Sun Myung Moon
April 14, 1975
Nine-city Day of Hope Tour in Korea
Jangchoong Gymnasium, Seoul, Korea
Photo US Capitol, Washington DC - date and unknown
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my deepest gratitude for your gathering here this evening. This evening I will speak on “The New Future of Humankind.” I hope you will reflect on this topic along with me.
We live in a chaotic world. We have passed through an age of theocentric culture, the Christian culture of the Middle Ages, which began to decline at a certain point, and today we live in the era of humanism. Our age is also the era of materialism, a fitting word for the current secular attitudes and worldviews. Having passed through such states of confusion, no one has been able to come up with clear answers to our problems; humanity today is at the beginning of a post-ideological era, in which everything is out of control.
Our value as object partners of the absolute God
The problems we currently face do not arise from a shortage of resources, whether human or material. They arise because a clear view of God has yet to appear. Until humankind establishes a view of life or a spiritual interpretation of history based on a definitive view of God, I believe that a new future for humanity cannot appear. In my opinion, when we understand God clearly, we can resolve the problems that originate from ambiguity in our view of God, which began in the medieval ages, as well as from the trends of materialism and humanism in the present age.
Therefore, the matter of whether or not God exists poses a profound problem. It is important that I make a permanent impression on you this evening.
Throughout the ages and to this day, people have longed eagerly for love, ideals, happiness and peace that are true, eternal and unchanging. Yet people, who are apt to change their attitudes and values, cannot achieve these ideals. The current world situation clearly illustrates this. If there is an absolute, eternal, unique and unchanging God, we need to know the origin of true love, true ideals, true peace and true happiness that derives from a new viewpoint about this God. We can usher in a new world of peace and happiness only when we have clarified our view of God, of life and of the material world from God’s perspective.
What is the problem here? It is that, even if God is absolute, it is impossible for Him to achieve love, ideals, happiness or peace by Himself. Love, ideals, peace and happiness are words that are not realized in isolation. They can be achieved only with an object partner. Therefore, even in the case of the absolute God, unless He has an object partner, He cannot achieve the absolute love, absolute ideals, absolute happiness or absolute peace that He desires so very much.
Based on this viewpoint, what being could appear before that absolute God as His object partner? We can think only of human beings. Until now, we did not know that human beings alone possess the value of the object partner who can achieve God’s ideals, the object partner who can realize God’s true love, and the object partner who can complete God’s happiness and peace.
God is the subject partner and human beings are the object partners. We need to understand that we are beings of infinite value, because we human beings are the object partners before the God who can be the King of true love, true ideals and true peace.
God desires for us to be better than He is
I would like to ask you: When you were young and you were about to choose your spouse, if you are a man and you were about to choose your wife, did you want someone who was inferior to you or someone who was better than you? When asked this question, anyone among you, regardless of who you are, will answer that you wanted someone who was better than you.
Furthermore, if there is a couple and their beloved child is about to be born, would any parent wish for their child to be inferior to them? There would not be such a parent anywhere. It is the desire of each person’s original human nature that one’s spouse or one’s child be better than he or she is. Since human beings feel this way, whom do they resemble? We cannot deny that human beings are in all respects resultant beings and not causal beings. If human beings wish for their spouse or their children to be better than they, whom would they take after in this desire? The obvious conclusion is that we have such a desire because we resemble God, who is the causal Being.
Today many people think of themselves as being worthless. There are many people who regard themselves as no better than animals, saying, “I have no special value at all.” The one thing I hope you will remember today is that God wishes for you to be better than He is. If you think about this once you return home, I am sure that you will consider this to be an important discovery. I believe that only when we recover our original value as dignified human beings can the path that leads to the world of true love, true ideals, true happiness and true peace open. On the contrary, most theologians until now have believed that the Creator and the creation cannot stand on equal footing.
We say that God is love. And we know Him to be an ideal God. However, what could He achieve by being ideal all by Himself? Can you be happy by yourself? Can you have peace and freedom all by yourself? In this regard, we are in the state we are in because we lost our original value. If we fully possessed our original value, without a doubt we would have become human beings who could be elevated by God. Because we still have this original nature latent in us, through which we can restore our original value, we desire to become the best possible object partner or subject partner.
Even among fallen human beings, is there anyone who wishes for the object partner of their love to exist for one year, or ten, and then disappear or change? Love and love’s object partner are meant to be eternal and unchanging. We desire unchanging and absolute love from an absolute and unique higher level. If human beings, who have lost their original value due to the Fall, ask for such love, could God, the eternal, unchanging, unique and absolute Being, want the object partner of His love to exist for only a little while and then disappear? Certainly not! Since God is eternal, our most obvious and logical conclusion is that He desires for us human beings, who are the object partners of His love, to be eternal as well.
Please understand clearly this pivotal conclusion, namely, that our life has to be eternal. Only then can the statement, “Humankind is the most precious existence in all of creation,” be fulfilled. Our life needs to be eternal, unchanging and absolute. Why do human beings need to be unique beings? You need to understand that because God is the subject partner, human beings, who are the object partner of His love, ideals and happiness, also need to be like Him.
Now you understand that only when there is a relationship between a subject partner and an object partner can the realization of God’s ideal, the world of love and happiness, the world of peace and true freedom, become possible. Now you understand with certainty the concept of subject partner and object partner.
The creation of heaven and earth and the cause of the Fall
Until now, we have not considered the significance of the ideal origin of the creation. What does the word “creation” mean? It implies investing everything. In order to actualize an idea, you need to invest your own energy, which corresponds to that idea. Existence begins from the act of investing.
When God considered how to design the relationship between the subject partner and the object partner, He had only two choices. One was to make the object partner live for the sake of the subject partner, Himself, and the other was to create His object partner, human beings, and to live for their sake. This was the point at which God had to establish the foundation and ideal origin of creation.
If God, who is the subject partner, one day said that all beings, who are His object partners, must obey Him absolutely and live only for the sake of their subject partner, what would happen? In the case of the relationship between a man and a woman, where the man is the subject partner and the woman the object partner, if the man said to the woman, “Live for the sake of your subject partner,” what would happen? Their way to unity would go off course.
However, if God, the King of wisdom, were to say, “Live for the sake of the object partner,” every couple would be able to unite as one. For this reason, we now need to understand that the ideal origin of the creation of the universe cannot be established by telling others to live for your sake; instead it is established by telling others to live for the sake of their object partners.
Then what is the Fall? Human beings are meant to exist for God, and God is meant to exist for human beings. God established this principle by which they exist for the sake of each other. However, the Fall occurred when human beings went against this principle and began to center on themselves. In other words, they tried to create a position for themselves in which everything would live for their sake, centered on themselves. That is the point where the Fall originated. In short, the application of the principle of the heavenly way began to fall apart.
The principle of existing for the sake of others
In spite of that, if human beings had taken after God, if God had been able to educate them and if they had lived for the sake of God, the realization of the ideal world would have been possible. Unfortunately, human beings did not do so and instead, centered on themselves, emphasized their identity as separate from God; then the Fall took place. The Bible clearly describes this.
Therefore, if we were to draw a formal conclusion now, it would be the principle that all ideal created beings exist for the sake of others. The model is true parents; parents who are born for their children, who live for their children and who would die for their children. Such parents are parents of true love and true ideals. They are the parents of true happiness and the subject of true peace for their children. What would true filial children be like? They would be born for their parents and not for themselves, live for their parents and not for themselves, and would give their lives for their parents.
Then what is the purpose behind a man coming into being? It is not for himself. He came into being for a woman. When a woman dresses in nice clothes and puts cosmetics on her face, for whom is she doing so? Is there any woman who does that for herself? She does so because of a man. The purpose of the birth of a woman is a man. They exist for one another, so the moment they think that they were born for themselves, problems arise.
Then what is an ideal husband like? Would an ideal husband say that his wife must always live for his sake? No. Where can you find a true husband and a true wife? In the case of the man, only when he knows that he was born for his wife, is living for his wife and is ready to die for his wife, can his wife say, “Oh! He is my ideal husband and the eternal and unchanging subject partner of my love.” Therefore, only a wife with such a husband can claim, “I am a happy wife.” And we truly can say that only such a family can be a family of peace.
On the other hand, we know only too well that, if a woman’s husband says that she has to live for his sake, she will be unhappy. Based on this viewpoint, we have to praise God as the King of wisdom, for instituting this principle of existing for the sake of others as the origin of the creation of the universe.
Here we have reached one conclusion. At this point we can establish the formula that only where one exists for the sake of others can true love, true ideals, true happiness and true peace begin. If God has established such a formula in the creation of the universe, through this formula alone can the love, the ideals, the happiness and the peace desired by God become possible. Otherwise, obviously we have to conclude that they cannot come about.
Patriots, great men and women, and saints live for the greatest cause
If you ask what a true patriot is, by applying this formula the answer would be that only someone who is born for the nation, lives for the nation, does everything for the nation and its people, and who would die for the nation can be a patriot. We know very well that Koreans consider someone like General Yi Sunsin a patriot. If you were to rank such people, those who live more for the sake of others would be of higher rank. Therefore, even a person in a miserable situation who kept his or her integrity and cared more for the sake of others would be a patriot on a higher level than others. Based on the formula, this conclusion is logical.
In the course of history until now many great men, great women and saints have come and gone. If you were to ask who is the greatest and most honorable among them, we could find the answer right away by applying this formula. That person would be someone who was born for humanity, and lived and died for humanity while pleading for them to be blessed instead of blaming them. That person would be truly the greatest saint in history.
I know that many among you are not Christians; you believe in other religions. Let us take a moment to find out who Jesus Christ was. He did not come to this earth for himself. He came for humankind and for God. Moreover, he did not live for his own sake; instead he lived for the sake of God and humanity. If there were one person who fulfilled one hundred percent the standard of living for the sake of others, in good times and in bad, in accordance with God’s heavenly laws, that person would be none other than Jesus Christ. For this reason, God had no choice but to protect Jesus and develop Christianity. Therefore, Christianity became a global religion, both in spirit and in reality.
The Bible stresses living for the sake of others
Jesus’ words are very clear, when we analyze them. We need to know that he was disclosing a great heavenly principle when he said he came “not to be served, but to serve.” (Matt. 20:28) In other words, he came to live for the sake of others, not to ask others to live for his sake. Since Jesus’ life was anchored in God’s ideal, the origin of all forms of existence, we need to realize that Jesus preached about this origin and followed a life course that was in complete accord with this origin.
Despite the great volume of the Bible’s sixty-six books in the Old and New Testaments, they can be summed up by the phrase, “Live for the sake of others.” We did not understand until now the paradoxical reasoning behind the idea that those who wish to go up will go down, and those who wish to go down will go up. This is certainly the truth in light of the principled origin of the creation.
I am aware that there are many people who do not know much about the spirit world. Thanks to God’s special grace, I have had opportunities to experience the spirit world thoroughly. What does the structure of that world look like? Who can go to the kingdom of heaven? Who is allowed to go near the throne of God? Those who have lived only for their own sake cannot go there. Since God Himself, who is both the ideal Origin and central Being of creation, lives for the universe, and since He lives as the central Being of the principle of living for the sake of others, the structure of the kingdom of heaven is simple. Our obvious conclusion is that it is a place that can be entered only by those who live for the sake of others.
The place where God, the Lord of the universe, dwells is our original homeland, the original world. How can you learn to be in accord with the law of the original homeland? It is through religion. What, then, would be the mission of religion? God’s Will for religious believers is not to live only for the sake of their own religious denomination, as do sectarians. Even if it means transcending itself, a religious denomination needs to be able to live for the sake of God and for the sake of humanity. Instead of living for one’s own church and fighting for one’s own church, a religious denomination ought to fight against Satan and direct its course for the sake of humanity.
What makes a true religion?
For this reason, today’s religion is a training ground where you practice to live according to the law of the original homeland, in order to equip yourself to return there. For this reason, since the onset of history, the many religions that followed God’s Will practiced self-denial. Until now, we did not understand why we were told to sacrifice ourselves and serve others. This is because the original world is the original homeland where one exists for the sake of others. Therefore, in order to go to that world, you need to train and prepare. In this regard, the higher the level of a religion, the more it emphasizes the need for sacrifice and service. This attests to the fact that God has continued to carry out His providence throughout the course of history.
Then what makes a true religion? The answer is simple. A true religion is one that follows God’s Will. What is God’s Will? It is to save the universe and to save the world. Christians need to know this. God’s Will is to save the world. This world needs to be saved, even if it means sacrificing Christianity. This is the Will of God. The original mission of Christianity is to fulfill God’s Will. In order to achieve His Will, Christianity needs to fulfill the responsibility of bringing salvation to humanity. Otherwise, it will be judged and will not be allowed to go the way it is destined to go. I have looked into this and found it to be true.
Where can we find the true religion? It is a religion that can sacrifice its own nation, its own denomination or its own church for humanity. Such a religion will not perish. What do we need to determine? You need to know that we can differentiate what is true and what is false based on the principle of who lives more for the sake of the nation and humanity.
The reason for the principle of living for the sake of others
Why did God have no choice other than to establish the principle of living for the sake of others? I shall elaborate on this question. Let’s say you owed a favor to someone who was truly devoted to you. In that case, would you wish to pay back only fifty percent, or would you wish to pay back more than one hundred percent of what you owed? What would your original nature want to do in this case? Without a doubt, your original mind would desire to pay back more than one hundred percent. Because we have an original mind and can follow it, it is possible for us to be saved.
You need to know the reason why God, the King of wisdom, had no choice but to establish this principle of living for the sake of others. When you live for the sake of others, you live eternally and you also prosper. And thereupon you can develop and grow. When you owe a favor, you pay it back, and it is utterly impossible to pay back just exactly what you owe. Your original mind desires to pay back more and spurs you on to truly devote your life to do so. You need to know that it is because you have such a heart that you can go to the kingdom of heaven.
What is the second reason that God had no choice but to establish the principle of living for the sake of others? For example, let us say that there were eight family members in your family. If among those eight, the youngest child lived more for the sake of the family than anyone else, be it father or mother, or brothers or sisters, to what position would this youngest member advance? As time passed, everyone would think more and more highly of this child, and this son or daughter ultimately would emerge as the central figure.
The logic taught by today’s religions may seem paradoxical, yet if you were to follow this principle, you would see that as you lived more and more for the sake of others, you would become the central figure on a higher and higher level. How can you become the central figure? Since God exists for the sake of the entire universe, a person who lives for the sake of others comes to resemble God. Therefore, it is valid to say that He will install the one who resembles Him as the central figure in His stead. When you become an object partner who truly lives for the sake of a subject partner, who in turn truly lives for the sake of the object partner, you naturally become a central figure.
A significant problem in today’s politics and philosophy is the relationship between rulers and ruled. Until now, the solution to this issue posed a dilemma. However, we can solve it easily. Human beings in the contemporary world think it is a disgrace to stand in the position of living more for the sake of others and of being ruled and dominated by a central figure. They say, “I would rather die than be under someone else’s dominion!”
They don’t know what they are saying. We miss knowing how happy it is to be under the complete authority and rule of a person who truly lives for our sake.
Since God exists as the central figure of the universe, when you go to the spirit world, the longer you are under His dominion, be it for thousands or more years, the more you will come to know happiness. It becomes greater and greater. Until now we have been unaware of this, and also that if there is a person who truly can rule over us for our sake, we can bring about true peace. We need to understand that whoever lives for the sake of others becomes the central figure, and that by becoming the central figure they can build a completely united environment.
What is the third reason that God established the principle of living for the sake of others? Until now, when you thought of “love,” it was easy to think of it as “my love.” When you spoke of “love,” you thought of it as your own love. Where does love come from? Love does not come from me. Ideals also do not come from me. You need to know that love and ideals, which are more precious than life and more valuable than anything else, cannot come from me. They come from the object partner. This is true even for God.
We did not know that the object partner is so precious. Where do love and ideals that are more precious than life come from? They come from my object partner, not from me. We need to know that this is another reason that God established the principle of living for the sake of others. We must bow our heads in humility.
Heaven’s strategy to unite the church
This Mr. Moon, who carries the name of the Lord of the Second Coming, has suffered most severely as a leader. Then what kind of church is this Unification Church? It is simple. The name “Unification Church” suggests that you are trying to unite the church. Can you unite the church? Since their division, the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church passed through a history of nine hundred and fifty years, and until now they have been unable to reunite. The Protestants divided into more than four hundred denominations. These churches have fought against one another for hundreds of years. Think of the idea of uniting them! You may even think that Mr. Moon of the Unification Church has gone a little crazy. Nonetheless, my conclusion is that it is simple. By what means can it be possible? It can be possible through the principle of living for the sake of others.
Based on this reasoning, even though I was subjected to all kinds of attacks and slander by the other existing churches during the last thirty years, I stayed quiet. It was not because I was dumb. I walked my way silently, without saying a word, because I knew that the heavenly law follows a brutal and harsh principle. I needed to go my way as God and Jesus would.
I became aware that Heaven’s strategy is to be struck first and then to make a demand. For instance, if Satan murdered a virtuous, high-level Christian, God could ask for compensation that amounted to hundreds of times greater value. Even if all existing churches came together to oppose the Unification Church, if the Unification Church were blameless, they would have to compensate God for what they had done. This is logical.
We need to understand that God is yearning for the appearance of the one person, the one organization, the one people and the one nation that can go beyond the individual and the family and the tribe, people, nation, world and, furthermore, the universe, and live absolutely for the sake of God. Faced with the Will of God, who is searching everywhere, the Unification Church of today is endeavoring and struggling to advance to such a position. I hope you will remember us as such an organization.
We can conclude that through this step-by-step principle and formula the realization of our ideals can be possible. The husband needs to live for his wife, the wife for her husband, and the parents need to live for their children. Furthermore, the family then lives for the tribe and the relatives. Moreover, the tribe lives for the people. And the nation, instead of prioritizing itself and trying to bring other nations in the world to submission, needs to say that it will live for the sake of the world, even if it means sacrificing itself. You have to know that God is looking for such a nation.
The principle that makes the realization of the ideal possible
There is no special law set aside to protect a dictator or a dictatorial empire. You need to know that when a nation prioritizes itself, and tries to tread over innumerable peoples and nations and says that others must live for its own sake, that nation is a dictatorial state and the enemy of God.
As you know, today’s communism reached a decisive turning point in 1957, when the relationship between the Soviet Union and communist
China began to break down. The communism in both countries began to fall apart because the Soviet Union asserted what it called world communism but it was solely for the sake of the Slavic people. Because the Soviet leader’s dream of a communism based on the Soviet Union as the eternal superpower state, this communism will break down. However, if the communism of the Soviet Union had been an ideology of sacrificing itself for the sake of world communism, communist China and the Soviet Union would not have split up. The Soviet Union found it impossible to establish a belief system with a standard transcending nationalism. Therefore, it has begun to break down.
From a viewpoint based on God’s Will, how can today’s United States go forward as a leading democratic nation? If the United States is indeed the superpower of democracy, it needs to sacrifice itself in order to lead democracy to live for the sake of the world. However, instead it remains in a position of living solely for its own sake, even when this means abandoning the world. And we know this to be the reason that the United States is suffering in today’s miserable situation.
From this viewpoint, where is the worldview and the ideal that can guide the world in the future? If there were a nation and a people that could transcend itself, that would save the world even if it had to sacrifice itself in the process and endure a miserable situation, a time surely would come when the world would need that nation, sometime before the twenty-fifth century or the thirtieth century. When that time came, it would be the nation that would guide the world.
Today’s Korea also cannot put Korea first. I believe that the direct path that the Korean people of today, living in misery, must find and follow is that which will establish a Korea living for the sake of Asia, for the sake of the world and, furthermore, for the sake of God.
In this regard, the Unification Church is fighting with communism head on, ready to sacrifice itself if necessary. We are working hard to prevent the downfall of the democratic world, and we are prepared to make extreme sacrifices if needed. When an organization stands on this solemn principle, by sacrificing itself if and as necessary, God will surely be with it.
Who would have thought that Jesus, who died young, in his thirties, accused of being a traitor to his people on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, possessed the building blocks to create a nation through which the democratic world could be constructed which, in turn, could lead the entire world? My life followed the same logic. For this reason the Unification Church is continuing to pioneer its path in silence.
I taught the members of the international task force who have come here from twenty-five nations around the world, “You have to love the world more than your own nations!” God has laid out this path, and a true religion has to follow it. So they have come all the way to the land of Korea today in order to create a movement of loving the Koreans more than their own people. I hope you will remember this.
Let us head toward the ideal world
God yearns for a nation that can take responsibility for the world. You need to know that He is longing for a church that can sacrifice itself for the sake of the world. If you were to ask Him, “Heavenly Parent, do you wish to be the God of Christianity or the God of the Unification Church?” He would say that He wants to be neither the God of Christianity nor the God of the Unification Church. He wishes to be the God of the world.
A group that walks a path for the sake of others on a higher level is exemplary; therefore it can last eternally and prosper, become the center of its environment, and thus come to have authority automatically. You need to know that, from that place, one can possess the eternal love and eternal ideal that come from Heaven. That is the formula for the husband to live for his wife, for the wife to live for her husband, for the parents to live for their children, and for the family to live for the tribe.
In this way we find the one formula that can encompass the view of life for the individual, the nation, the universe, and even the view of life for God. It is the ideal for the family to live for the tribe, for the tribe to live for the people, for the people to live for the nation, for the nation to live for the world, for the world to live for God, and for God to live for us. Only when you are able to say, “The great God and the love of the great God exist for me,” can peace, happiness, ideals and true love be realized. To state this conclusion differently: What belongs to me would belong to my wife; what belongs to the parents would belong to the family; what belongs to the family would belong to the tribe; what belongs to the tribe would belong to the people; what belongs to the people would belong to the nation; what belongs to the nation would belong to the world; what belongs to the world would belong to God; and what belongs to God would belong to me.
The world where such a thing is possible, where every entity lives for the sake of others, whether as an individual, as a family, as a society, as a nation or as the world, and where everyone lives for the sake of others, no matter where they go, is the most wonderful ideal that we all yearn for. This ideal world has the true love, true peace, true happiness and true freedom that we long for.
When such a world becomes real, having achieved unity based on God, it has to be the kingdom of heaven on earth. You need to understand that fallen humanity is advancing toward such a world, a world that will realize the new future of humankind, the world of new hope. I will conclude my speech by saying that I hope you will remember this for a long time to come.
Thank you very much.