Reverend Sun Myung Moon
March, 1972
Probable Location San Francisco, California
Probable Translator: Won Bok Choi
When you look at the chaos in the world around you I believe most of you wonder, "Where are we going? What is this world heading towards?" Today I think that even the free, democratic world has come to an end. We can see the division in the communistic world as well. There is trouble ahead for it. These problems of the world seem beyond our power to solve, in the free world or in the world that is enslaved. No one man can say he has the solution for the problems we are facing. How happy we would be then, if in these circumstances, we had an Almighty God with us to resolve the chaos. If God exists and He is Almighty, He could be our guide out of these complexities. However, I do not think that many people understand or experience the existence of God. Even among Christian ministers and leaders, there are many who do not understand. It is ignorance of God's existence and of His nature that leads many nations to follow the path to corruption and eventual destruction. So the most important thing is to understand that existence, to view His nature as reflected in creation and as further revealed at this critical time in history. We are seeking one world religion with the hope of solving man kind's problems. If there is a God, He will use man as a partner to solve those problems. Man is important to God's existence. Let us examine these points.
If we consider this world as a literary work, the author who master minded it can be regarded as its internal cause, the source of its energy. In order for something to exist, energy is required. There can be no existence without energy. Going back one step further, for energy itself to exist, some kind of dynamic action is necessary. However, action cannot occur by itself in an isolated manner. It is through the give and take relationship between subject and object that action is produced.
When a subject-object relationship exists, for instance between a man and a woman, there is interaction or give and take between them. However, the subject and object do not interact without a specific purpose. They only interact when it involves some mutual advantage. They seek to derive some benefit from their interaction, to raise their positions, and to gain from the interaction, certainly not to lower their positions or incur a loss. Think of the people who walk the streets of any busy city today. There is not one among them who has left his home to lose something. All have come to seek something which will benefit them.
It is the same with a man and a woman. If they know that by uniting they will lose more than they will gain, they will not unite. If they expect mutual benefit, however, they will unite. If they can increase their value infinitely by so doing, they will unite or remain united eternally. Everything, then, exists on the foundation of energy produced through interaction, or give and take. Subject and object unite and become one in order to produce positive results or mutual gain. This colossal, massive universe was thus created from small units by continuous subject-object relationships and continued interaction. It was created on the principle that two elements, subject and object, benefit through give and take. This is the most fundamental principle of creation.
Now let us think about God. This principle of give and take must operate for Him also. If God existed without an object to hear Him or see Him, without any object to relate to, He would be isolated. He would be without the interaction that characterizes all things in existence. But if God does have an object and moves in relation to it, then He is comprehensible. He is consistent with the image of Himself written into His work of creation.
Like an author who accomplishes some creative work, He is filled with joy if the result meets or exceeds His expectation. Parents rejoice when their child responds to the affection and effort they invest in him. If man takes such delight in creating and interacting with the objects of his creation, wouldn't God do likewise? Indeed, He feels joy when His creation responds to Him, recognizes and glorifies Him. God cannot fulfill His ideal if He exists or works alone, Let us consider, then, what or who His object might be.
What would be the most fitting object for God? Surely, man, who has the capacity to be most like God. But since there are many kinds of people, who among them would He desire as His object? A high ranking officer? Someone who is in a high position? God would have the best man whom He could find, someone who met His conditions. We see examples of such selectivity in our own lives -- in our choice of friends and colleagues and also in the choice of a marriage partner every man desires the most perfect woman and every woman, the most eligible man. This characteristic is innate in man. So if God desires the best person as His object. To be able to stand before God who is Absolute, man must also be Absolute.
Man has a definite purpose for his actions. God must have a definite purpose for His actions too -- specifically, for creating man. There must be a point of convergence where God's purpose and man's purpose meet. There must be a place where they can find greater mutual advantage in uniting. Since God created man as His highest object, man had to be created with the desire to reach that highest position. That desire operates through the conscience of man. Each man has within him, dulled though it may be, the desire to be the highest object to God and even more, the desire to possess Him. This is man's innate nature -- to monopolize God. Do you think that God dislikes this? On the contrary, it pleases Him! Man is His creation and He wants him to be one with Him. Without such desire man would not make the necessary effort. Also innate in man is the desire to control the world. This too is necessary or man would not strive to become the channel of God's power, which is another aspect of his destiny. Suppose that you came to possess God with your mind, that is, you came to understand that He exists and how He manifests Himself in creation. It would mean nothing if you could not also have His love because our Ideal cannot be realized without love. In what position, then, would you have to be to have God's full love?
Suppose you are a man and know that God has a son. You would want to be that son. You would want to have God as a father, as your father. That is the goal of man, however humble he may be. The ultimate goal is not the position of adopted son or son-in-law (or adopted daughter or daughter-in-law) but that of son or daughter of God. The highest position that man desires, God is able to give, so God must be able to give us the position of True Son or True Daughter. This is the position In which the love of God and the love of man unite. Now happy you will be if you discover the way to reach that position. If you could find it. you would not need anyone to show you the way. But if I can teach you, you will come with me!
This description of man's goal is quite brief but to reach this truth I struggled in revelation and spiritual communication for many years. Suddenly the realization came to me that the goal that all men seek, with or without awareness, is a Father-son relationship with God. I am not referring to the relationship you may have had with your own earthly father. I am referring to the original concept of God's creation, where God is Father. No one has reached this goal or tasted this love. Yet the incredible truth is that God has prepared Sonship for us.
But the personality of the children of God is not as you may think. I am not talking about a fallen man but a man not separated from God, a man with whom God can move and act. Two people who love each other do not stand still, separated from each other. They move about together; the object becomes the second "I". From that point of unity and oneness, hope grows. Then in that relationship of oneness and love, God becomes almighty and man becomes God's son or daughter.
This is one aspect or level of man's position but a higher level can be attained. A father-child relationship is a vertical -- a superior-subordinate relationship, whereas the child's desire is to be in the same position as his father. God knows this and it is His desire too. For then He can live in oneness with man. If you become one with Him, you have to accommodate Him somehow. Where will that be? Your relationship with Him is personal and private. Where will it be safe? You don't want to be separated from Him -- how can you have Him with you? You can keep Him in your heart, your mind! Living within you, He becomes the center of your mind and you become His temple. The relationship between God and man is like mind and body. God desired to be the mind and created the first man to be His body.
But attainment of this equal position or oneness with God is still not the ultimate. Even though you had a Father-son or daughter relationship and have become one with Him, you would desire more. You would want to have God's power to create and for this too, He has provided. He wants us to taste the joy He tasted at the creation of man. We inherit His creative ability and lordship over all creation when, by the power of love. We become one with Him. Let us examine this concept further.
In Genesis 1:27 we read "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." What kind of being, then, is God? From this passage we can infer that within Himself there is the essence of man and the essence of woman; and these two become one. Within Him these essences interact with each other and creation occurs. At some point in creation, God projected His subject nature into creation and there emerged the substantial being, man. And His object nature resulted in the substantial being, woman.
Why did God create them as separate beings? He wanted them to achieve perfection as individuals and to receive God's love as son and daughter. Then, when united, they would resemble God and together stand in the object position to Him. He as subject, and man and woman as object, could then have an eternal give and take action between them. What was to be the binding force between man and woman? Love, What was to be the binding force between God and united man and woman? Love. Without love, nothing can be truly united into one. The essence of the ideal is love. The essence of unity is love. By love we are united with God and then inherit His creative ability and lordship over creation. It is from this that man and woman can create children, as He created them.
Everything God has, He has without reservation given to us. We are loved as the son or daughter of God. The son and daughter have the power to create children as the fruit of their love. And all of this is united in the one love of God. That love has three aspects: parental love, the love of husband and wife and children's love. Man is meant to experience these loves in his life on earth. This is the fundamental principle for attaining happiness. It is according to man's nature to have parents, a husband or wife, and children. If a man and woman establish this foundation through the family according to God's ideal, God must dwell with them. Here God and man become one and this family can be the foundation for God to establish His ideal world.
God's love is eternal, ultimate and absolute. Therefore, once you become His object, you must also be eternal, ultimate and absolute. Even in this earthly world, love is described as eternal, never changing, ever lasting. Love is not your own. It belongs to God. It belongs to your partner or to others in the object position. Unless you have God, unless you have an object, no love exists. Many people today consider love to be their own. This is a wrong and selfish point of view. Absolute love comes through your object, through your partner. Love is giving and the ultimate giving is love. We need the ultimate object to form a give and take relationship of love. We need our children. This idea has been lost. This God-centered relationship has been lost.
We know that God exists for a purpose. That purpose can be realized through the reciprocal relationship of subject and object, with man in the object position. Is there anyone who can say that he is in that position? No, man was created for that purpose but because of the fall he has become divided. No one can say that his physical body follows the direction of his conscience perfectly. So man's life is a continuous battle between the conscience which directs us to goodness and our physical desires which often incline us toward evil. And good and evil cannot co-exist in harmony. Where has our goal of happiness gone? Therefore he has lost his subject. God become a wanderer in the wilderness. And the phenomenon of division within man is also manifested in the world. The world is divided under two ideologies, one a God-accepting ideology, the other a God-denying ideology.
Then who can solve this problem? There is one who can solve it, God. If we can experience His existence and bring Him to earth, then the problems will be solved. We say that man has fallen but what does that mean? It means that he has lost his original position, he is out of his proper order. Since the fall, the work of God has been that of restoring fallen man to his original state of sonship. The human mind belongs to God. But our flesh has been taken by evil and is a channel to evil. That is why conscientious men of history have chastised their bodies. They knew that the body is under the law of sin.
We must clearly know the ways of good and evil. If you have ten friends and serve them by sacrificial giving, they will remain with you. They will invite others to meet you. So your goodness, your unreserved giving will bring more friends and prosperity. But on the contrary, if this man says in effect, "I am your Lord -- serve me!" the ten friends will go away. Only one will remain, the man himself. And he will eventually deny himself. Can you think of any saint or great man in history who pushed himself forward and glorified himself with that selfish point of view? No one would do that. But when you give your utmost, your friends will not only love and serve you, they will want you as the center of their group. They will want you as their master. They will be willing to be led by that man who gives so much to them. With evil it is the opposite. The friends are afraid of being controlled by that man. They want to stay away from him. Good always insists: mine is yours, yours belongs to a higher level, such as nation: the nation belongs to the world, the world belongs to God. Then, that God is mine. But evil emphasizes: yours is mine and mine is mine, too. We must know these two forces. We must know that an evil ideology exists.
In fallen man two opposites are battling each other. If two such people unite to form a family, not two, but four different directions will emerge. If ten people live together, twenty directions will come about. In this way the unhappy world of disunity was brought about. If God left man in this state and did nothing to help him, we could hardly admit the existence of God. God cannot leave man in that state. Therefore, He has provided a repair shop, a clinic. What is it that can correct and repair man's defects? It is religion. All religions teach us to return to God. Due to the fall, man lost his relationship with God. Without restoring that, man cannot return to his original position. Through these religions God has been guiding man to His goal, which is also man's goal. God gave man many different religions according to his tradition, culture and varied circumstances. Man has the knowledge and ability to compare and discern the superior from the inferior.
Religion began from a primitive state, and subsequently developed to higher and higher states. The world today can be divided into four major cultural spheres, and each sphere was formed by one major religion. This means that God has four great repair shops on earth. These four religions are: Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism and Islam. The founders are respectively, Jesus, Confucius., Buddha and Mohammed. Some of you would include Socrates. He is a wise man. He is a man of knowledge. But you cannot reform man's life with knowledge alone. Only God gives life. The founders of the four main religions centered their ideology on God, or a God-like Supreme Being. In the latter part of the Twentieth Century, many ideologies which deny the existence of God are spreading throughout the world. This is a strange phenomenon. But it has happened because the adherents haven't found an ideology that can convince them, that can give then experience of God. If they are taught something superior they would follow that. The mission of religious people is to find that ideology which can surpass atheism or agnosticism. and enable them to experience God and teach it to the people. Not many founders and religious workers are holding fast to their own religion, often to keep their position and prestige. Then, when God looks around, He finds that He is unable to work through these inadequately prepared religious people.
The function of the world religions is to transcend the national boundary, race and creed. They must focus on the world. Many times political leaders throughout history have persecuted and condemned religion, and religious leaders. But still through thousands of years, religion has persisted. It has served to enlighten mankind. But, why should there be four? (And sometimes four battling each other.) There is one God. There should be one religion. Eventually, there will be one world religion, one that transcends all four major religions that exist today and meets the requirements of man today. When I established this new teaching, most religious leaders objected to and persecuted the movement. But before objecting to and persecuting it, they should have studied its contents. We must find and select the one which is highest and closest to God. Then, which among the religious teachings is this one?
Because of the fall, man, the highest creation, fell far below his original position. The original concept of man was as the son of God. But he fell to a position even lower than that of servant of God. The different religions take different paths. There is a religion which brings man to the position of servant. There is a religion which brings man to the position of adopted son. There is a religion which brings man to the position of True son. Then, finally, there will be a religion which brings man to true parenthood. Confucius taught of the concrete conscience of heaven in the moral life. Buddha taught of the spiritual world and its laws; but he did not realize that God is a God of personality. The Muslims have the Old Testament as their source, but in teaching their faith they hold the book in one hand and a sword in the other. That is not God's method. He does not want people to use violence to save man. Man needs a religion and a savior because of the fall. If there had been no fall, we would be perfected in God's love, be one with God, produce God's children, live in heaven on earth, and then pass into the Kingdom of Heaven in spirit world. The consequences of the fall are hell. Hell necessitates a savior and a religion.
I understand that San Francisco is a mysterious and wonderful city. It is particularly near the Orient and so new things begin here. We hear such terms as a New Age, New Frontier, and the End of the World. How can you distinguish what is really meant by those words? The term New Age reflects what is happening. The providence of God is progressing. There are several stages in that process and every stage begins as a New Age. For instance, a New Age began when man progressed from servant to adopted son; another began when he moved from adopted son to true sonship, and the present New Age as he passes from sonship to parenthood and lord of creation.
What then are the criteria for identifying the central religion of the New Age? That religion must have the original concept of creation. In other words, it must show us clearly what the destiny of man is and how to reach that destiny. The conditions necessary for man to fulfill his destiny, to become the highest object are: to have a Father-son relationship with God, to become one with God as His temple, to share the joy of creation in bearing children and having lordship over creation. Jesus is the only one who claimed "I am the only begotten son of God!" He is the one man in history who declared himself the son of God. He is the one who could see through God's creation and find the original concept.
We know that because of the fall, the first man, Adam, never fully tasted the love of God. However, Jesus came as the perfected Adam, to receive God's love. And so it is written, "The first man, Adam, was made a living soul; the last man Adam was made a quickening spirit." (I Corinthians 15:45). Jesus is described as the second Adam. Therefore, as a man, he became the first True Son of God. Furthermore, he became one with God. In John 14:20 he says, "I am in my Father and you in me and I in you." This is a state of oneness. He also said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." In other words, God is the inner God, and I am the external God. Jesus was saying, I am the visible form or manifestation of God. Thirdly, Jesus sought a bride with whom he could reign over God's creation. He came to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. To establish the kingdom, he had first to form a nation. To establish a nation, he needed a tribe. To establish a tribe it was necessary to have a family. Without a family it was not possible to establish God's nation. Therefore, Jesus longed to start a God-centered family. He came as a man, and man was not created to live alone. His desire was to realize his family by taking a bride.
I am sure that this is a revolutionary idea to conventional Christians. I have been a Christian for many years. However, this did not give me complete answers, so I set out in search of them. I am not originating what I teach. My statement is a responsible one and has an authentic source. My truth is from the ultimate source. Therefore, I am now here to make a declaration to the world. Jesus was a man, a true man. But there was no true woman. What would have happened if there had been? If Jesus had been accepted by the Nation of Israel and had taken a bride, he would have become the high priest of that nation -- he would have become its king. God wanted to provide a queen for him as well. If that had happened, Jesus and his forces would have conquered the Roman Empire. Instead, the Roman Empire crucified him. In the fourth century the Christian Empire conquered Rome. Now much sooner it could have happened, and how much greater it would have been, if they had Jesus as, the, living Christ here on earth. In that case. Israel would never have been dissolved. That nation would have been God's nation. If that had been the reality, there would have been no religious wars. There would have been no denominational differences. Have you ever thought that there would have been physical descendants of Jesus? They would be centered around him. Don't you think that God wanted that to happen? With Jesus as His son, He would have had His own descendants, from generation to generation!
I understand that America has been known as the melting pot of the world. What is the true tradition of America? It is not democracy. It is not freedom. Democracy and freedom are losing power. Democracy will not bring world peace. Freedom will not bring world happiness. Then what is the real tradition and backbone of America? Christianity has been the backbone, and the tradition. There must be an awakening, particularly among Christian leaders and Christian ministers. This is not the time to stress denominations. It is time for unity. He must have the Christian faith and spirit as the true tradition of America. However, that tradition is not intact. The Christian church seems to be divided more and more. Then how do we restore the lost, wandering youth? Our future depends on a new awakening. A greater faith must emerge.
God has only one world. He does not have a north world, a south world, an east and a west. To proclaim His new revelation and to restore His Kingdom, He uses human instruments. I, Sun Myung Moon, am here for this purpose, not because of my desire, but by His urging. I have never done public speaking, even in Korea. Korea is important, but to the world, America is more important.
The most obvious and logical conclusion is that Jesus came as the Messiah to restore the original concept of God's creation; namely, Sonship, oneness with God, True Parenthood and the creation of God's true children. Unless God can find one completely God-centered family as a model, there cannot be a tribe of God, a nation of God, a world of God. The Messiah came as that model man. He was to organize that model family and expand it to the world. However, this Messiah of 2000 years ago was crucified, and because of this there are many things conventional Christianity does not know.
Jesus came as the perfected man, as the first Son of God. However, the age and circumstances did not allow him to form that central family so his mission faltered and he left the promise to return. The Book of Revelations predicts the Marriage of the Lamb. This marriage is a symbolic expression of the establishment of the True Parents of mankind which Adam and Eve should have been. Jesus came to restore what they lost. When the Son of Man (the new Messiah) returns, this Marriage of the Lamb will take place -- the True Parents will be a reality. The new Messiah is coming, as the Father of mankind. He will marry and they will become the True Parents of mankind. From these True Parents a new culture, a new way of life. a new world will be established. This is the culmination of all religions. This is the ultimate destiny of human history.
An unusual event took place after World War II. All the victorious countries gave the defeated countries independence. That is a phenomenon of the New Age. It is a harbinger of the coming of the Messiah. Because the new Messiah is coming as a parent, you will be a child of the True Parents, whether you are on the winning side or that of the defeated. This equality is another harbinger of the last days.. The day of the new Messiah is the day of the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Because it was lost on earth, it must be found on earth. Matthew 11-.8 says, "Whatever you bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The True Parents are coming to restore the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. That kingdom will continue for eternity. This is the great day of the coming of the Lord. And salvation will be a total one. Centering on the new Messiah, the tribe, race, nation, and world salvation will come. And the new Messiah will lead the way through that gate to heaven.