Sun Myung Moon
November 26, 1972
First International Conference of Unified Science
Closing Address
Distinguished Chairman, Notable Scientists, and Welcome Guests,
The emergence of Unified Science, with its tremendous potential for improving our world is a very important and historic event. I want to personally thank all of you for the time and effort you have put into this conference to make this great beginning possible. I am grateful to offer the concluding remarks for this historic conference.
I will speak on: the role of unified science in the moral orientation of the world.
To be happy is man's insuppressible desire and ideal.
During the past several thousand years of man's cultural history, there has been no man who did not have this ideal of happiness.
The ideal has never matched the reality, but man has constantly tried to achieve this ideal in his life. In this way, great progress has been made in every field of human culture, politics, economics, society, religion, science, and so forth.
As you well know, man has established a highly developed, affluent society which cannot even be compared to those of ancient or medieval times, and there is no doubt that science has been the decisive factor in this development. If science had not developed, economic prosperity such as we have today could not have occurred.
This fact shows that the majority of scientists have made the realization of a happy, ideal society their mission; that is, scientists developed science and technology with a keen sense of mission to actualize the dreams of mankind. Sometimes the results of scientific research have been misused by men of power for unrighteous purposes, but still the fundamental spirit of scientists has aimed towards the fulfillment of an ideal society for man.
In this way, the purpose of science is to realize man's dreams. But in the past, even when science made great strides, these couldn't always be immediately used to better all mankind because of national and racial barriers.
This indicates that some people insisted on national boundaries for science. But actually science should belong to all mankind and not be monopolized by any particular nation or bloc.
This reminds us, however, that many scientists with a strong sense of mission fought against the unrighteous forces which ignored its original purpose and hindered the realization of the true ideal society.
Among all the scientists there may also have been a few who forgot the spirit of serving mankind because they became too involved in their own immediate interests. But the basic attitude of most scientists was to contribute to the peace and prosperity of all mankind.
In science there are many fields, but there is not one single field which does not aim at the realization of human happiness. Physics, chemistry, medicine, biology, geology, astronomy, all have the same purpose. Of course, in the past several centuries science has been divided and specialized into many small fields by its analytic method, but recently a new and hopeful trend is appearing to consolidate and unify all the divided knowledge by the synthetic method. The emergence of Unified Science is the most conspicuous example of this tendency.
Despite its many divisions, up to the present time science has worked towards one goal, one direction; that is, each specialized field has worked for the realization of a happy world in its own particular way, and there is no doubt that it will continue towards the same goal in the future.
Yet when we look at the present world situation there are many deplorable conditions. Despite the development of science and the prosperity of the economy, there are still many tragic situations throughout the world.
Despite scientists' deep desire and diligent efforts, poverty, illiteracy, and disease still prevail in the underdeveloped countries; various troubles, crimes, and immoralities prevail in the advanced countries; and tensions, wars, and hostilities continue among nations.
Thus mankind continues to suffer from sorrow, distress, and pain even in the midst of our luxuriously developed cultures.
Many leaders are trying to eliminate this misery and to establish true peace and stability, but the world is filled with empty words of peace, and mankind is sinking deeper and deeper in to restlessness, anxiety, and fear.
How has this come about? The main reason is that the standard of value which regulates man's behavior has been undermined. As ethics and morality have lost their power, the standard of goodness has all but disappeared.
Now I am going to explain why. No one can deny that every creature, including man, is a unified being with two natures -- a material nature and a mind -- like nature. Man is the unified being of body and mind, animals are the unified beings of body and instinct; plants are the unified beings of matter and directive energy.
From the standpoint of ontology, the cosmos is a world of effect and it must therefore have an ultimate cause. Materialism says this ultimate cause is matter and idealism insists that it is spirit.
However, because the world of effect is made of unified beings with two natures, the cause must also be a monistic being with the potential of the two natures of matter and mind unified into one.
In other words, the ultimate cause must be an absolute unified being with two natures which can create the attributes of mind and matter respectively. Only from unified and monistic cause can a unified world of effect be brought about. That is, the unified effect must have a unified monistic being as its cause.
Therefore we must say that materialism, which takes matter as the fundamental cause of the universe, is incorrect.
The cause cannot be matter, for matter is an expression of only one of the attributes of the cause. This cause existed as non-matter prior to its expression in matter.
Man is also a unified being brought about by the unified cause. Consequently, man cannot be considered only material being nor only spiritual being. Therefore, the improvement of physical life or body alone cannot create happiness. Only by improving both the spiritual and physical life at the same time can true happiness be brought about.
Science has put its efforts into improving material life because its domain was limited to the material world. Therefore, in spite of the hard work and deep desire of scientists, mankind has not been able to escape distress and chaos.
Here we can conclude that scientists must participate in the reformation of spiritual life in order to secure the true happiness of mankind and to protect the precious work accomplished so far by scientists. The reformation of spiritual life means creating a world of goodness, that is, a society of new morality, by establishing a new standard of value. Then how can we create the spiritual reformation? For this we must set up a standard of goodness, and to determine goodness we must decide the center of love. This is because goodness is the practice of love. Then what can be the center of love?
It must be God, who is unique, eternal, and unchanging being existing since before the formation of the cosmos. Love is the flow of heart; that is, the outpouring of deepest heart.
Therefore, the essence of God is heart. This God is the unified being which is the fundamental cause of the cosmos dealt with in ontology. The formation of the cosmos by this fundamental cause is simply the creation of the cosmos by God.
Then how could God create the cosmos and man? God could do it because God had heart. And where there is heart, life appears; and where there is life, development and creation can take place. For creation there must always be purpose. This is because heart directs towards purpose. The purpose of creation could only be joy, which fulfills the desire of heart. This joy comes when the creation, especially man, comes to resemble God. God's goal of creation is to have man and the world of happiness, that is, the Kingdom of Heaven, reflecting the love and creativity of God, which relate to mind and matter respectively. We know this is true from the fact that man's ideal is actually to seek after such a man and world.
The ideal is the world which was originally given to man as his home. The fact that man seeks a joyful world as his ideal means a joyful world is the one God planned for man. Such a world reflects God's love and creativity and thus becomes joyful.
Through our amazing scientific progress we have begun to take after God's creative power, but not yet His love. In order to take after his love, we must practice love. and lead a life of goodness, because the practice of love is goodness itself. For the life of goodness, man should make God, who is the subject of love, the center of his standard of goodness. Since God is both the center and the essence of all things, his love is unchanging and everlasting, even though his creation, the phenomenal world, is transitory.
Therefore when we take God as our standard of goodness, absolute value can be established, and then the eternal world of peace and happiness will be realized.
Since the ideal world is the realization of God's purpose of creation and is the world which reflects God, man always seeks to have a harmonious and peaceful life filled with God's love, and also seeks to improve his environment by creating new things continually.
Here creation does not mean mere production, but rather all the creative actions such as originating new ideas, planning, improving and producing.
Since God is a unified being, man and social life should also be unified. This means man must love while he lives a creative life, and he must live a creative life while he loves. Such a man is the unified man and the world he lives in is the unified world. As repeatedly mentioned, man has come to reflect God's creativity through outstanding scientific progress, but t so far has not learned His love.
So this world is still filled with sorrow, pain, and distress.
Since harmony is the essential nature of love, harmony cannot exist where there is no love, likewise peace and happiness cannot exist where there is no harmony. Thus mankind's present suffering continues because of the lack of love.
Therefore, it is natural that both God and man have been longing for the ideal life and world which would resemble God. In other words, the ideal man which God and the original mind of man seek is a creative and good man practicing God-centered love. The ideal world is the world filled with creative actions to improve the environment and would be filled with love between individuals and between nations.
When this new type of person comes to live in this new unified world, all the sorrows, pains and hostilities which have plagued man throughout history will be eliminated forever.
The original man and world should have been good, resembling God's nature, but to date man and the world have not been realizing their original nature. Therefore to save present mankind from his distress and chaos, we have to restore the original state of man and the world and manifest it in our actual life. For this we have to find out the absolute standard of goodness and must practice the life of goodness. The standard of goodness is the center of love, which is God.
The fact that all mankind is struggling so hard to escape the reality of pain and chaos and is longing for peace and freedom shows that man's original mind is seeking the standard of goodness and the center of love. To find the center of love and to establish the eternal world of happiness on earth is the universal desire of all mankind.
Now I mentioned that the world both God and man desire is the unified world in which creativity and love are practiced. In this world the desire of both God and people will be fulfilled, but to practice love man must first find the center of love.
To practice love a norm must be set up, because a true life of love requires order. In a society where order has been destroyed a life of love cannot be practiced in harmony. That is to say a life of love needs order and for order a norm is required. Norm means laws and principles which regulate man's behavior, and these are morality and ethics. Therefore to have a good life centered on love, man must set up sound morals and ethics, and must practice them.
The morals and ethics which apply to the unified world must be clear and applicable to modern man. The reason why past morals and ethics have been undermined lies partly in modern man's tendency towards materialism, but it also comes from the fact that the standards of value no longer satisfy modern man's reasoning capacity. From this the establishment of new morals and ethics based on the new standard of value becomes inevitable.
Then how can this new standard of value be set up? It can only come from an elevated, unified system of thought which can unify all the past philosophies and religious doctrines.
All the philosophies and religions of the past had their own views of value (views of ethics), each with strong points which are still beneficial. But people have nearly left them behind because these views could not adjust to the coming new age. Therefore, to establish the new view of value, we must absorb all the strong points of past views of value and develop new values which can meet the needs of modern man.
Thus a new unified thought system must appear to unify all the past philosophies and religions, because the past views of value and ethics were based on the philosophies and religions of their respective ages.
When the new morals and ethics emerge from the unified thought system, the unified world of goodness will be created for the first time. The moral orientation of goodness will be created for the first time. The moral orientation of the world, then, the very theme of this conference, means spreading this new view of value world-wide in order to build the new unified world.
In conclusion, I'd like to say more about the role of Unified Science. First, I am very grateful to the organizers of Unified Science for their efforts to synthesize the subdivided knowledge of science.
The divisive specialization of science, just like the dismantling of a machine, ultimately paralyzes the unitary function of the whole, and keeps science from fulfilling its mission. But here, today, some pioneer scientists are systematically integrating and unifying the truths of past scientific discoveries into a new system of philosophical science. I think this is a noteworthy event, deserving high praise. It corresponds to the historical emergence of the new system of unified thought which unifies all past philosophies and religions, and establishes a new view of value for the modern age. As I previously pointed out, the main mission of science is to improve man's material life. I expect unified science will contribute with a new effectiveness to that end.
However, just as the original man is a unified being of spirit and body, true social life unites both the spiritual and material, and the ideal world unites love and creative action. Therefore, the true world of happiness cannot be realized by the improvement of material life alone. By this we can come to the conclusion that Unified Science must unite with Unified Thought in order to accomplish its mission.
When this unification is accomplished, the long-standing problem of uniting Science and Religion will be resolved and finally the unified world of prosperity, happiness, and goodness will be established. "The old systems and thoughts" will pass away, and the ideal unified world with new age systems and thoughts will be established on earth.