Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Theory of Education - 2 - 5. Religion as God's means to teach mankind

[대태양/김현수]

2.5 Religion as God's means to teach mankind

Before the time of the Old Testament, people were in the servant of servant's position. In the time of the Old Testament, we came to be in the servant's position. No one could pioneer alone the path from the servant of servant position to the servant position. God Himself had to pioneer the course. He had to educate people who were more evil than the servant of servants. That was His situation.

However, God is invisible and could not appear to just anyone. He had to choose certain people as prophets. The prophets represented God on earth, but at the same time, representing humanity - they had to obey God and follow what He commanded.

(042-281, 1971.03.27)

Where does God start to realize the world of oneness, the unified world? This is the problem. God has no choice but to start with each of us, individuals. That is why God has had to educate us throughout history through religions. Religions have had the goal of educating us in how to be perfect.

(053-064, 1972.02.09)

When we look at the mind and body of an individual, which is more focused on God? It is the mind. Unless we are clear about whether the body should yield to the mind or the mind to the body, we can never find the center we need to live by. So far, evil has always been able to destroy the center; we should destroy evil by centering ourselves on the good. That is how we should have our body surrender to our mind. God had to educate us through our consciences. He has taught us to go the opposite direction of our physical desires by following our consciences.

God and Satan have fought, with people in the center. Satan draws people to do whatever their bodies feel like doing. On the other hand, God urges people to do what their consciences tell them to do. God could not let people be pulled by their physical desires. He has been teaching people not to do what their body finds comfortable. The tool He has been using to do this is religion.

(053-066, 1972.02.09)

God educates people through religion; but how does He do that? The mind and body struggle with each other. He has no choice but to surrender one side to the other. So, He teaches people to strike their bodies and to live centering on their consciences. All religions teach us to strike the body. Religions that do not teach that cannot be true religions. That is the first step in surrendering your body. What is the second? Our mind and body have just about the same amount of power. God knows how hard it is for people to strike their bodies. So, all He can do is to give two or three times more power to our minds.

(053-167, 1972.02.19)

If religious people cannot establish the age of peace centering on God, then there is no God. If that is the case, we can only conclude that religions have cheated us....That is why God taught people that they must absolutely believe in Him. God taught them to love Him with all their heart and mind. God taught them to love only Him. God will not pass everything to us until the Last Days. He absolutely has to teach people to make the tie between Himself and them. If you just see that God is asking you to love only Him with all your heart and soul, you may conclude that God might as well be the dictator of love. You should love God no matter what, even at the risk of you life, but love cannot be one-sided. When God asks us to love Him with all our heart and soul, it means that He will love us with all His heart and soul, too. God has educated us to survive to the end.

(053-306, 1972.03.05)

Religions are factories for repairing people. What sort of education is needed in these factories? Mind and body are struggling with each other. God cannot repair us if He leaves things as they are. So, what He teaches us to do is to strike our bodies and live by our minds, our consciences. The higher religions are, the more they focus on that kind of teaching. Jesus told us, "Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it." He taught us to go in the opposite direction of satisfying our physical desires. We must get rid of our arrogance and stop putting ourselves before others. God had to teach us to go the other way, the opposite way. He has had to teach us to strike our body and make sacrifices.

(054-028, 1972.03.09)

Any religion leading people to God teaches them to sacrifice and to serve others. That is to train people to be able to adjust to the heavenly nation's principle and to the habits and customs of the original hometown. We are wanderers. It is God's will to educate fallen people to adjust when they go to the original hometown. It is the principle of God's creation that a good world can only exists based on that principle. It is God's will for us to embody the principle.

(070-305, 1974.03.09)

What is the purpose of God's creating the organization, churches? In churches, God gathers all different races and trains them. Churches are training places. They are spiritual training places. They are training places for people of the future and the families of the future. Churches must teach families, tribes and peoples the right way to go. All the prophets in the past guided their kings, especially when they were on the wrong track. They judged those leaders and led them to God. God wants to create the families, tribes and peoples of the future through churches.

(106-034, 1979.11.11)

What is the reason that religious values have broken down? First, thanks to the development of science and technology and the growth of economy, people tend to pursue more materialistic goals. Second, atheistic, materialistic ideologies, including communism, have become widespread around the world. Third, with the separation between church and state, people excluded the teaching of religion from textbooks in schools in accord with their national educational policies. Fourth, communists are trying to destroy moral values as a part of their strategy to create one communist world. Fifth, religions cannot teach the essence of why people have to maintain religious values.

(122-300, 1982.11.25)

Religious teaching is the highest teaching. What does "the highest teaching" mean? Parents should teach their children, "No matter what you do, one thing you must never forget is that you must love God more than you love us, your parents, and that you must love the nation more than you love us." Their children must accept that their parents are people of the truth. "Not only am I teaching you to do this, but we will live that way, too. We will be examples for you to follow. Our last words will be the same as these. It was our way of life when you were born. It will always be so for the rest of our lives. If we go this way and if you follow us, the tradition will not change. You should be able to give your children the same legacy as your last words when you die. Any parents that can say that are righteous parents.

(127-290, 1983.05.15)

God has educated people through religions so that He could create the garden of true olive trees. On the foundations created by religions and centering on His love, God sent the Messiah, the true olive tree, to have us engrafted with him. That is the messianic belief. You can understand the rebirth written of in the Bible in this light.

(135-012,1985.08.20)

Although religions transcend the norms or rules governing reality, you cannot underestimate reality entirely. Religions must take great interest in problems happening in reality and discover what God's will is toward solving those problems. You must be able to arouse new, God-centered changes in the hearts of the people who can actually solve the political, economic, social and educational problems. Religions should help those people to be renewed and be able to solve problems centering on God.

(135-222, 1985.11.16)

What are religions supposed to do? They are to educate people's minds. Religions should give more power to our minds and restrict our bodies. Why? Because we have to return to our original place. Therefore, higher religions do not restrict people's minds. They strengthen the mind so that the mind can bring the body into harmony and center it on God.

(195-017, 1989.11.01)

What was the reason for God's having sent saints and prophets to this earth? It was to show people examples of personal integrity and the true love of God that He wants to see in people. It was to teach the leaders of nations God's way so that they could create harmony between the world of the mind and the world of the body centering on His true love.

(219-110, 1991.08.27)

If God exists, He must fix humanity. Yet, everyone has different cultural, traditional and historical backgrounds. Therefore, God had to adjust to those and educate people to control their bodies and to live by their consciences. Religions have found the way for people to live their lives by their consciences. That is why religious education must restrict bodies. No religion can teach people to follow their physical desires. Never. Whatever links to our physical desires must be cut off. That is the problem that must be solved.

(223-350, 1991.11.20)

There are two things I've spoken of today: unity of mind and body and unity of husband and wife. Everything is fine once we are united with God. When we see it that way, world peace is not very difficult.

The family we live in is the foundation for the cosmic victory. If people are united centering on God, we do not need religion. There are many teachings from saints and patriots. However, we can all jump over those in an instant if we become completely one with God's teachings. Your nation is not the place where you become one with God. It is in the relationship between you and your spouse. That is the beginning point.

(259-053, 1994.03.27)

The goal of our unchanging God is to realize the ideal world of true love. The purpose of religion is to actualize true love and true family. If religions do not contribute to those goals and exist for only their own sakes, they have nothing to do with God no matter how well they speak about Him. Neither God nor the world exists for the sake of religion. Religions came about to realize God's will to restore the original world of true love and true family. That is what I have tried to achieve for the past forty years of my life through interreligious movements worldwide and in different areas of life: academic, educational, ideological, cultural, artistic, journalistic, scientific, technological and through various kinds of businesses.

(260-126, 1994.05.01)

The religion that God wants to lead the world with is the religion in the position of parents. God wants religion to teach the parental heart. I am teaching the True Parents' ideology and tradition. You must be true parents in your own families, and then in your tribes so that you can fulfill the responsibility of tribal messiahs. Only the religion of the true parental heart can realize God's will in a world full of struggles, hatred and sins. Religions despising or hating other religions are not useful for the realization of world peace and God's providence.

(260-128, 1994.05.01)

Without God's having invested and given, the cosmos could not have been born. The law of the cosmos is that the subject lives for the sake of the object. However, in the fallen world, the subject does not live for the sake of the object. Instead, the subject misuses the object for his own sake. That is why the world has no alternative but to decline in the end. I believe that religions must teach the heavenly principle that you are happy only when your object is happy. The Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace sees that religions must constructively work together for harmony between religions and for world peace. The Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace should function as the world's conscience. It must guide and give advice to the national leaders from around the world in the fields of politics, economics and education. Great religions were born and grew up in the soil of persecution and martyrdom. They stand on a foundation of the precious traditions of their founders. Therefore, we must not avoid the sacrificial course and must recover the original honor of our religions.

(271-070, 1995.08.21)