The Teachings and Practice of the Unification Church Part 1

By: Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon; ©1999

Sun Myung Moon’s worldview involves a combination of complex symbolic historical correspondences, Eastern philosophy, Taoism, occultism and an esoteric-allegoric interpretation of the Bible.

Teachings and Practice of the Unification Church – Part 1

Sun Myung Moon’s worldview involves a combination of complex symbolic historical
correspondences, Eastern philosophy, Taoism, occultism and an esoteric-allegoric
interpretation of the Bible. Before we go into details, a brief background to Moon’s
worldview is necessary. Moon believes God poured Himself “out” into the creation, so that
the creation itself mirrors certain characteristics of God. God and the creation are really
one, although the creation does not exhaust God. After the animal kingdom had evolved,
God specially created Adam and Eve. However, they were created as brother and sister, not
as husband and wife, and they were not perfect, but still in a stage of spiritual growth. Not
until they were perfect could they marry, become husband and wife and have children. As
God’s highest creation, they would then be able to establish the kingdom of God on earth
through their sinless offspring. God would “complete” Himself through their sexual union
(Moon teaches God cannot ultimately express His love without sexual union).

However, Satan became jealous of God’s love for them and physically seduced Eve. This was
the spiritual Fall of man, and it resulted in Cain. Eve then had intercourse with Adam, which
resulted in Abel. This was the physical Fall of man. At this point God lost everything—His
happiness, His dignity and more.

God’s plan had failed. Although He tried desperately to establish “the Providence of
Restoration” (restoring man to his original condition), His plans continually failed,
thwarted by both man and Satan. Until 2,000 years ago there was no totally obedient man
whom God could use to restore people to himself, both physically and spiritually. (Because
the Fall was physical and spiritual, “salvation” must encompass both of these.) Not until
Jesus Christ was there a man obedient to God, and it was God’s hope that Jesus would be
able to restore man to Him, and that all religions and cultures would unify under Him. But
God’s plans were thwarted again. Jesus was crucified—something God never intended.

In Unification theology God is not omniscient. Because God did not know if people would
accept Jesus, He put prophecies in the Bible of acceptance and rejection to cover all bases,
so to speak. As a result, UC members view Old Testament prophecies about Jesus’
crucifixion in light of this “foreseen” failure on the part of people to accept God’s will.

God’s intent for Jesus was to have Jesus marry the perfect mate and establish “God’s family” on earth, eventually achieving the full redemption of mankind. Since the crucifixion killed
Him, His mission failed, although in Unification theology God still decided to count it partly
toward the spiritual (though not physical) salvation of man. However, all was not lost.
God’s purpose was that the Lord of the Second Advent would come and restore people
completely. This would happen when the Lord of the Second Advent attained perfection,
married the proper wife and had sinless offspring. This would bring the full spiritual and
physical salvation of man. According to the inner teachings of the church, Moon is this Lord.
He has attained perfection, married the proper wife and produced sinless offspring. When
Moon married Hak-Ja Han in 1960, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb described in
Revelation 19 allegedly occurred. Thus, “the Lord of the Second Advent and His Bride
became the True Parents of Mankind.”^[1] Later, after the birth of children, January 1, 1968 was declared “God’s Day” by Moon, because “the sinless family was established on earth.”^[2]
Moon was on the way toward achieving the full redemption of humanity.

What follows becomes complex in places, however, the information is vital to
understanding Unification Church theology. According to Divine Principle (DP) and other
sources, “God is energy itself.”^[3] God contains or is the source of energy called Universal
Prime Energy (UPE). It is the basic energy of God’s being and allows all things to maintain
their existence. It was poured out into the creation. “In the process of creation, God poured
out all His Being into the Universe He made.”^[4] Although in itself the creation does not
exhaust God (in this sense, God and the universe are “two” entities), in divine essence they
are one. The universe is thus related to God’s being in that the entire creation is a part of
God’s energy.

The physical universe itself, then, is divine. Unification theology denies creation in the
biblical sense (ex-nihilo), and instead views the creation as a “projection” or emanation of
God. As a result, the universe is seen as God’s body, and as much God as God is God. This is
panentheism. Dr. Young Oon Kim, professor of systematic theology at the Unification
Theological Seminary in Barrytown, NY, states that God “makes His presence known in the
totality of creation which serves as His body….”^[5] In the Divine Principle we read that “the
universe is the substantial manifestation of the invisible God.”^[6]

Man, too, as part of the creation, is one essence with God. Indeed, every entity in creation
has a nature that mirrors the nature of God. “His nature is displayed in each creation.”^[7]
According to the UC, God’s nature consists of pairs of dualities: male and female (perhaps
the central UC duality), positivity and negativity, subject and object, internal and external,
character and form, horizontal and vertical and so on. Every creation, from sub-atomic
particles to giant suns, contains these characteristics.

 

The Reciprocal Relationships

Every creation also “functions” through a reciprocal relationship, both internal and
external. For example, the internal duality of sub-atomic particles (positivity, negativity)
“reciprocate” to form an atom. Atoms assume either positive or negative characteristics,
and reciprocate with other atoms to form molecules. Molecules produce matter, which
eventually forms plants and animals who reciprocate with each other based on external
dual characteristics (for example, male, female), but also containing internal duality. In this
ontology, every man (and every creation) has a feminine aspect, and vice-versa, and so on
down the line. This condition of containing external and internal dualities and
reciprocation is true for every creation. “All things are created to exist through a reciprocal
relationship between their dual essentialities.”^[8] Thus, every creation has external form
(that which is visible) and internal character (that which is invisible), a reflection or
projection of it. They are really “two relative aspects of the same existence,” so that external
form can be accurately called a “second internal character.” Moon calls them dual
characteristics or dual essentialities.^[9]

Here the body is really a projection of the mind, a “second internal character”; thus Moon
calls the body “the ‘second mind’ or a duplication of the mind.”^[10] Mind and body together
are “the dual characteristics of man.”

The internal character (which is invisible) stands in what Moon calls the subjective position
and is the cause, or origin, of the visible external form, which stands in an objective
position. The reciprocal relationship that exists here comprises the pairs of dualities, such
as internal-external, cause-result and subject-object. It logically follows that since the body
is the “copy of the mind” it should be completely under the control of the mind.

According to UC theology, the same situation also exists in God, since man (and all creation)
is only his “copy.”^[11] Thus God is comprised of internal character and external form. Internal
character is the subjective position or “subject.” It is invisible and the cause of the external
form or His objective position or “object,” the manifested universe. Thus the universe is the
projection of God’s internal character.

Again, the pairs of dualities within the unmanifested God were manifest in the creation.

The relationship of one creation to another varies, depending upon what it is related to
(itself, a person, nature, God). Thus in relation to the universe, God is “the masculine
subject representing its internal character.”^[12]

“B” is in the objective position to God the Subject, but B itself (and each creation in B)
contains subject and object, positive and negative and so on in all their constituent parts,
which interact with other dualities in all their specific ways. Thus “every creation is [in the
position of being] a ‘substantial object’ of the invisible deity of God.”^[13] The universe, then, is
alive. The universe was created with God at the center, just as man being created in God’s
image (Genesis 1:27) has been created with his mind at the center.^[14]

In other words, Mind is the center of God’s Body, which is the universe. The universe is
God’s body with His Mind (internal character, invisible, subject) at the center. Mind (God)
projected the Body (Universe). Thus, “the universe as an organic body has its own internal
character and external form, with God as its internal character, while the physical universe
is its eternal form.”^[15]

 

A. The Invisible God	Internal Character, Subjective Position, Cause	(Male, positive)	God = A + B
B. The Visible Universe	External Form, Objective Position, Result	(Female, negative)

God as the internal masculine subject created the universe as His external feminine object.
God’s positivity is masculine; His negativity is feminine. We can begin to see here why God
cannot complete Himself without the sex act and why one of Jesus’ greatest failures was His
failure to marry and have sex. “Unless male and female beings come together and are
united, there is no way for God to express His love ultimately.”^[16] Male and female reflect
God and the Universe. In a sense, God is androgynous, currently engaged in “sexual”
(emotional) intercourse with the universe, or Himself.

God as subject gives love as an emotional force to His object; His object (creation) returns
beauty as an emotional force to the subject; bringing God perfect joy. When this
relationship was ruined in the Fall, God “went to pieces” emotionally. He was extremely
upset about this since His chances for perfect joy were thwarted and He lost everything He
had hoped for. After all, for eternity God had existed alone—lonely—just as if we humans
existed only as a mind in a glass bubble without a body. Projecting a universe gave God the
joy our minds get from our having a body.^[17] Only now, at the Fall, the Body became
“corrupted.” God is, in a real sense, a cripple. He must find someone to cure and perfect His
Body. He must, or He will be unhappy forever.

“Give and Take Action” is another term Moon uses. It is the process within each created
thing that generates the necessary energy for existence and reproduction.^[18] It is through the Universal Prime Force (UPF) that God’s “dual essentialities” form a reciprocal
relationship that develops into an external give and take action. And since the creation is
God’s Body, a created thing does what God does. That is, through the UPF it forms
reciprocal relationships that develop into give and take action between its “dual
essentialities.” For example, animals form reciprocal relationships that develop into give
and take action (sex) between their dual essentialities (male and female). There is also give
and take action between animals and plants—plants give oxygen, animals return carbon
dioxide. Flowers give nectar to bees who pollinate flowers. Solar systems exist through give
and take action between the sun and planets, earth and moon and so on. In man there is
internal give and take action between male and female (in sex). Give and Take Action (GTA)
is thus said to govern all relation-ships within man and among men.

GTA is also the “cause” of the universe. God’s internal unmanifested subject and object
entered a relationship through the UPF. The action between the subject and object caused
by UPF was the GTA. Through UPF God’s GTA resulted in creation. We may diagram this as
follows:

Inner GTA < > (horizontal)
results in
UPF
Interaction
(vertical)
Causes
Universe which
leads to mutually
sustaining action
(circular)

It is the circular action of this energy that maintains creation. God exudes Himself as energy
(love) which is returned to Him as energy (love).^[19]

Since everything functions “as God” does, Adam and Eve were created in a similar manner.
Through UPF, God’s dual characteristics entered GTA by forming a reciprocal relationship,
causing multiplication; that is, His dual characteristics separated into “two substantial
objects centered upon God”^[20] (Adam and Eve). These may enter into their own GTA by
forming a reciprocal relationship through UPF (through intercourse). ‘By forming one unit
they become an object to God.”^[21] Thus (part of) God is divided into two separate substances
that unite to form one body. This process is called Origin-Division Union Action (ODUA).

God’s dual characteristics (origin) multiply by means of GTA into two beings (division) who
unite (union) through GTA. This is ODU Action.

(to be continued)

 

 

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NOTES

1. ↑ Young Oon Kim, Divine Principle and Its Application (Berkeley, CA: The Holy Spirit Association for the
   Unification of World Christianity, 1960), p. 196; cf. Master Speaks, December 26, 1971, p. 4.
2. ↑ Ken Sudo, The 120 Day Training Manual (Barrytown, NY: International Unification Church Training Center,
   n.d.), p. 236.
3. ↑ Young Oon Kim, The Divine Principles (San Francisco: HSA-UWC, 1960), p. 4.
4. ↑ Sun Myung Moon, New Hope (Washington, D.C.: HSA-UWC, Inc., 1973), p. 78.
5. ↑ Young Oon Kim, Unification Theology & Christian Thought (New York: Golden Gate Publishing Co., 1975), p.
   6.
6. ↑ Divine Principle (Washington, D.C.; Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity [HSAUWC]),
   p. 40.
7. ↑ Ibid., p. 20.
8. ↑ Ibid., p. 21.
9. ↑ Ibid., p. 22.
10. ↑ Ibid.
11. ↑ Ibid., pp. 20-30.
12. ↑ Ibid., p. 25.
13. ↑ Ibid., p. 20.
14. ↑ Ibid., p. 25.
15. ↑ Ibid.
16. ↑ Sun Myung Moon, New Hope (Washington, D.C.: HSA-UWC, Inc., 1973), p. 51.
17. ↑ Divine Principle, p. 42.
18. ↑ Ernest Holmes (compiled and edited by Willis Kinnear), The Spiritual Universe and You (Los Angeles: Science of Mind Publications, 1971), p. 27.
19. ↑ Kim, The Divine Principles (1960), p. 4.
20. ↑ Divine Principle, p. 31.
21. ↑ Ibid.