The Divine Principle from a Unification Thought perspective
The Second Blessing, part 2
Last month, we’d begun our closer look at the Second Great Blessing (in Genesis 1:28) that’s identified in the Exposition of the Divine Principle (p. 34); the one to “multiply”. Here again is part of the one-paragraph description:
“God’s second blessing was to be fulfilled by Adam and Eve after they had achieved individual perfection as object partners to God, each manifesting an aspect of God’s dual characteristics. … Adam and Eve should have joined in loving oneness as husband and wife…” • Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 34
Starting with statements in the Principle, Unification Thought explains four extraordinary meanings of joining as husband and wife. We’d looked at the first of these meanings last time; now, we’ll look at a second:
“Second, the union of a husband and wife represents the final stage of God’s creation of the universe; therefore, the unity of husband and wife signifies the completion of the creation of the universe.” • New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 169
That one sentence merits some very hard thought. It’s a second pronouncement about the meaning and value of a marriage that far exceeds what we normally think of. Instead of thinking that a couple’s marriage is a tiny event in the immensity of the universe, a marriage is instead elevated into a crowning achievement. It does depend upon the pair having each achieved the First Great Blessing, but as long as they have, the Principle goes on to explain that:
“If Adam and Eve had not fallen away from God, the creation of the universe would have been completed upon the occasion of their perfection. …Human beings were created to be the rulers of all things, but neither a man alone nor a woman alone can become a ruler. Only by being perfected as a couple… can they become the rulers of all things. Only then will the creation of the universe be completed.” • New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 169
The Center of All Created Things
It means that everything that’s formed in the universe awaits the appearance of such couples. They’re that immensely important. As the Principle of Creation says:
“Human beings are the center of all created things, which are embodied object partners to God’s dual characteristics in symbol.” • Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 28
We’re reminded then that fully realized men and women embody God’s dual characteristics in image, that is, much more literally than a symbol does. And on the next page, the Principle of Creation continues:
“What is the purpose of the universe? What is its center? The answer to both questions is none other than human beings.… human beings stand as the center of the created universe in terms of its external form. In addition, people relate to the universe from their position as the internal center….” • Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 29–30
These excerpts explain Unification Thought’s extraordinary position that a fully realized couple represents “the completion of the creation of the universe.”
Another way of looking at it is to recall the Unification Thought position that this universe took about 16 billion years (since the Big Bang) to prepare for the arrival of human beings, who were the first to be conceived in the mind of God (Explaining Unification Thought, p. 69). Add to that the position that the Big Bang and all that followed it was preceded by a design process that painstakingly worked out how it would all eventually coalesce into this universe — one that supports not just the basic existence, but the infinite delight of God’s own children. In the words of the Principle:
…We become intoxicated with the beauty of the natural world and experience the rapture of mystical union. We experience this because we are the center of the internal natures of all things in the natural world. Human beings are thus created as the center of the universe, and the place where God and human beings become completely one is the center of the cosmos. • Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 29–30
That first sentence isn’t news to us, of course — we can feel intensely even if we don’t have a very high opinion of our own species. But in its next sentences, the Principle expresses that the universe was intentionally designed for us, just so that we could have such exalted experiences. And so Unification Thought says that a fully realized couple is the completion of the entire process of creation. It’s when they appear that the universe’s purpose is realized.
In Relationship we find Value
Unification Thought of course isn’t only referring to a particular couple, but to every fully realized one. For just as each fully-realized individual is a unique person, when that kind of man and that kind of woman come together, they are the complete “manifestation of God”. So together, they are also the completion of creation. It is for this moment, for these people, that the creation exits(!) To bring this point home, the Principle of Creation asks us to consider:
“…articles on display in a museum attain their true value…only when there are people who appreciate, love and take delight in them. Their relationship with human beings gives value to their existence. If there were no one to appreciate them, then what meaning would their existence have? The same holds true for the universe, whose lords are human beings.” • Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 29
So, just as in our last article, the significance of a fully-realized marriage is radically beyond what I’d been used to thinking. It’s got a value that’s ‘cosmic’ — not just poetically, but it’s literally universe-spanning. Admittedly, it’s a stretch. But this whole view of the value of human beings is challenging because it contradicts the prevailing one that humans are animals — just unusually more clever than other primates. And the related view that there’s no deity whose image we’re made in.
Comparing both views by Experience
But again, there’s a very practical consequence of re-envisioning my humanity and also my own marriage in this way. Having tried to live according to both views — not just sitting, thinking and debating them — my experience of living my life by these opposing views is starkly different. On one hand, when I accepted being bound by animal instinct and the choices that it justifies, I developed a cynicism towards human ideals and personal commitments, as well as guilt about behaviors that nagged at my conscience.
On the other hand, when I experimented with the notion of having a divine character and the kinds of relationships that enables — especially marriage — I developed a hope in higher ideals and eventually an enthusiasm about striving for them. And when I inevitably fall short, though frustration may come, the response is different. Instead of disgust or despair, there arises a resolve to persist and persevere. That comes from the taste of success when I periodically approach some of these ideals. It feels distinctly better inside me than my former fatalism did. And outside of me, it makes my friends and family also feel hopeful. For me, yes — but also for themselves.
Ideals are Worth Striving for…
So now I look out a window at the blue sky of an early spring evening, and I think of my wife — and of some of the other blessed marriages in my world, marriages of divine value. And I consider this thought that true marriages could possibly represent the ultimate stage in the universe’s unfolding. Can I dismiss the idea as ridiculous, just because it’s unconventional and even fantastic at this time? Have those been grounds enough to dismiss other unusual ideas that arose in the history of thought? No, I think; let me keep trying because the future possibilities are exhilarating. And in the meantime, the experience while trying is deeply rewarding in itself. ❦
