Sun Myung Moon
November 26, 1972
Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York, USA
First International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences
Photo date and location unknown
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 topic, "The Role of Unified Science in the Moral Orientation of the World."
No matter who they are, all people are always looking for happiness. To be happy is humanity's insuppressible desire and ideal. During the past several thousand years of humankind's cultural history, there has been no one who did not have this ideal of happiness.
Human life and a happy world
The ideal, of course, has never matched reality, yet human beings have constantly tried to achieve the ideal in their 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, humanity has established a highly developed, affluent society that 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, the economic prosperity we have today would not have been realized.
This fact suggests that the majority of scientists have made it their mission to aid progress toward a happy, ideal society -- that is, scientists developed science and technology with a keen sense of mission to actualize the dreams of all people. Sometimes men of power misused the results of scientific research for unrighteous purposes, and still the fundamental spirit of scientists has aimed toward the fulfillment of an ideal society for humanity.
The unity of the sciences and a tendency for unification
In this way, the purpose of science is to realize people's dreams. However, in the past, even when science made great strides, these advances could not always be immediately used to better the lives of all humankind because of national and racial barriers. This indicates that some people insisted on national boundaries for science. However, science belongs to all humanity and must not be monopolized by any particular nation or bloc.
This reminds us that many scientists with a strong sense of mission fought against the unrighteous forces that ignored the original purpose of science and hindered the realization of a true, ideal society.
Among all scientists there may also have been a few who forgot the spirit of serving humankind, becoming too involved in their own immediate interests. Nonetheless, the basic attitude of most scientists was to contribute to the peace and prosperity of all people.
In science there are many fields, yet there is none that 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 due to its analytic method has become divided and specialized into many small fields. 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.
Up to the present time science, despite its many divisions, has worked toward one goal, in 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 each field will continue toward the same goal in the future.
Yet when we look at the present world situation, there are many deplorable circumstances. Despite the development of science and economic prosperity, there is still so much tragedy throughout the world.
A good world, a happy world
Despite scientists' deep desire and diligent efforts, poverty, illiteracy and disease still overwhelm developing countries. Various troubles, crimes and immoralities prevail in the advanced countries. And tensions, wars and hostilities continue among nations. Thus, humankind 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. Yet the world is filled with empty words of peace, and humankind is sinking deeper and deeper into unrest, anxiety and fear.
How has this come to be? The main reason is that the standard of value that regulates people's behavior has been undermined. As ethics and morality have lost their power, the standard of goodness has almost disappeared.
The standard of behavior for human beings, which is based on God and Christianity in the West and on Confucian ethics in the East, has become lost. That is why humanity is in such a state of misery, despite great advances made by scientists working for the betterment of humanity.
What does this fact indicate? It shows that before the advances of science can be effectively enjoyed, it is first necessary to establish a world of goodness. A world of goodness means a world where the standard of behavior is clearly established. It is a world of morality and religion. However, it will not work unless this standard is newly established. There must be a new standard of behavior, which can ensure that the logical and practical scientific world will go in the right direction. This shows us that in today's world, science has another mission. It is not enough to improve the standard of life through the application of science in the material world. Scientists must also be concerned with the state of people's spirits.
Now I am going to explain why. No one can deny that every creature, including the human person, is a unified being with two natures, a material nature and an immaterial mind, as in the world of nature. The human being is a unified being of body and mind; animals are unified beings of body and instinct; and plants are 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 it is spirit.
The cause and result of unity
However, because the world of effect is made of unified beings with two natures, the cause must be a monistic being with the essence 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 that can create the attributes of mind and matter respectively. Only from a unified and monistic cause can a unified world of effect be brought into existence. That is, the unified effect must have a unified, monistic being as its cause.
Therefore, we must say that materialism, which takes matter to be 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.
Humans are also unified beings brought about by the unified cause. Consequently, people cannot be considered only material beings or only spiritual beings. 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 achieved. Science has put its efforts into improving material life, because its domain is limited to the material world. Therefore, in spite of the hard work and deep desire of scientists, humankind has not been able to escape distress and chaos.
Here we can conclude that scientists now must participate in the reformation of spiritual life in order to secure the true happiness of humanity and to protect the precious scientific work accomplished so far. 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.
Embodying love to resemble God
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 a 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 that 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 human beings? God could do it because God has heart. 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 toward purpose. The purpose of creation could only be joy, which fulfills the desire of heart. This joy comes when the creation, especially humanity, comes to resemble God. God's goal of creation is to have human beings 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 humankind's ideal is actually to realize such people and such a world.
The ideal is the world that was originally given to human beings as their home. The fact that people seek a joyful world as their ideal means a joyful world is the one God planned for them. 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 ought to 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.
The world desired by God and humanity
Since the ideal world is the realization of God's purpose of creation and is the world that reflects God, people always seek to have a harmonious and peaceful life filled with God's love and also seek to improve their environment by continually creating new things.
Here creation does not mean mere production; rather, it includes all creative actions, such as originating new ideas, planning and improving as well as producing.
Since God is a unified being, human beings and societal life must also be unified. This means people must love while they live a creative life and must live a creative life while they love. Such people are unified people, and the world they live in is the unified world. As repeatedly mentioned, people have come to reflect God's creativity through outstanding scientific progress yet so far have 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, humankind's present suffering continues because of the lack of love.
Therefore, it is natural that both God and humanity have been longing for the ideal life and world that would resemble God. In other words, the ideal human being sought by God and people's original mind is a creative and good person practicing God-centered love. The ideal world is the world filled with creative actions to improve the environment and is one 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 that have plagued humanity throughout history will be eliminated forever.
The direction for all humanity
Human beings and the world were originally supposed to have been good, resembling God's nature, but to date humanity and the world have not realized their original nature. Therefore, to save humankind from distress and chaos, we have to restore the original state of human beings and the world and manifest it in our actual life. For this we have to find the absolute standard of goodness and practice the life of goodness. The standard of goodness is the center of love, which is God.
The fact that all humankind is struggling so hard to escape the reality of pain and chaos and is longing for peace and freedom shows that people'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 humankind.
Now, I mentioned that the world both God and humanity 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 human beings 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, norms are required. Norms are laws and principles that regulate people's behavior, and these are embodied in morality and ethics. Therefore, to live a good life centered on love, humanity must set up sound morals and ethics and must practice them.
The morals and ethics that apply to the unified world must be clear and applicable to contemporary people. The reason past morals and ethics have been undermined lies partly in today's tendency toward materialism. It also comes from the fact that the standards of value no longer satisfy the present expectation for reasonable answers. From this, the establishment of a new expression of morals and ethics based on the absolute standard of value becomes inevitable.
Establishing a completely unified world of goodness
Then how can this absolute standard of value be set up? It can come only from an elevated, unified system of thought that can unify all past philosophies and religious doctrines.
Each of the philosophies and religions of the past had their own views of value and ethics, with strong points that are still beneficial. However, people have for the most part left them behind, because they could not harmonize these views with the coming age. Therefore, to establish the absolute standard of value, we have to absorb the strong points of past views of value and develop new expressions that can meet the needs of contemporary society.
Thus, because the past views of value and ethics were based on the philosophies and religions of their respective ages, a new system -- Unification Thought -- has to appear, by which we can unify the past philosophies and religions.
When the new expression of morality and ethics emerges, based on the Unification Thought system, we will be able to create a unified world of goodness never seen before. We can create a moral orientation of goodness never seen before. The moral orientation of the world, then, which is the very theme of this conference, calls us to share this new expression of value with the world 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 functioning of the whole and keeps science from fulfilling its mission.
Unified Science should unite with Unification Thought
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 noteworthy, worthy of high praise. It corresponds to the historic emergence of a new system of Unified Thought that unifies 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 humankind's material life. I expect Unified Science will contribute with a new effectiveness to that end.
However, just as an original person 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 has to unite with Unification 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 outdated systems and ways of thinking will pass away, and the ideal, unified world with new-age systems and ways of thinking will be established on earth.