Introduction
Introduction
- Everyone is struggling to attain happiness and avoid misfortune.
- From the commonplace affairs of individuals to the great events that shape the course of history, each is at root an expression of the human aspiration for ever greater happiness.
- How, then, does happiness arise? People feel joy when their desires are fulfilled.
- The word "desire," however, is often not understood in its original sense.
- Because in the present circumstances our desires tend to pursue evil rather than good.
- Desires which result in injustice do not emanate from a person's original mind. The original mind is well aware that such desires lead to misfortune.
- Therefore, it repels evil desires and strives to follow the good. Even at the cost of their lives, people seek for the joy that can enrapture the original mind.
- If burdened by such a contradiction from its inception, human life would not have been able to arise.
- The contradiction, therefore, must have developed after the birth of the human race.
- Christianity sees this state of destruction as the result of the human Fall.
- When we realize the fact that, due to the Fall, we have arrived at the brink of self-destruction, we make desperate efforts to resolve the contradiction within.
- We repel the evil desires coming from our evil mind and embrace the good desires springing from our original mind.
- New truth should bring humanity into a new world.
- This truth must be able to embrace all historical religions, ideologies and philosophies and bring complete unity among them.
- The new truth should guide fallen human beings to return to their original state.
- God has sent one person to this earth to resolve the fundamental problems of human life and the universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon.
- Internal ignorance, in religious terms, is spiritual ignorance.
- It is ignorance of such questions as: What is the origin of human beings? What is the purpose of life?
- What happens after death? Do God and the next world exist?
- What is the nature of good and evil?
- External ignorance refers to ignorance of the natural world, including the human body.
- It is ignorance of such issues as: What is the origin of the physical universe? What are the natural laws governing all phenomena?
- From the dawn of history until today, human beings have ceaselessly searched for the truth with which to overcome both types of ignorance and attain knowledge.
- Humanity through religion has followed the path of searching for internal truth.
- And through science has followed the path of seeking external truth.
- Religion and science, each in their own spheres, have been the methods of searching for truth in order to conquer ignorance and attain knowledge.
- Eventually, the way of religion and the way of science should be integrated and their problems resolved in one united undertaking; the two aspects of truth, internal and external, should develop in full consonance.
- Only then, completely liberated from ignorance and living solely in goodness in accord with the desires of the original mind, will we enjoy eternal happiness.
- We can discern two broad courses in the search for solutions to the fundamental questions of human life.
- In the first, people have searched within the resultant, material world.
- Those who walk this path, believing it to be the supreme way, kneel before the glories of highly developed science. They take pride in its omnipotence and the material comforts it provides.
- Nevertheless, can we enjoy full happiness founded only upon external conditions that satisfy the flesh?
- The advance of science may create a comfortable social environment in which we can enjoy abundant wealth and prosperity, but can that alone truly gratify the spiritual desires of the inner self?
- Just as a healthy body depends upon a sound mind, so too the joy of the body is complete only when the mind is content.
- Until now, scientific research has not embraced the internal world of cause; it has limited itself to the external world, the world of phenomena.
- The scientific world has begun to recognize that science cannot achieve its ultimate goals without a theoretical explanation of the causal, spiritual world.
- The second course of human endeavor is the attempt to answer the fundamental questions about human life by transcending the resultant world of phenomena and searching in the world of essence.
- Undeniably, philosophies and religions which have pursued this path have made many contributions.
- Philosophers, saints and sages set out to pave the way of goodness for the people of their times.
- Hovewer has any philosopher ever arrived at the knowledge that could solve humanity's deepest anguish? Has any sage ever clearly illuminated the path by resolving all the fundamental questions of human life and the universe?
- In Christian nations today, many citizens will not even sit together with their brothers and sisters of different skin colors.
- This illustrates the actual situation of today's Christianity, which has lost much of the power to put the words of Jesus into practice. It has become a house of lifeless rituals, a whitewashed tomb.
- On the other hand, there is one social vice that human efforts alone can never eradicate. That is sexual immorality. Christian doctrine regards this as a cardinal sin, but today's Christian society cannot block this path of ruin down which so many people are rushing blindly.
- This is evidence that conventional Christianity stands powerless to carry on God's providence to save humanity in this present age.
- What is the reason that religious people, though earnestly searching for internal truth, have been unable to accomplish their God-given mission?
- Just as people attain perfection of character only when the mind and body are fully united.
- The two worlds of essence and phenomena must join in perfect harmony before the ideal world can be realized.
- Spiritual joy is incomplete without genuine physical happiness.
- Religions have despised the pleasures of the body for the sake of spiritual bliss. Yet however hard they may try, people cannot cut themselves off from the reality of this world or annihilate the desire for physical pleasures.
- This world and its desires tenaciously grab hold of religious people, driving them into the depths of agony.
- Many enlightened spiritual leaders, still torn by this contradiction, have met a sad end. Herein is a principal cause for the inactivity and weakness of today's religions.
- In step with the progress of science, the human intellect has become highly sophisticated, requiring a scientific approach to understanding reality. The traditional doctrines of religions, on the other hand, are largely devoid of scientific explanations.
- The ultimate purpose of religion can be attained only when one first believes it in one's heart and then puts it into practice.
- However, without first understanding, beliefs do not take hold.
- Understanding is the starting point for knowledge.
- Today, however, people will not accept what is not demonstrable by the logic of science.
- Even internal truth demands logical and convincing explanations. Indeed, throughout the long course of history, religions have been moving toward the point when their teachings could be elucidated scientifically.
- Religion and science, setting out with the missions of dispelling the two aspects of human ignorance, have seemed in the course of their development to take positions that were contradictory and irreconcilable.
- However, for humankind to completely overcome the two aspects of ignorance and fully realize the goodness which the original mind desires, at some point in history there must emerge a new truth.
- Which can reconcile religion and science and resolve their problems in an integrated undertaking.
- It may be displeasing to religious believers, especially to Christians, to learn that a new expression of truth must appear. They believe that the scriptures they have are already perfect and flawless.
- Certainly, truth itself is unique, eternal, immutable and absolute.
- Scriptures, however, are not the truth itself, but are textbooks teaching the truth.
- They were given at various times in history as humankind developed both spiritually and intellectually.
- The depth and extent of teaching and the method of expressing the truth naturally varied according to each age. Consequently, we must never regard such textbooks as absolute in every detail.
- Jesus indicated that God would someday reveal a new truth: "I have said this to you in figures; the hour is coming when I shall no longer speak to you in figures but tell you plainly of the Father" (John 16:25).
- What missions must the new truth fulfill?
- It will enable all people to overcome the two types of ignorance, internal and external, and fully comprehend the two types of knowledge.
- It should guide people to remove the double-mindedness that sometimes seeks good and sometimes evil. It should empower religious people to overcome the contradiction.
- It should be able to reveal the Heart of God.
- His heart of joy at the time of creation.
- The broken heart He felt when humankind, His children whom He could not abandon, rebelled against Him; and His heart of striving to save them throughout the long course of history.
- New truth should first elevate the idealism of the democratic world to a new level, then use it to assimilate materialism, and finally bring humanity into a new world.
- This truth must be able to embrace all historical religions, ideologies and philosophies and bring complete unity among them.
- Since the purpose of truth is to realize goodness, and since God is the origin of goodness, God will be the center of the world founded upon this truth.
- Everyone will adore and serve God as their Parent and live in harmony with each other in brotherly love.
- We can conclude that the ultimate purpose of God's work of salvation is to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
- The new truth should guide fallen human beings to return to their original state.
- To do this, it must reveal the purpose for which God created humankind and the universe, and teach about the process of their restoration and its ultimate goal.
- The new truth must answer the following questions about the human fall.
- Did human beings fall by eating a fruit called the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as is written literally in the Bible?
- If not, then what was the cause of the Fall?
- Why did the God of perfection and beauty create human beings with the potential to fall?
- Why did the omniscient and omnipotent God not prevent their fall, even though He was aware that they were falling?
- Why did God not save sinful humankind in an instant with His almighty power?
- The new truth must offer answers to all of these deeper questions of life.
- It is our most urgent task to comprehend how the sinful history of humanity began, what formulas and laws have governed the course of the providence, how history will be consummated and, finally, into what kind of world humanity will enter.
- If human history is God's providence to restore the world wherein His purpose of creation is fulfilled, it must be that God, the Master of all laws, has led the long providence of restoration according to an orderly plan.
- When the answers are made clear, it will not be possible to deny the existence of God, the Ruler who plans and guides history.
- We will recognize in every historical event traces of the Heart of God as He has struggled to save fallen human beings.
- The new truth should be able to elucidate many difficult issues in Christianity.
- Furthermore, it should clarify the difficult mysteries surrounding the Holy Trinity.
- It should show why God's salvation of humanity was possible only through shedding the blood of His only begotten Son on the cross.
- What is the extent of redemption by the cross?
- Why must Jesus come again? When, where and how will his return take place? How will fallen people be resurrected at his coming?
- The new truth should explain these puzzles, not in esoteric language but, as Jesus promised, in plain language that everyone can understand (John 16:25).
- Divergent interpretations of such symbolic and metaphorical Bible verses have inevitably led to the division of Christianity into denominations. Only with the aid of the new truth, with its clear explanations, can we bring about Christian unity.
- This ultimate life-giving truth, however, cannot be discovered through an exhaustive investigation of scriptures or scholarly texts.
- Nor can it be invented by any human intellect.
- This truth must appear as a revelation from God.
- With the fullness of time, God has sent one person to this earth to resolve the fundamental problems of human life and the universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon.
- He fought alone against millions of devils, both in the spiritual and physical worlds, and triumphed over them all.
- Through intimate spiritual communion with God.
- And by meeting with Jesus and many saints in Paradise.
- He brought to light all the secrets of Heaven.