Pyeong Hwa Gyeong (048) - The Path of Life for All Humankind
1. God’s purpose for creating humankind
Throughout history, humankind has sought to answer the basic question: Why are we born? Some have concluded that they were born for the sake of their country. Others have decided that they were born for the sake of their parents. Still others believe they were born for their own sake. People of faith believe they are born for the sake of God.
Yet it is not enough to say that God created the universe for the sole benefit of human beings or even for God’s own benefit. The creation of humankind involved the cooperation of many beings and elements. Although each had its own inherent purpose, they worked together to initiate the creative process. God’s purpose in creating, the angels' purpose in assisting, nature’s purpose in providing the materials, and even the human purpose for being created are all consistent. There is some common purpose that is pleasing to God, to the angels, to the rest of creation and to human beings themselves.
This shared purpose is something that, the longer it is possessed the greater the happiness and joy it provides. It is something that, once we possess it, we would never let it go. It cannot be external in nature. It is something internal and invisible. Things like knowledge, money and power are merely collateral conditions that are needed in people’s lives. We are not born into the world for the purpose of possessing them. Such external things may exist in a reciprocal relationship with humankind only temporarily, not eternally.
God has no need for money. If Almighty God ever needed money, He could create as much as He desired. Also, we know that God is the root of all knowledge, since He created the universe through certain principles and laws. Furthermore, the Creator is the origin of power, so God has no need to seek power.
What then is this common content or purpose? It is something we cannot arrive at through human effort alone. This is because human effort cannot control the fundamental origin of life. This content is something that directs the motivation, course and even final destination of each person’s life.
From this perspective, this common content can only be true love. Human beings are born in love and are destined to go the path of love. People even die for love. This shows that love is more valuable than life itself. Moreover, we see that love precedes life. That is why people willingly offer even their lives for the sake of love.
Love is eternal. If we look at novels, poems and other works of literature, we see how authors set unchanging and eternal love as the ideal. Clearly, human beings are not satisfied with momentary or finite love. Our desire is for love that is eternal.
Love has the power to disarm God completely. Even God is vulnerable to love. Almighty God cannot resist breaking into a big smile when smelling the fragrance of love from human beings. God enjoys love stories, too. Yet how much more pleasing it is when love is actually practiced!
Each organ in our body was created for the sake of love. For example, the eyes were obviously created for the purpose of sight. To see what? The eyes were created specifically to look for love, which is the common theme among all beings. The nose was made to smell, specifically to smell the fragrance of love. Similarly, our ears were created to hear the sounds of love. Among all the sounds we hear, the one sound that we never get tired of hearing is the sound of someone saying, “I love you.” This is as true for senior citizens as it is for young people.
Love is the only power that can bring all beings into a state of mutual attraction. Here, love refers to true love, which every being in the entire universe welcomes. True love is the type of love that is publicly endorsed by God, the angelic world, things of creation and all people. If we were to cover the entire universe with a blanket of love, no being would want to crawl out from under that blanket. From this perspective, it is clear that the creation of the universe and life itself originated from true love. |