Rearing Monarchs #25:

A Path to the First Blessing, part 2
Unification Thoughts, June 2023

Welcome back
Thank you, and I hope that you’re enjoying the Springtime :) If you’re joining us for the first time, it might help to catch the drift of this series by taking a look at its purpose and focus.¹ But if you’re picking up from last time, we’re continuing our look into how Unification Thought illuminates our understanding of the Principle.²

Where we left off and where we’re going

Last month, we’d started to look into the original path to attaining the First Blessing. Here’s the quote in the Principle that triggered the important insights of that discussion:

…For Adam to realize the purpose of creation, he was supposed to fulfill two conditions. First, Adam should have established the foundation of faith. …The second condition which Adam was supposed to fulfill to realize the purpose of creation was to establish the foundation of substance…  Adam was then to become one with God… the perfect incarnation of the Word, with perfect character, fulfilling God’s first blessing. In this way, had he not fallen, Adam would have completed the purpose of creation.

• Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 179

We’d looked carefully at that statement and explained that the two Foundations—Faith and Substance—were what Adam and Eve were supposed to build during the innocence of their growing period. In fact, those original foundations became associated with restoration only after the Human Fall; they were not originally devised as conditions for paying indemnity. Building these two foundations in their youth would have been a fulfilling and beautiful way to spend it, as well as to prepare for their futures.

In the latter part of that article, it was mentioned that Unification Thought’s ideas on morality and ethics give much more practical guidance on building and living these two foundations. Links were provided to the earlier articles in this series that explained these moral and ethical views, but they’re so relevant to this discussion that it’s worth the time to develop the thought a bit more, rather than simply allude to it.

I recall hearing that the foundation of faith is related to Jesus’ two commandments to Love the Lord your God with all your heart…and Love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). The first refers to our internal relationship with Heavenly Parent; the second refers to our relationship with the people around us.

And Unification Thought makes the useful distinction that the domain of the first is morality and the domain of the second is ethics. This can be seen in a table that Dr. Lee provided in his Unification Thought seminars:

That indicates the association of the foundation of faith with moral virtue and the foundation of substance with ethical virtue.

A Foundation of Faith and Moral Virtue

Through building a foundation of faith (via a central person, offering and time period), a young person learns to naturally include Heavenly Parent in the activities of daily life, especially in extraordinary ones, as in the example of Eric Liddle, mentioned last month. After 21 years of consistent effort, gradual improvement, and finally becoming second nature, it would be established that the young adult had reached a key stage in his/her spiritual maturity. It would be clear that he/she indeed has faith in Heavenly Parent and also that Heavenly Parent can have faith in the young person because they’ve reached a key stage of mind-body unity with their heart centered on God.

Looking at the foundation of faith from this perspective, Unification Thought helps us visualize more clearly how such a person might actually appear: they’d be the embodiment of those moral virtues which are associated with the first blessing. As mentioned in an earlier article on morality, those virtues are:

• New Essentials of UT, p. 285

In that earlier article, each of these virtues is looked at more closely, so we won’t be repeating that; but the material is viewable here. In case you do review, it should be clearer how these would help a young person cultivate a healthy and vibrant foundation of faith.

A Foundation of Substance and Ethical Virtue

Complementing the foundation of faith—which concerns an individual’s relationship with Heavenly Parent—the foundation of substance is concerned with a person’s relationship with other people. We know of the four natures mentioned in the Divine Principle—the fallen ones mentioned on pages 73–74 and the original ones mentioned on page 193. It’s those that we are most concerned with here.

As with the foundation of faith, Unification Thought provides us a clearer image of a person with a healthy and strong foundation of substance. Such a person would be naturally inclined to a life for others; he/she would be a virtuous individual. Of this inclination, Unification Thought explains:

…love has twelve directions, because the person in each of the four positions has a different kind of love for each of the three object partners… Consequently, various kinds of love, with different nuances, come to appear. In order to realize these various kinds of love, various kinds of virtue are required… with each kind of love, there is a corresponding virtue… The aim of… ethics is to fully explain the virtues of love.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 282

Noting that these nuances are expressed as the virtues of original nature, we can gain valuable insight into it by referring to the Theory of Ethics.

First, there are the vertical ethical virtues, as explained in article 10 of this series. In the Unification Thought books and diagrams, these are the downward virtues that elders in a family personify:

As expressions of love, they would evoke a response upward from the young ones in a family. So virtues such as filial piety, loyalty, obedience, trust, respect, etc. would manifest. As the Principle states:

In interpersonal relationships, the beauty that a subordinate returns in response to the love of a superior is called loyalty, and the beauty that children return in response to the love of their parents is called filial piety.

• Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 38

When family members express such virtues towards one another, they can strongly enhance the substantial foundation between them.

And second, there are the horizontal virtues between siblings and peers that were explained in article 11 of this series. The 14 virtues listed below are largely similar in the different Unification Thought texts, but there are small differences, perhaps due to translation:

All of these “vertical” and “horizontal” ethical virtues are deeply interwoven with original nature—i.e., take God’s standpoint …maintain proper position …accept Abel’s dominion …multiply goodness (Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 193). And so, when such virtues are expressed between members of a family or community, the fabric of relationships among them—their foundation of substance—is nurtured and strengthened.

So, while a young person can be pointed in the right direction by an explanation of four original natures, it can be extremely helpful for a young person to also strive for the very closely connected moral and ethical virtues that Unification Thought offers.

Conclusion

In closing, please allow me to briefly recap last month’s conclusion: the hope that we can guide and encourage our young ones to actually work on their individual perfection by building their foundations of faith and substance. That way, they won’t waste away their growth period and be caught distressingly short when they suddenly find themselves in their 20s. Instead, they’ll really be ready for the other Blessings (particularly the Second one).

Just imagine what a young adult could be like if he or she had spent his or her tweens and teens intentionally building these two foundations by respectively 1) learning to engage Heavenly Parent in all their activities and 2) nurturing and practicing their original nature! Folks couldn’t help but notice these kinds of young people. So, in this post-Foundation Day CIG Settlement Era, let us help our young ones remember:

…do not act like wild olive trees. Take the seed of the true olive tree and bear its fruit wherever you take root in the world. …manifesting God’s ideal of creation.… (1990.05.24)
Cheon Il Guk is the original world having nothing to do with the Fall, the world that God envisioned according to His ideal of creation.… the final destination toward which we are advancing… (2003.12.10)

• Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book 12, Chap. 2

And this as well:

…This is the age of the realm of the Fourth Adam. It is …the age of restoration in a natural way. (1999.10.10)

• Chambumo Gyeong, Book 12, Chap. 3

Restoration in a natural way—that is, according to the original Principle of Creation!⁴

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