Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 1

Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 1: God
Chapter 1: God's Existence and Attributes 
Section 1: The Existence of God, 1-14

(1) Through my life of constant prayer and meditation from an early age, I finally encountered God and received His absolute truth.  This truth contained astounding content, which revealed the workings of the universe, of life and of history, as never seen before. If we apply this truth to society, we can resolve all social problems.  If we apply it to the world, we can resolve all global problems. Furthermore, we can resolve deep religious problems and stalemates in philosophy. This is an unprecedented new worldview, new cosmology, new view of life, new view of God's providence and new view of history.  Divine Principle is an integrated Thought system that embraces all religious doctrines and philosophical tenets as one whole, while preserving the unique characteristics of each.

(2) The phrase "God exists" is not an empty one.  It is not that we deduce the necessity of God's existence by understanding the subject-object partner relationship through the Principle.  It is that God existed before we came into existence, that He existed before we could think, and that He leads our senses and our whole beings.  This awareness is more important than anything else. The basic point is that awareness precedes knowledge, not the other way around. If we are cold, we feel cold before we know we are cold.  Likewise, since God exists, we should be able to feel His existence in our very cells. Achieving that awareness is what matters. The issue is how we achieve that awareness, the ability to experience these things.

(3) The most serious issue in human life is to know whether or not God exists.  If God really exists, the greatest of sinners is the one who denies His existence.  For example, if a son denies his parents' existence when they are truly alive and well, would we call him a filial son or an unfilial son? We would call him an unfilial son.  Then, what will happen to the person who denies God's existence, even though God exists? That person will come to ruin. Hence, there is no greater sin than the denial of God's existence.  There are even those who say God is dead. There is no sin greater than the utterance of such words.

(4) We should not perceive the existence of God only vaguely and conceptually.  It is impossible to understand the existence of God through logic alone. This is because of God’s existence, while within the realm of logic, also reaches beyond logic.  Can a religious belief in which we know God only through logic guide our lives? Can such a belief perfect us as substantial beings of eternal life? There are many problems with that idea.  With only that foundation, how can we expect to stand before God, our true Lord? Our coming to God has been the hope of humankind and also God's providential objective throughout history.

Human beings are resultant beings 

(5) There is no one who was born because he or she wanted to be born.  No man or woman was born out of his or her own desire. We were born because of our parents, not because we desired to be born.  The same is true for our parents, their parents, and all our ancestors. It is the same all the way back to Adam and Eve. Even the first human ancestors did not come to exist out of their own desire.  Their existence sprang from the desire of someone before them. When we speak of human beings, we refer to men and women. Man needs woman and woman needs man. However, no man chose to be born as a man, nor did any woman choose to be born as a woman.  We discover that we are a man or a woman after we are born, and after we grow up we recognize that we need each other and desire to become husband and wife. Knowing this, it is plain to see that human beings are not the fundamental cause, and that if there were no God, neither would there be human beings.

 (6) The vast human race came into existence through the process of men and women meeting each other and living together.  Humanity is composed of numerous nations, the nations are composed of numerous tribes, the tribes are composed of numerous families and the families are composed of numerous individuals.  Each of us is one of those individuals and a member of a family. The family and blood relationships that bind us were not forged according to our own wishes. God gives us our birth, our family and our relatives.  Without God, relationships between teachers and students, or between parents and children, would not be possible. God is the cause and all of these relationships in the world are the result.

(7) In order for anything on earth to exist, there has to be a cause.  The world in which we live is a resultant world; the society and country in which we live and the environment we see around us are in a resultant position.  There must be a motivation behind the existence of an environment of relationships. We cannot deny that. We can see that human beings are certainly behind the development of societies, nations, and the world.  However, human beings cannot be the fundamental cause of human beings. We are undeniably in the position of resultant beings, behind whose creation there must be a motivation, a purpose and a reason.

(8) We have to unite mind and body with God at the center.  When mind and body unite with God completely, they form a trinity.  The reason we need to become one in mind and body centered on God is because God is our cause.  God and human beings relate as cause and effect. The mind and body have a reciprocal relationship; this is a basic principle of the universe.  Unity between cause and effect, and between subject and object partners, is a fundamental and universal principle. Unless there is oneness between God and humankind as cause and effect, between this subject partner and object partner, there cannot be an ideal environment, nor can we become ideal beings.

(9) Human beings are by no means causal beings.  We are resultant beings, brought about for some reason.  There is no way for a result to come about without any relationship with its cause.  No matter how tortuous its course, the result needs to relate to and fit with the cause.  Human beings are the way they are because they resemble some causal being. If we say that this causal being is God, we can draw the conclusion that human beings resemble God.

(10) God is the causal being of the universe.  He is the causal being behind all action, the causal being who exerts force, the causal being who gives direction, and the causal being who endows purpose.  We call Him a God of personality because He always acts with a clear motive, a sense of direction, and a purpose. Therefore, everything in the world advances in the direction of the purpose that is based on the cause.  This is what we mean when we say that God is the being that causes everything. The mysteries of the human body testify to God's existence

(11) To a greater extent than we can ever fathom, human beings are the masterpiece of creation.  If human beings have a subject partner, an absolute God who created them, would that God have rendered them incapable of knowing what He says, sees or feels? Let us compare God to an artist.  To create a masterpiece, an artist conceives it in his or her imagination and designs it with his or her intelligence. The artist aims to create a unique work of art, the best in the world. If the masterpiece turns out perfectly, as envisioned, the artist feels infinite joy.  If the work is even better than planned, no artist in the world would say, "This isn't what I intended, " and then destroy it. If a piece of art is better than originally intended, he or she will cherish it as the treasure of a lifetime, and will want to display it with pride to others.  Such is the heart of an artist. If human beings have a tendency to always desire something higher and better, God must have the same tendency. If He had that mindset when He created human beings, how wonderful they must be! We can conclude that God wanted to create us as His greatest masterpiece.

(12) Consider the structure of the human body, which is truly a palace of wonders.  It is amazing that while each of the numerous cells is a separate entity, each cell cooperates with the other cells, without conflict, to form each of us as freely functioning individuals.  We can conclude that this vast world moves and acts to perfect each of us individually. We can conclude further that everything is in motion for the purpose of fulfilling God's Will.

(13) The most important part of a person is the face.  The most important part of the face is the eyes. If we think about it, we can say that our eyes came from our parents.  Then from where did our parents' eyes come? Tracing back through our ancestry, we come to our first forebears, Adam and Eve.  When the very first eyes came to be, do you think they knew of the sun's existence? No matter how much we analyze it, we can only conclude they did not.  The eyelids could not have known that on Earth, moisture evaporates in the sun's radiant heat. The eyelashes did not know of airborne dust, even Though one purpose for which they were created was to protect the eyes from it.  We can understand that the eyes by themselves are a palace of infinite mystery, in that even before they were formed, the being who brought them into existence designed them with the sun, the airborne dust, and evaporation in mind.  “God" is the name by which we know this subject partner who gave us birth.

(14) Consider your ears. They face the front. What if they were positioned to face the other way, or what if they were missing? We would not be able to pick up sounds from in front of us.  We would also not be able to hear voices from a distance. The ears were formed to catch the sound of voices coming from in front of us. Why? It is because people face each other when they talk.  No one talks to the back of your head. The ears face forward because when we meet people, we talk face to face. The fact that they face front means that someone knew in advance that the ears were to hear the sounds that come from in front of us.