Pyeong Hwa Gyeong (077) Book 2. God’s Homeland and the Peace Kingdom CHAPTER 1. The Background and Significance of the Founding of the Unification Church
1. The Unification Church was founded according to the Will of God
Now, what I would like to briefly tell our guests here is how the Holy Spirit Association was founded. I believe the force behind my founding the Holy Spirit Association came from the Will of God, or the Divine Will, more than merely from human will.
As you well know, human society today and in history does not advance based just on the will of people. On the contrary, society advances toward one goal that is based on a greater Will, which is centered on God. From that viewpoint, if the Holy Spirit Association were founded only by the will of human beings, I do not think it would contribute much to the world, to the future or to the flow of history. Accordingly, I founded this new religion based on the Will of God.
Religion, I believe, is the institution that is able to combine the Will of God and the will of humanity. Religion not only has to have God at its center, it has to embrace everything all people are longing for.
Then, what is the Will of God? The Will of God is not focused on any particular society; it goes beyond societies and nations. We cannot complete the Will that God desires unless we adopt such a viewpoint. We can understand this by looking at human history.
In this sense, the will of humanity also must not be focused on any individual’s will or single group’s will. To be one with the Will of God, it must be put into a greater context at the world level. I believe the mission of religion is to unite these two wills internally and externally.
Then what is needed in order to bring God and humankind into oneness? There must be something that is able to unite the love of God and the love of human beings. The love through which human beings can become one with God is not centered on a particular individual, a particular society or a particular nation. Rather, people have to achieve a bond of heart that loves humankind and the world, going beyond particular nations.
In this sense, the Will of God and the will of human beings must be bound together in the form of a religion, and the center of this religion must be love. This love must be a love that is not exclusively for any particular society or nation; rather it must be a love that goes beyond the world and beyond everything. Without this, a religion cannot be true and will lack the foundation to have a global presence.
This is why until now history has moved forward with saints at the center. These were people who took their stand in relationship with the Will of Heaven and not just the will of human beings. Their goal was to benefit not only a certain people, but the entire world, and even beyond the boundary of the world. It is the task of saints to teach this way of life.
With this duty at its core, religion can connect the Will of Heaven with the will of human beings. So the saints established the standard for binding the human way to the foundation of heavenly law. However, only teachings that transcend the boundaries of the world can be called the teachings of the saints. Based on these ways, human beings today have established the way of humility and morality. |