Sun Myung Moon
April 14, 2002
Address at the granting of honorary doctorates to Reverend Sun Myung Moon and Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon
Sun Moon University, Asan, Korea
Photo date and location unknown
Guests from home and abroad, professors, students, and members of the university staff:
I am grateful to God that I am being awarded this honorary doctor of divinity degree, and that my wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, is being awarded this honorary doctor of humanities degree, by the consensus of the Graduate School Council of Sun Moon University. The awards take place on this meaningful day when the main building of Sun Moon University is being dedicated.
The purpose of education is to foster the true love of God
As I mentioned at the dedication ceremony, my purpose in establishing educational institutions is to provide education for the practice of God's ideal of true love. Although God our Creator can be described as absolute, unique, unchanging, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and more, true love is the most fundamental attribute of God.
The ideal of love can be achieved only through a relationship with an object partner. True love has this distinctive nature. Even God requires an object partner of love and has to live for the sake of the other. This was the motive of God, the self-existent and Absolute Being, for creating the world.
All created beings are the object partners of God's love, directly or indirectly. Among them, human beings were created as His children who are closest to Him and who can inherit everything from Him. For human beings, God is the incorporeal True Parent.
In accordance with their religious affiliations and doctrines, people have a variety of ways in which they express that God, the Causal Being, is the True Parent of true love. Thus God is the central point through whom all people can be brought together as one, transcending nationality, race, religion, language and culture.
Nonetheless, every religion considers itself superior to other religions. For this reason we witness ourselves sinking into a whirlpool of religious war, as we have observed in the recent terror attack on the World Trade Center in the United States and the conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians. Even so, all religions possess a universal truth, a truth that originated in and was established by the one God, who is moving us toward a common goal. The one God is the Lord who is the final destination of all religions. Therefore, religious believers have to make a concerted effort to find similarities with one another rather than dwell on their differences.
The central value of religion is the true love of God. True love means living for the sake of others. It means living more for the sake of the family than the individual, more for the community than the family, more for the nation than the community, more for the world than the nation, more for the cosmos than the world, and more for God than the cosmos. When this takes place, God can return to the starting point and live for the sake of human beings, His children. This is the universal truth. In the same way, religions need to learn about and understand other religions, and move forward by living for the sake of other religions.
To realize a peaceful world through religion, I founded organizations such as the Inter-religious Federation for World Peace, the Inter-religious and International Federation for World Peace, and the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations. I have been carrying out a campaign to bring together all religious believers of the world. Moreover, in order to facilitate dialogue and cooperation between religions, I published World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts, compiled by the collaborative efforts of representative scholars from the world's religions. You may find this hard to believe: We actually are investing tens and hundreds of times more into our inter-religious and interdenominational work than we budget for the Unification Church.
Moreover, God is the origin and source of all avenues to knowledge that express the truth. Before teaching its students about the material values vital to the secular world, Sun Moon University inculcates the attitude of loving God. Professors need to teach and students need to learn with an attitude and understanding that God is the source of all learning, values and truth.
The ideal of education at Sun Moon University expressed in its motto, "Love God," refers to establishing righteous values rooted in God's love and practicing them in one's daily life. Contemporary society is rampant with materialism, atheism and secular values promoting hedonism. It is a confused society that is destructive to authentic values. The motto, "Love God," proposes that values be God-centered, as an alternative to the degenerate values of contemporary society. In short, it is the teaching of Godism.
Practicing the true love of God in North Korea
In late 1991, my wife and I visited North Korea at the invitation of President Kim Il Sung. Bear in mind that only a few years before that visit the KGB, the Committee of State Security of the Soviet Union, and communist terrorist groups were maneuvering to eliminate me because of my position as a global religious leader and pre-eminent leader of the Victory over Communism movement. So, entering the state-controlled land of North Korea was in itself a life-and-death proposition.
However, meeting with Kim Il Sung was absolutely necessary for the purpose of addressing and resolving the issue of unification. Because I knew that it was a providential requirement that I needed to face sooner or later in the history of God's providence, I entered North Korea depending solely on God. I did not go to North Korea to carry out a joint business venture. Rather, my wife and I entered that nation in a dignified manner, with compassionate hearts as the True Parents of humanity. In order to realize God's cherished hope for the unification of North and South Korea, we had to love the North Korean people more than anyone else.
In this spirit, I proposed to the supreme leader of North Korea, "Unification cannot be achieved through the Juche ideology. Let us unite through Godism, through which North and South Korea can live together." I later heard that the people accompanying me were thinking to themselves, "This is it. There is no way we will return alive!"
A year before that, I already had declared the Will of God at the risk of my life when I visited the Soviet Union and met with Mikhail Gorbachev. I considered that my life was secondary to upholding and following Heaven's decree and Heaven's Will.
The Godism I am talking about is not my personal opinion that one has the luxury of either accepting or rejecting. God is alive and carrying out His work. To turn away from Him and propagate such false teachings as atheism, materialism and the Juche ideology, is to oppose the way of Heaven. Such false teachings will fade away in history. Only justice, truth, and the way of Heaven will prevail. In this regard, only Godism, which is rooted in the true love of God, can be the basis for unity.
Science and technology must be rooted in absolute values
This is also why I have been hosting and leading the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences. Why else would I have gathered world-renowned scholars, including Nobel laureates under my auspices? Why have I been hosting this international conference year after year, despite its exorbitant budget?
Science and technology, which developed at an amazing pace in the twentieth century, have allowed people to enjoy abundant lives. On the other hand, the application of science has also damaged our natural environment and led to the development of weapons of mass destruction, casting a dark shadow. When science and technology are used with selfish motives, they are transformed into lethal weapons that can destroy humankind.
People had believed firmly in scientific reason, but they were appalled by the barbarism displayed by the uses of technology during the two World Wars. Hence, their faith in scientific reason plummeted. Moreover, in contemporary industrialized society people have become slaves of materialistic civilization. All these phenomena are consequences of the misuse of science. Science is not a value-free discipline, as most scientists like to think. Rather, science is a value-oriented discipline, which must be used properly for humanity.
Every time we hosted a meeting of the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, I set the theme around the topic of research into absolute values. The absolute values I am proposing originate in the true love of God, which is the basis of Godism. God, who created the universe and all things in it, is the Supreme Scientist of all scientists and the Supreme Artist of all artists. If scientists become arrogant or conceited because they know a small fraction of the facts about the universe and all things in it created by God, they clearly are dishonoring God and themselves.
Therefore, the goal of scientists ought not to be limited to the narrow fields of physics, chemistry, biology or other subjects. Of course, the specifics of one's own field of expertise are important. However, we need to carry out academic research in collaborative relationships, so that the work can be complementary, and then dedicate the results of our research to a noble purpose.
It is possible that science can go awry when it becomes an end in itself and is not a means to a greater end. Therefore, scientists need to link their academic achievements to those in other fields. Furthermore, they need to evaluate the use and purpose of their achievements in the context of society as a whole. In this respect, I can state confidently that the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences is the most prestigious international conference, and that it has made significant strides in contemporary society.
The only acceptable teaching is one that can effectively lead the world into a civilized future. It has to be a philosophy founded on the rediscovery of the living God, Whom modern civilization has lost. It has to be rooted in absolute values centered on Him. Western civilization has emphasized human rationality to such an extent that it is immersed in humanism and thus has lost God. The philosophy of materialism has exiled God. Thinking they are liberated from God, people have actually descended into the idol-worship of material.
Freedom without God is not true freedom. Before anything else, the most urgent task at this point in time is to introduce new values grounded in God at the level of university education. Moreover, we need to know that the world of the original essence, that is, the ideal world of spirit, exists beyond the present world. Though it cannot be perceived by the five senses, it is a substantial world that exists beyond any doubt.
I am talking about a reality that I have experienced personally. I have communicated with that world on many occasions. This is yet another academic field that needs to be studied, so that we may gain a correct understanding of God and the spirit world. The twenty-first century will be a time when we will be increasingly able to experience and see the spirit world and spiritual phenomena.
I believe that the key to a true university education is for people in all fields of learning and education to rely on God, the ultimate Subject Being, and form a connection with Him. The primary requirement for a university that will lead world civilization is that it works to establish a system of absolute values grounded in God.
It is not acceptable for education to remain simply a process of transmitting knowledge and skills. At the very least, the development of morality, ethics and conscience has to be the principal axis at the core of all higher education. Therefore, true education is not about mass-producing skilled intellectuals or technicians. Education can be truly meaningful only when it promotes maturity of character and responsible morality.
I hope and pray that Sun Moon University will develop into a university that contributes greatly to this country and human civilization by applying an educational philosophy based on Godism.
Thank you.