche (1884-1900) thought God was dead and tried to escape from the "leveling" of human beings by accepting destiny and fate subjectively and positively.
He was born in Germany, the son of a Protestant Minister, and was given a Christian education in his early youth. But when he grew up, he deplored the "miniaturization of human beings that was intensifying more and more in Europe." He regarded it as his task to reject this bad tendency and create a "great" type of human being. While Kierkegaard thought that the "leveling" or "miniaturization" resulted from the fact that people were not yet true Christians, Nietzsche thought that the Christian view on life itself brought about this miniaturization. Thus he came to think that it was his life-long philosophical mission to criticize and overcome Christianity.
According to Nietzsche, the characteristic of the Christian view of man is that it regards man as the intermediate being between God and animals. Christians think that God, who is in the highest position in the order of God-man-animal (nature), is absolute and infinite. Christians think that the differences between men are mere trifles, and they reach the conclusion that everyone is "equal before God." But Nietzsche asserts that not the "common people" but only excellent, intellectually powerful men create the culture of mankind.
The Christian ethic advocating "equality before God" was given its driving power by the revolt against the strong by the weak who try to "destroy the strong." Since the Christian principles of world order make human beings common and featureless, we must proclaim that the God who is at the top of this order is dead.
Thus he declares that God is dead. After the death of God, the world for the first time loses transcendental principles and is totally governed by its own intrinsic principles. This loss of the transcendental principles brings about a loss of meaning and purpose in this world, and results in a loss of ground, or nothingness (nihilism).
There is no longer a God who teaches us what we should do., so "there is nothing true and anything is allowed." Only the desire "I wish" remains. From here starts Nietzsche's philosophy of "will to power" (Wille zur Macht).
If God is removed from His position at the top of the Christian order, it is natural that the position of nature (animals) which was at the bottom of the order is also changed. According to the Christian moral view, with its order of God-man-animals, whatever is near to God is regarded as good and whatever is near to animals e.g. selfish desire, sexual desire and appetite are regarded as evil; while whatever is farther from animals or nearer to selflessness or generosity are regarded as morally high. Nietzsche asserts that the Christian moral view is against nature, and that the three human desires follow the natural direction of humanity and life itself.
Such an unnatural moral view was established because it regards nature as the bottom of the order. Now that God is dead, however, it is not necessary to deny nature or to regard it as evil. Thus Nietzsche says that what is useful for the enlargement and development of life is the true morality and advocates "morality as nature" in place of Christian morals. But he does not recommend licentiousness to us, for instance, because unlimited licentiousness does not always contribute to the development of life. On the contrary, talented artists and scholars remain chaste because it is more economical and hygienic, but we should not remain chaste from an ascetic standpoint. In the case of Nietzsche, life (Leben) serves as substitute for God.
Thus God who was on top of the order God-man-animal is completely cut off. Then what must happen to recover order? Since God is lost, man himself must stand at the summit. Thus Nietzsche develops the concept of a "superman" (ubermensch) standing at the top of the order.
According to Nietzsche, men are classified as "superman" and "the last man" (der letszte Mensch) by their basic differences of values and abilities. The superman is the ideal being, who elevates himself continuously and eternally; he is beyond good and evil. Like God, he gives orders to the people, and the latter should follow him. However, today's human being is an intermediate being between the ideal superman and animals. Without denying or escaping reality, man must heartily try to transcend himself to become superman. By asserting this theory, Nietzsche wished to overcome the crisis of human miniaturization.
Moreover, he says, showing the ground supporting the world without God, "Everything goes, everything comes back; eternally rolls the wheel of being." (Also Sprach Zarathustra). That is, he develops the doctrine of eternal recurrence (ewige Wiederkunft), that there is no future life nor world after death; there is only momentary fulfillment in this world (earthly world).
He asserts that man must look at reality as it is, without escaping from it. He should "affirm without deducting, finding exceptions or selecting." In short, Nietzsche advocated an absolute affirmation of life, that is, love of fate (amor fati). His thought came to be used later as the theoretical ground for Nazism, though this was quite against his intention.
Nietzsche's thought has some significance, but some of his assertions are very problematic. For instance, he asserted that the desires of life should be the center of morality, and that we should ignore God and the Sung Sang desires for truth, good and beauty. He asserted the love of fate and this leads to the conclusion that reality should indiscriminately be affirmed. These assertions can not but be a great problem.
(iii) Jaspers' Limit Situation
Jaspers (1893-1969) was influenced by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and yet established his own unique philosophical system making use of his experiences in the fields of psychiatry and psychology which had been his major fields of study.
Jaspers thought of man as a possible existence which is always linked to the situations around him. These situations mean, in short, the realities in which man (subject) takes a broad interest. When a situation has grown as bad as it can, Jaspers calls this situation a limit situation.
Take the examples of death (Tod), trouble (Lerden), strife (Kamph), the guilt of sin (Schuld), etc. These are like walls against which man as a possible existence will inevitably collide. Man can change or avoid other situations but these situations are the basic realms which man can not avoid nor escape in the least. The self which is clarified in such limit situations is Jaspers' existence. "To experience the limit situations and to exist are one and the same." (Philosophy)
He further asserts that the limit situations can not be objectively grasped from outside; they can only be known through self-consciousness from the inside. The existence of self is deeply understood not by avoiding the limit situations but rather by deciding to patiently remain in the situations. In these limit situations, intelligence, rational thinking or proof are of no use. Man feels as if the ground on which he stands has gone out from under him, and he feels giddy. At that moment, a comprehensive Absolute is perceived in this limit where all thinking has been deadlocked. The Transcendental expresses itself in the "cipher (chiffre) of frustration." When what can be thought of (objective world being and subjective self being) is transcended heading toward what can not be thought of, the tie of the Existence with the Transcendental (God) is suddenly seen and understood.
At that point, the Transcendental appears only as a cipher. According to Jaspers, the most serious experience of mankind is written in cipher letters in metaphysics and in the history of religion. Metaphysics is the "deciphering" (chiffrelesen) of the manifestation of the Transcendental being. This cipher can not be read by ordinary people. Only those who have sought after standards with great resolution and who have experienced true frustration can read it.
(iv) "Ex-sistence" of Heidegger
Heidegger (1889- ) who is as great a philosopher as Jaspers, was born in a village named Meskirch in southern Germany. He took a deep interest in the spiritual history of the Middle Ages when he was Catholic and later thought that the basic problem of philosophy was to clarify the meaning of "Being." He made this his central issue.
According to Heidegger, Being is beyond an ens (one who is being) and we can not grasp Being by seeking after an ens externally through rational categories. However, men have thought that they could grasp Being by that method, and have controlled nature externally through natural science. As a result, man has lost his home. Thus Heidegger's criticism of modern rationalism is very sharp.
Then, how can we grasp Being? We can grasp it in the same way we interpret a book; by interpreting it from the inside of the experience (phenomenon) of an ens called man (Heidegger calls this Dasein). It is in a Dasein that the Sein (Being) of an ens (one who is being) can be understood, from the inside. However, it is not ordinary man (Das Mann) who is only interested in superficial things, but it is Dasein who clarifies Being by seeking after death and decision.
This Dasein is generally within Alltaglichkett (the everyday world) and can spend his daily life without being conscious of the problem of thoroughly examining his own essence. Into such an everydayness, Dasein is fatally thrown out (Gewofenheit) against his will like a die as In-der-Weltsein (being-in- the- world) and he falls to become an ordinary man. According to Heidegger, Das Mann is an anonymous one, who is totally conformed to the public, and has no self. When he has become man, Dasein succumbs and is alienated from himself. In other words, he is left floating without a root.
To be thrown out like a die (Geworfenheit) is not the original form of Dasein; if we become conscious of Geworfenheit, we come to feel anxiety (Angst) or dread at having lost ourselves. However, this anxiety gives, at the same time, the possibility to come back to one's original self.
Thus Dasein is not only in a state of having been thrown out (Geworfenhel't) to become a being-in-the-world but he is also in a state of projecting his self to become his original self again (Entwerfenheit). The double character of Dasein is called by Heidegger concern (Sorge). Being (Sein) expresses itself as concern in Dasein.
How is Entwerfenheit, the projection of one's self toward the original self, possible? At first Dasein exists as what was thrown out. Therefore, his being lies in the throwing. The fact that Da (there) appears, means that Being sends its self. Human beings accept Da where the light of truth sent by Being shines, in the form of care (Besorge) or concern (Sorge).
In this context, a human being is one who expresses Da (there) where the light of Being shines, one who watches Being, or the shepherd-boy of Being. So long as human being does not watch the light of Da, Being leaves him though it stands near him. Thus Heidegger thinks that Being is what emits light in Dasein or what addresses man. However, it shines, gives and addresses only as long as human being has interest. Otherwise, it keeps silent. "Being gives itself and at the same time refuses to give itself. Being talks about itself and at the same time does not talk about itself."
The address of Dasein itself, which tries to move man toward the light of Being is called conscience (Gewissen) by Heidegger. The voice of conscience is the voice without a voice which can be heard only by oneself, and it is the voice of the original self which awakens the everyday average self buried within man to the proper self. By listening to the voice of conscience, human being moves out of man to stand in the light of Being. This is Ex-sistence.
Heidegger tries to solve the human distress in this Ex-sistence (to stand in the light of Being or to start toward the truth of Being) and also tries to give this the same significance as the existence Kierkegaard and Jaspers advocate.
(v) Subjectivity of Sartre
Sartre (1905- ), established his unique, thoroughly atheistic philosophical theory of "engagement" by adding his experience of the fight against Nazism during the Second World War to the traditional concepts of existentialism created by Jaspers and Heidegger.
Dostoevski once said: "If God does not exist, anything is possible." It is said that here lies the starting point of Sartre's philosophy. While his forerunner, Heidegger, only ignored the existence of God, like Nietzsche, Sartre thoroughly denies God, and has established his existentialism on the premise that God does not exist.
With atheism as his premise, he characterizes existence in the following two ways:
First, existence precedes essence. This is not true in relation to ordinary artificial products, such as a knife for instance. Before the actual product named knife (the existence) is produced, it must have an aim such as "it is to be used for cutting." Otherwise, it would not have appeared on the market. The aim shows what the knife is to be, and in philosophy it is this that is called essence. In these cases it is clear that essence precedes existence.
Essence precedes existence in the case of man too, if God has created human beings by His aim of creation. But what happens if there is no God, nor any world of ideas? Then before the existence of the human being there is no essence to decide his nature. It becomes impossible to define what man is. If this is true, we must think that man is originally nothing, that he has come or appeared from nothing, and he has defined himself and given essence to himself, by himself: " . . . at first he is nothing. Only afterwards will he be something, but he himself will have made what he will be."
Second, existence is subjective. This is directly introduced in the thesis that " . . . he himself will have made what he will be." That is, man plans and selects his own way. Whether he becomes A or B, communist or liberalist, politician or minister of religion, all these depend on his free determination. According to Sartre, this determination, namely subjectivity, is the very essence of existence.
Thus man can freely choose himself. But once he has chosen, he must be responsible for his choice. He is responsible for the way or individuality he has selected. Moreover, in choosing the way peculiar to himself, a man is also choosing it as the way suitable for other people too. Thus, he must be responsible to all of mankind in his choice. But this is beyond human ability, so he experiences anxiety, forlornness and despair.
Nevertheless man is nothing but what he has made of himself and there is no existence except in action. So a man must decide his actions in spite of his anxiety, forlornness and despair. Sartre asserts that only when man acts through such despair, can freedom come to him.
(vi) Summary
For the convenience of the readers, we are now going to summarize these five thinkers' assertions. Kierkegaard's existence is the developmental process from the consciousness of self-loss to the recovery of original self by a subjective determination of faith. For this purpose, he says that man must give up being unspecific "public" and stand before God as an individual.
Neitzsche thought it was the Christian view of the order of God-man-animal (nature) and also the view of the average man, which regards everyone as equal before God, that was gradually miniaturizing people in Europe. In order to overcome this bad tendency, Neitzsche asserts that we must declare the death of God, establish the view of natural morality which regards whatever develops life as good, and set up the superman in place of God.
Jaspers' existence is the self facing the Transcendental (God) which is understood from within the experience of frustration when man, ready to accept destruction, courageously faces the limit situations such as death, trouble, strife and guilt, which no one can avoid.
In the case of Heidegger, human being (Dasein) usually exists within the everyday world and was thrown into this world as a being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein). Consciousness of this brings about anxiety and the voice of conscience shouting "you must return to the original self." It is Ex-sistence (same as existence in meaning) to listen to the voice of conscience in order to escape from unspecific man and to come before the light of Being.
Lastly, in the case of Sartre's writings, there is no essence or God that decides man beforehand, so man appears as existence, but from nothing; and after he has appeared, he decides his essence himself. Therefore, man can freely plan and select his own way by his own responsibility. However, as he does not have the strength to bear this responsibility, he has to carry out these decisions through his anxiety and despair. The subjectivity which carries out these decisions is existence itself.
2. The Critique Of Each Existentialist Philosophy And View Of Humanity
(i) Critique of Kierkegaard
First, why have human beings been dealt with as abstract, unindividual "public"? Why must man be an individual to truly stand before God? Is it good that the non-individual, universal aspect of human beings be ignored? These problems remain unsolved by Kierkegaard.
From the viewpoint of Unification Thought, human beings have frequently been dealt with as "public" because man's Divinity was lost by the Fall; man's Individual Images have been ignored, and only man's biological aspects and twisted original Sung Sang aspects have been considered. Actually it was in order to restore man to the position of God's substantial object as an individual truth body that Kierkegaard tried to advance man toward God by man himself, as an individual. But, since the Individual Image or substantial object can not exist without the Universal Image. and since the whole of history is the history to restore the individual person, a man can advance toward God through gradually inheriting the baton of efforts of self-restoration from respective predecessors through history. So he who advances toward God is a cooperator in the restoration and thereby possesses a universal aspect, and he is thus not a mere individual.
Next, why does man come to God through the aesthetic, ethical and then religious stages? Because the providence of God's salvation is the providence of restoration through indemnity (Tang gam), that is, to let man, who has lost his value through the fall, regain it through a course which reverses that of the fall.
The fall occurred due to the fact that man did not fulfill his responsibility for growth. It is necessary, therefore, to fulfill this responsibility by subjective determination in order to return to the original self through indemnity. Throughout this course, man must be exposed to uneasiness, despair or suffering. Also, since the fall occurred due to lack of faith in God's word, man is asked to compensate for this by believing unconditionally. But this belief must not be a superstition. It is for this reason that the paradox of faith or paradoxical dialectic appears. But such a paradoxical faith is requested only until the Second Advent. Starting from the Second Advent, faith stands on the base of the new words of God; therefore it is no longer paradoxical, because the absolute truth is revealed by the new words. Thus faith until eternity is not necessary. After having restored the original self and the world completely, through the Second Advent, we will not need faith nor prayer.
Finally, why does a man like Kierkegaard who wants to live with true faith always suffer from sin and why must he continuously repent of sin? It is because Christ's salvation through the crucifixion is only a spiritual one and the salvation of our bodies has not yet been carried out. However, when Christ appears again (Second Advent) to accomplish both the spiritual and physical salvation, man will be able to return to his complete personality. Then we will not need to repent, and Heaven on Earth or the Heaven of the after-life where there is only great joy, will appear, 64 ... and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain . . . " (Revelation 21:4).
(ii) Critique of Nietzsche
According to Nietzsche, the Christian view of the order of God-man-animal, and its view that everyone is equal before God brings about the miniaturization of the human being.
Viewed from Unification Thought, however, the main reasons for the miniaturization of man are that, as already stated, the true fulfillment of individuality has not yet been realized due to the fall of man, and that man has not yet awakened to his Original Nature. To escape from the present miserable situation, there is no other way than to come to God through the principle of restoration through indemnity and finally to have faith in and accept the Messiah.
However, the Christian view of "equality before God" is apt to ignore the order of positions necessary to realize family love. The view ignores differences of individuality, and even the differences of contributions toward the community, and thus falls into an anarchic, mobocratic blind equality. Also, Christian ethics make so much of the spirit that they one-sidedly regard physical desires as evil, and thus think that the farther a man is from bodily desires, the more moral he is; in short, Christianity is apt to fall into agnostic despise of the body or Stoicism. Nietzsche sharply criticized these two points, and his criticisms are worth listening to.
As to the first, true equality does not mean to ignore all the individual differences, because these differences come from the Individual Images in the Original Being. Equality should be considered from the standpoint of Divinity such as equality in Heart, value, personality, loving and being loved. If the order of the positions in the Four Position Base were not maintained, it would be impossible to love. Individuality should be respected and should not be leveled. In the fallen world, however, the Divinity is usually so twisted or ignored, that the miniaturization and leveling of human beings are apt to appear. Accordingly the miniaturization is not due to belief in God but rather due to a lack of belief in the true God. The God denied by Nietzsche was not the true God, but a false god.
As to the second point, the Sung Sang (spiritual aspect) and Hyung Sang (physical aspect) perform give-and-take with each other, centering on God, with the Sung Sang as subject; then the individual is fulfilled. Therefore, as long as the Sung Sang aspect is subject and can control the Hyung Sang, the physical desires, such as appetite and sexual desire, can be as large as possible. It is by these bodily desires that God's purposes of creation (the three great blessings [". . . Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. . . " -Gen. 1: 281 ) are accomplished, and heaven and earth become full of joy. However, if the physical desires become so large that the spiritual desires wither, spiritual communication (the give-and-take relation of love and beauty) will be destroyed, and the growth of the spiritual body, which is the raison detre of the physical body, will not occur. It is only for this reason that we are advised to restrict our bodily desires.
Thus Nietzsche's criticism is constructive in some points. But his ideas-that just because Christian morals are apt to bring about a leveling or miniaturization of man we should oppose the positioning of God, man, and things (animals, nature); that we should declare the death of God, and establish "nature as morality"; that we should "regard the development of natural life as good", and should set up superman in place of God-are all wrong ideas and quite contrary to the true solution.
First, the positioning of God, man and things is the basis of order necessary to establish the one united world centering on the love of God. Without order neither peace nor freedom can exist, and without the relative positions of subject and object, love can not exist. Moreover, if the existence of God who is the center of love and life is denied, there will be no providence of salvation, and man must suffer forever due to this lack of a center and the exhaustion of love which will necessarily take place.
The worship of natural life as the necessary conclusion of such ideas (Nietzsche respects animality rather than moderate virtue, passion rather than reason, the will to power rather than ideas, and he asserts that man should sacrifice God for nothing), and the establishment of the superman shows that, since there was nothing which could be depended on after the denial of God, Nietzsche was compelled to worship man's physical body, beautified and sanctified, in place of God.
Such being Nietzsche's assertion, the spiritual (Sung Sang) values of truth, goodness and beauty were subjugated by the will to power and animality, and the existence of the spiritual body which was the basis of man's eternal life was also denied. As a result, the way of salvation leading to eternal life was completely closed, and man was left to suffer eternally in a mere animalistic life. We must say that in ridding himself of God, the price Nietzsche paid to escape human miniaturization is too large. Despair and contradiction are exposed in his doctrines of eternal recurrence (ewige Wiedevkunft) and love of fate (amor fati). Man wishes to elevate himself infinitely but can not help admitting that this is impossible in a world without God. Thus while seeing his expectations always disappointed, man must accept the situation as it is. He can resolve his fate only by loving fate subjectively. This is really miserable.
In reality, the Original Nature of man is that he is a being with the Divine Image in which the spirit body and physical body or spirit and body perform G-T action centering around the love of God. In spite of this, Nietzsche denies the existence of God and the spiritual body, and regards man as his physical body alone and sanctifies this as superman, ignoring the fact that man consists of both spiritual and physical bodies. He thinks that superman is the final goal for us to reach, with the result that everything becomes empty and results in frustration, because in reality the superman is a pseudoman and a false image. This is the critique of Nietzsche's thought by Unification Thought.
(iii) Critique of Jaspers
Jaspers' statement concerning the process of the clarification of existence (Existenzerhellung) in the limit situation seems to be almost correct. However, why is man pushed into such limit situations and why does he meet the Transcendental after suffering and frustration? The fundamental reasons for these occurrences are not clarified by Jaspers.
Viewed from the Unification Principle, Jaspers' "limit situations" are the "indemnity conditions" necessary to restore the original state. God kindly gives them to fallen man in order to give him a chance to atone for his own sins or those of his relatives, and in this way to restore his lost value. Man's sudden encounter with "God after going through such a trial" means that he has approached, in proportion to his atonement, his original seat, namely his position as the child of God.
The "cipher of frustration" is the aspect of God which is recorded in such things as history, mythology, philosophy, literature, music, etc. Nature is also part of the cipher and to decipher it (Chiffrelesen) means to see the Divine Image manifesting in the appearance. To see this is to connect with God. Yet one's true self can not be restored in this stage. With this experience as a clue, we must further approach God's inner seat guided by His holy words, inherit the Heart of God and become true children of God. For this purpose we must find a good guide who can make this possible for us. It is very important to know who such a guide can be. This is the view of Unification Thought concerning Jaspers' philosophy.
(iv) Critique of Heidegger
Heidegger made a distinction between Being and an ens (one who is being). He dealt with the Being (status of existence) of the an ens (Sein des Seiendes). This can be said to be an advancement in ontology, because his concept of Being almost corresponds to that of the Yang Sang (Status Image) of the existing being of Unification Thought. But according to Heidegger, Being can never be grasped by externally analyzing one who is being (an ens) through the rational category. Then what is Being?
Heidegger did not clarify the Being (sein) of all things, including all human beings. He dealt mainly with the Being (sein) of the special human being namely Dasein. Furthermore he dealt only with Being as "being-in-the-world" (In-der-Welt-sein), and not the basic principle of being of general man.
He considered man's state of being as anxiety (Angst) and concern (Sorge). But the cause of anxiety and the essence of concern are not clarified enough. He said that there is no cause for anxiety, man just exists in it. From the view of Unification Principle human beings are anxious due to the loss of their original position by the fall. Therefore men are uneasy either consciously or unconsciously. But according to Heidegger, anxiety stems from concern (Sorge). Human beings have their concern not only for others and nature but also for the past, present and future. Then what is the essence of concern? It seems to have not yet been clarified. He also says that having been thrown into the world (In-der-Welt-sein), human beings try to project (entwerfen) toward the future. Here, however, the relation between concern and the project do not seem to be made clear. According to the Unification Principle all things including society are the objects of recognition and dominion of human beings. Since human beings are connected bodies as well as individual truth bodies, originally man can not but be the "being-in-the-world."
Accordingly, in order to have cognition, he has to have concern for nature and society, and in order to have dominion he has to act (practice). The project (Entwurf) of Heidegger corresponds to this very practice. But because of the fall of man the "being-in-the-world" (In-der-Welt-sein) has become anxious, and due to losing his purpose of creation by the fall, his practice has changed into projects for his own sake.
Next, Heidegger explains about the historicity of time (historic time) from the fact of concern and project, but he also does not make it clear why historic time is necessary for man, while animals have only biological time. According to the Unification Thought, since the position of man and that of animals are quite different, in other words, since man is the subject of dominion and the substantial object of God, while animals are only the objects of man, the ideal of man is to establish the Heavenly Kingdom on Earth, after achieving the three blessings of God. This time required to realize the ideal is historical time. On account of the fall, the historical time has been formed by the providence of restoration and the efforts of human beings to realize a society of prosperity.
Finally, he talked about the relation of conscience (Gewissen) and Being. According to him, when a man follows his inner voice of conscience, he can return to his original self from the daily self (Ex-sistence) and can stand in the light of Being. But within Heidegger's philosophy it has not been clarified what the standard of conscience is. We know well that the standard of conscience of communists and of liberalists are quite different.
With this ambiguity around the concept of conscience, we can not expect to prevent the confusion of the world, and the suffering of human beings can not help but remain. According to the Unification Principle, however, there is another part of the mind called the Original Mind which is more fundamental than conscience. Its standard is God; so this standard is common to all people. Accordingly, if the direction of conscience coincides with that of the Original Mind, God becomes the subject of conscience, and all people can stand together in the light of Being without contradicting each other. Thus, we can see that though Heidegger tries to establish his ontology without any relation to God, it is impossible to understand the true meaning of his Being if the existence of God is ignored.
(v) Critique of Sartre
Sartre says that man appears from nothing and that there is no God to decide man's existence. However, how can such complicated organic structures as the human mind and body grow from nothing, with no plan?
We think Sartre's view that man freely plans and selects his way of living has some truth in it, but it is a rather one-sided view. The Unification Principle teaches us;
However, man is created to attain his perfection not only through the dominion and autonomy of the Principle itself, but also by accomplishing his own portion of responsibility in passing through this period. (Divine Principle, p. 55)
In other words, man is originally the "Image of God", or child of God so that, unlike things, man's existence is not entirely decided beforehand, and he can freely create himself toward perfection using his God-given natures or qualities, so long as he does not violate the Principle.
In relation to this point, it seems to us that Sartre misunderstands the true intention of God. It seems that he advocates atheism because if God exists and if man lives only in accordance with God's will, man will have no freedom and will accordingly lose his uniqueness or subjectivity, that is, his existence. According to our understanding, however, God originally created man as a free being similar to God himself and ordered man to follow the Principle, which is the very basis of freedom. He ordered man to maintain his freedom just as the Bible says, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." (Genesis 3:16-17) (The result in case of a violation of the Principle was a warning of the loss of freedom.) If this is true, it is God's intention that man freely plan and select his ways within the Principle by his own responsibility; originally there was no contradiction between following God's will and subjectivity, and living freely. At present, however, it is also true that man has no such freedom as this. Why does he not have freedom? Because he has lost the absolute center of Heart and Logos called God, and thus does not have a broad or deep enough heart to love everyone equally. There is also no true creativity, nor norm to give direction to man's heart. However, man has the desire (true mind) to perfect himself, to establish a home full of love, and to have dominion over all things. These desires are based on his Original Nature. Thus he naturally seeks after freedom and subjectivity as the premises to fulfill the desires. But it is impossible to find such freedom and subjectivity by casting oneself (projecting) toward a denial of God, as Sartre does. To do so is to oppose man's own subjective nature (plus) to God's subjective nature (plus). The two pluses repel each other so that a give-and-take action can not take place there. As a result, man is left alone, alienated from God; all that he can then do is to express a subjectivity which is only comparatively higher than what animals have. In addition, since men can not help repelling each other in order to guard their own subjectivity, struggles would continue forever in society. True subjectivity can be established not by opposing one's self to God but by making oneself a complete object (minus) to God. If we seek after God and follow God quite faithfully, we can communicate with God completely and become one with God. As a result, we can fully express our subjectivity toward things. Before man becomes a subject, he should be an object to God. True subjectivity can be obtained by true objectivity. We must be able to become objects willingly, not only in relation to God, but also in relation to others, if necessary. This is the view of the Unification Principle.
Such being the case, the "subjectivity" which Sartre defines as the essence of existence is nothing but lifeless, groundless, fallen subjectivity; as Sartre himself notices, man necessarily falls into anxiety, forlornness or despair and can never find true freedom or liberty. When we give up such a small subjectivity and become nothing or a complete object before God, our true subjectivity will appear for the first time.
These previous sections are the critique of Existentialism from the standpoint of the Unification Principle.
Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
Table of Contents
Copyright Information
Tparents Home