Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 17
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 1: The Principles of True Peace
Speech 4: The New Future of Humankind, Pg 67-70
The New Future of Humankind
April 14, 1975, Jangchoong Gymnasium, Seoul, Korea
Nine-city Day of Hope Tour in Korea
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 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.
FFWPU, USA