Pyeong Hwa Gyeong (004) - The New Future of Humankind
2. God desires for us to be better than He is
I would like to ask you: When you were young and you were about to choose your spouse, if you are a man and you were about to choose your wife, did you want someone who was inferior to you or someone who was better than you? When asked this question, anyone among you, regardless of who you are, will answer that you wanted someone who was better than you.
Furthermore, if there is a couple and their beloved child is about to be born, would any parent wish for their child to be inferior to them? There would not be such a parent anywhere. It is the desire of each person’s original human nature that one’s spouse or one’s child be better than he or she is. Since human beings feel this way, whom do they resemble? We cannot deny that human beings are in all respects resultant beings and not causal beings. If human beings wish for their spouse or their children to be better than they, whom would they take after in this desire? The obvious conclusion is that we have such a desire because we resemble God, who is the causal Being.
Today many people think of themselves as being worthless. There are many people who regard themselves as no better than animals, saying, “I have no special value at all.” The one thing I hope you will remember today is that God wishes for you to be better than He is. If you think about this once you return home, I am sure that you will consider this to be an important discovery. I believe that only when we recover our original value as dignified human beings can the path that leads to the world of true love, true ideals, true happiness and true peace open. On the contrary, most theologians until now have believed that the Creator and the creation cannot stand on equal footing.
We say that God is love. And we know Him to be an ideal God. However, what could He achieve by being ideal all by Himself? Can you be happy by yourself? Can you have peace and freedom all by yourself? In this regard, we are in the state we are in because we lost our original value. If we fully possessed our original value, without a doubt we would have become human beings who could be elevated by God. Because we still have this original nature latent in us, through which we can restore our original value, we desire to become the best possible object partner or subject partner.
Even among fallen human beings, is there anyone who wishes for the object partner of their love to exist for one year, or ten, and then disappear or change? Love and love’s object partner are meant to be eternal and unchanging. We desire unchanging and absolute love from an absolute and unique higher level. If human beings, who have lost their original value due to the Fall, ask for such love, could God, the eternal, unchanging, unique and absolute Being, want the object partner of His love to exist for only a little while and then disappear? Certainly not! Since God is eternal, our most obvious and logical conclusion is that He desires for us human beings, who are the object partners of His love, to be eternal as well.
Please understand clearly this pivotal conclusion, namely, that our life has to be eternal. Only then can the statement, “Humankind is the most precious existence in all of creation,” be fulfilled. Our life needs to be eternal, unchanging and absolute. Why do human beings need to be unique beings? You need to understand that because God is the subject partner, human beings, who are the object partner of His love, ideals and happiness, also need to be like Him.
Now you understand that only when there is a relationship between a subject partner and an object partner can the realization of God’s ideal, the world of love and happiness, the world of peace and true freedom, become possible. Now you understand with certainty the concept of subject partner and object partner. |