Pyeong Hwa Gyeong (046) - Religion and the Ideal World
2. God’s ideal and the family of true love
As human beings created by God, we were born with the hope of attaining the ideal world. When we say “ideal world,” we need to know that the concept of the ideal originates from God. God did not create the world for the sake of power, glory or wealth. God has no desire for these. However, it would be wrong to say that God has no desires at all. God exists as the embodiment of true love.
God’s motivation for creation is true love, and God desires a true person as His object partner. Even God has to have a relationship in order to experience love. True love can be experienced only through a relationship between a subject partner and an object partner. No isolated being can experience love. Only beings capable of freely giving and receiving are able to engage in loving relationships. God created human beings to become the perfect object partners of love, beings who would freely give and receive love in relationship with God.
Human beings are God’s sons and daughters, created with a natural inclination toward true love. God is the True Parent of humankind. God created us as beings that could participate in and inherit true love. In addition, God created the natural world as a protective environment for humankind. Through the relationship of true love, both God and human beings can experience the highest form of joy.
God wanted Adam and Eve to grow in purity centered on true love and become true people. God carefully provided the environment for their biological development and their nourishment. God’s central concern, however, was with their internal character. Human beings realize the ideal by coming to reflect God’s true love. God created the power of love to be the most powerful of all internal forces. When on the heavenly path human beings experience the power of God’s love, they come to resemble God, becoming one with God and perfecting themselves. For this reason, we may say God’s love is the essence of human happiness, life and ideals.
Adam and Eve were supposed to grow in God’s love to become true human beings, then true husband and wife, and true parents. Men and women become true parents when they become beings of perfected character, inheriting God’s unselfish, unconditional parental love.
People experience God’s true love in stages through life’s periods of growth. Through their life course, each individual is meant to come to know the love of children, the love of brothers and sisters, the love of husband and wife, and the love of parents. The foundation upon which these four realms of love and heart can stand is the family. The family is the basis for human love, happiness, life and lineage. Thus, the family of true love is the hope of humankind and the essence of God’s purpose of creation. The true completion of the individual, family, society or environment has its root in the realization of true love within a family. People who have become the embodiment of God’s true love cannot disobey God’s Will, violate other people, or abuse the creation. |