【The Way Of Unification】 - 4. Human History Is The History Of Smuggle

[대태양/김현수]

4. Human History Is The History Of Smuggle Between Good And Evil

1) God's Providence to Restore Fallen Man

What do you think God would do with this fallen world? At first you may think that since man was damaged and failed his test, God would throw him away. But that would never happen. God created human beings with the ideal of eternity. He created them as His eternal objects of love. Therefore we can conclude that as long as human beings fail to be His perfect objects of love, God remains an imperfect God. Why? Because God can only gain the title of Eternal Subject of Love through human beings, his objects of love.

Therefore, until today God has worked through religion to carry out His providence for re-creation, in order to realize the original purpose of love. He has directed providential history, through which the true religion of love could appear.

How could God recreate His ideal son and daughter from fallen sons and daughters?

Saving a person who has fallen into the water means pulling him back onto land, where he was before. Saving fallen man, which is recreation, means restoring him to his original position before the fall. In other words, since human beings failed to realize God's ideal of love, God, through re-creation in accordance with the Principle of Creation, will move them back to their original position. There they will lead their lives centered on God's ideal love.

Therefore fallen man absolutely the needs religion through which he can realize the ideal of love, and all religions which have emerged from the deep will of God's providence will teach the nature of love. (1981.4.25)

Because of the fall of man, there has been no way to set any ideal standards. Man is already divided into two separate directions, so no matter how strong a person is, he cannot control his body with his mind and move both in the direction of goodness. If man could bring unity between his mind and body centered on love, he could live harmoniously without struggle. If there had been no fall mankind, centered on God's love, would have become united with God as one body.

God is not the kind of God to just stand by while human beings are living in this fallen world. He has worked until today to lay the foundation for re-creation through religion, in order to recreate the ideal world which He has wanted from the very beginning. This is God's providence for salvation.

(1981.5.10)

2) Human History is God's Providence for Salvation

Today, people who do not live a life of faith do not understand God's intervention in human history. History has been made not only by man; God has been working His providence behind the scenes. Human history has always been interwoven with God's providence.

Why has God intervened in human history? Because God created man, brought him into existence, to realize His ideal of creation. So no matter how many mistakes man makes, God cannot realize His ideal without man on stage.

So, even though man doesn't know it, human history is moving toward the realization of God's ideal of creation. This is what we call salvation.

All religions speak of salvation. Their aim is salvation, which leads to a new world, which opens the ideal world and connects man to the eternal world. Then what is the way of salvation? It is to return to the original state, before man became ill. We in the Unification Church say the history of salvation is the history of restoration. It is returning, centered on the original standard. Why do we need to speak of salvation and restoration? Because man fell.

What was the fall? There would have been no fall if human beings had been under God's direct dominion, standing in the realm of ideal unity with Him. From the very beginning, people should have centered their lives on God, bound in an inseparable father-son relationship with Him.

Their living place, centered on God, would not be a place of sorrow and sadness, pain and suffering. It would be a place of happiness, joy and satisfaction. But because of the fall this place was lost.

What was the reason for this loss? What was the cause? Did God cause it?

Did He make man like that? No! It was because of the Archangel. It was because the Archangel seduced human beings. When they were in the position to grow, to be perfect, Satan, the Archangel, raped the first human ancestors. The sad, distorted history of mankind started right there. So we must restore this.

What was the fall? It was mankind falling under Satan's control. Satan controlled mankind. Therefore, history unfolded while the descendants of Adam and Eve were locked within the realm of Satan's dominion.

The human environment, on the levels of the individual, family, clan, tribe, nation and world, has never been under God's dominion. Rather, it has have evolved under Satan's dominion. This was not God's original will. This was not the ideal human desire. Because this was not God's will or mankind's ideal, God and man together must take the historical responsibility of throwing off this fallen dominion.

To do this, God has been working with many nations behind the scenes, setting up various religions. So in the East there is Oriental religion, and in the West there is Western religion. God has been guiding them to the world level, toward one world religion. At the same time He has been guiding all ideologies toward one unified world ideology. (168-299)

3) Human History is the Struggle Between Good and Evil

If there had been no fall, we surely would have had a Fatherland that God could like, love and be happy with. This earth would be our Fatherland, and it would be called the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Since this Fatherland would have been established centered on God and related with His love, God would dwell there, and His love would overflow there.

Therefore it would be impossible for human beings not to know God. By experiencing God's love, we would all know what love was. All people would be brothers and sisters in a single family. These kinds of people who lived as God's family in the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth would go to the Kingdom of Heaven in the spiritual world when they finished their physical lives on earth.

The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth should have been humankind's original homeland. But because of the fall our Fatherland, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, was not realized.

Therefore no one could go to the Kingdom of Heaven in the spiritual world after completing life on earth.

What was the result of the fall? The human mind and body were divided, husbands and wives were divided, parents and children were divided, so they all struggled against each other. Since this world, centered on man, fell under the dominion of Satan, human history has been interwoven with division and struggle. Unity with God would have enabled human beings to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but since they failed to unite with God, they were pulled away by Satan.

Fallen people are scattered all over the earth. People living in the frigid, temperate and tropical zones are divided into the white, yellow and black races. People, divided into five races, all pursue their own self-interests. This has brought about the history of struggle on all levels: between individuals, families, tribes and nations, and throughout the world. (161-12)

Human history has developed slowly, through the process of struggle and war. Wars represent the struggle between good and evil. Satan controls the evil side while God controls the good side. (12-37) 

Ever since the fall, history has been the history of war. Behind everything, God and Satan are at war. In these battles, not only God and Satan but also good and evil spirits in the spiritual world have been mobilized and involved.

Good spirits support the good side, bad spirits support the evil side.

Therefore the entire physical and spiritual worlds have been mobilized in the providence of God to reclaim fallen mankind.

Throughout human history Cain and Abel, or Satan's side and God's side, have been battling. In conclusion, human history has been woven by the struggle between good and evil.

When we look at the flow of history we can see the struggle between good history and evil history. If there had been no fall there would have been no struggle between good and evil. But because of the fall, this struggle came into existence.

Although originally goodness should have been the center of history, evil became the center. Although goodness should have come first, evil came first. Goodness should have had the upper hand, but evil took the upper hand. So we know that the origin of all historical struggle was the struggle to reverse all these improper positions.

So what shall we do now? Restoring our original position is our highest goal, and the greatest goal of God and His providence. In other words, we know that restoring the original state of the earth is the final task of both God and man.

The person who can accomplish this task will dominate history. This person must carry out the mission of a new age on the providential path, and turn history around to the right direction. This person will initiate the transformation of history from evil to good.

What will be the turning point? It will not be what you think it will. It will not be the turning point for an individual or the turning point of an age; it will not be the turning point for a regime in one nation.

It will be the turning point of God's providence, in which this whole world will be turned upside down in order to restore its original condition. Without going through this process the world cannot be made new. That's why we talk about a turning point.

(28-244) 

4) History is the Struggle Between Hellenism and Hebraism

Ladies and gentlemen, history has been the struggle between Hellenism and Hebraism. Why did Hebraism appear in history? Why has it caused so much controversy? Among religions, God-centered theism has the longest history. Christianity, which inherited the longest religious tradition until the time of the Unification Church, reformed history and became the mainstream of history.

Then why is Hellenism controversial? Humanistic thought originated with Greek humanism. This is the oldest form of such thinking. History has been the struggle between humanistic ideology and theistic ideology.

What are the characteristics of Hebraism? It stresses tradition and the continuity of history. But while Hellenism changed according to the environment of the time, Judaism has maintained its traditions until the present time. When you see movies about early Catholics, you also hear the word tradition.

What is tradition? It means continuity. Can Jesus-centered Christianity be changed? No, it cannot. We can tell that God has been with Christianity by the fact that it has had a major influence on mainstream history from ancient times, through medieval times, until the present. Therefore Christianity has become the world's dominant religion. (79-182)