1. Resemblance to God and the Three Great Blessings
God created man and woman in His image (Gen.1:27). When creation was finished, God gave them His blessings (the three great blessings), saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28). This is the very foundation for education. Based on this foundation, education can be described as the process of raising children to attain resemblance to God. In other words, education is an effort to guide children so that they come to resemble God. To resemble God means to resemble His Divine Image and Divine Character. A human being is born with a Divine Image (Sungsang and Hyungsang, yang and yin, individual image), but it is in an immature state. Accordingly, human beings gradually come to resemble the Divine Image of God as they grow. This is even more true for the Divine Character. For a human being to resemble God’s Divine Image means to resemble God’s Sungsang and Hyungsang, Yang and Yin, and Individual Image, and to resemble God’s Divine Character is to resemble God’s Heart, Logos, and Creativity.
Among the blessings God gave to human beings, to “be fruitful” means to grow and perfect one’s individual character; to “multiply and fill the earth” means to become husband and wife and multiply children; and to “subdue it [the earth]” means to have dominion over all things. Through their realizing these three great blessings, man and woman come to inherit God’s Divine Character, namely, His Heart, Logos, and Creativity, and they also come to resemble God’s natures of perfection, multiplication, and dominion (see fig. 5.1) as well as inheriting God’s Divine Image.
Fig.5.1. Resemblance to God and Three Great Blessings
Next, I will give a concrete explanation about the meaning of perfection, multiplication, and dominion, since the idea for education is established on the basis of these three great blessings.
Perfection
Jesus said, “You must … be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). This is a call for people to resemble the perfection of God. Perfection refers to the unity of Sungsang and Hyungsang. In God, the Sungsang and Hyungsang are in harmonious give and receive action in the relationship of subject and object centering on Heart, and are united in oneness. This state is perfection.
Accordingly, for human beings to resemble God’s perfection means that their Sungsang and Hyungsang are united in oneness, centering on heart. In a human being there are four categories of Sungsang and Hyungsang, as mentioned in the Theory of the Original Human Nature, but here I refer specifically to the spirit mind as Sungsang and physical mind as Hyungsang. In order for the spirit mind and physical mind to be united, the spirit mind must function as the subject, and the physical mind must function as the object; that is, the spirit mind must have dominion over the physical mind. The spirit mind is concerned with the pursuit of the values of truth, goodness and beauty, whereas the physical mind is concerned with the pursuit of food, clothing, shelter, and sexual fulfillment. Thus, in order for the spirit mind and physical mind to be united, a life in pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty must take priority, and a life in pursuit of food, clothing, shelter, and sexual fulfillment must become a secondary means to that end.
The center of give and receive action between the spirit mind and the physical mind is heart and love. In summary, a life in pursuit of food, clothing, and shelter must be led centering on a life in pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, based on love. This is what is meant by resembling God’s perfection. When people are young, they do not understand well the values of truth, goodness, and beauty; but as they mature, their hearts gradually develop and they come to lead―centering on love―a true life, a good life, and a beautiful life. Thus, they gradually come to resemble the perfection of God.
Since the human being is a dual being of spirit self and physical self, human growth involves the growth of both spirit self and physical self. The first blessing, “to grow,” refers not only to the growth of the physical self, but primarily to the growth of the spirit self, namely, the improvement of a person’s spiritual level. Yet, the spirit self grows on the foundation of the physical self, namely, through give and receive action with the physical self. If human beings grow to maturity in this way, they inherit God’s perfection. Therefore, this is the first blessing, given as a promise to human beings.
Multiplication
Next, human beings must resemble God’s nature of multiplication; namely, they must develop to the point where they can multiply their children. God is the harmonious being of Yang and Yin. Therefore, man and woman are supposed to resemble this harmony of God’s Yang and Yin. The harmony of yang and yin in human beings refers to the harmony of husband and wife. Human beings were created through God’s nature of multiplication; namely, through the harmony of God’s Yang and Yin as well as through the unity of God’s Sungsang and Hyungsang. Therefore, in human beings as well, they will create (multiply) their children through their harmony between yang and yin, as well as through the unity of their mind and body.
The call to resemble God’s nature of multiplication is a call for man and woman to grow to the point where they are qualified and able to be engaged in harmonious give and receive action in the same way as the Yang and Yin in God are engaged in harmonious give and receive action. To accomplish this, man and woman must mature in such a way that they become qualified to get married and have children. That is to say, a man should become perfectly equipped with all the qualifications requisite to being a man, and a woman should become perfectly equipped with all the qualifications requisite to being a woman. Thus, the call is for them to become capable of fulfilling a man’s duty as a husband and a woman’s duty as a wife, respectively. When they come to possess such qualifications and abilities, they are to get married and have children. Therefore, this is the second blessing, given as a promise to human beings.
Dominion
Furthermore, human beings must resemble God’s nature of dominion. To resemble God’s nature of dominion means to inherit God’s creativity, which is the ability to create object beings (new beings) centering on Heart (love). God created human beings and all things with His creativity, and intended to have dominion over them. Since human beings were originally endowed with this creativity, they were created to have dominion over all things, centering on heart. In other words, human beings were created to possess this ability once they mature. This is the third blessing, given as a promise to human beings.
All industrial activities are activities of dominion exercised by human beings over all things. For example, farmers cultivate the land, which is a form of dominion over the land. In a factory, workers produce goods out of raw materials by using machines. This is a form of dominion over raw materials and machines. Fishing is a form of dominion over the fish and the water, and forestry is a form of dominion over trees and mountains.
To have dominion over all things is to manifest one’s creativity. Seen from the viewpoint of the formation of the four position foundation, creativity refers to the ability to form an inner four position foundation and an outer four position foundation.
Accordingly, in agriculture, farmers cultivate the fields making creative efforts, based on their ideas, to obtain a greater harvest. In commerce, too, people will not be successful without ideas and creative will. In short, by manifesting creativity, all human industries, including agriculture, mining, manufacturing, commerce, forestry, fishing, and so on, are forms of human dominion over things. Science and art, also, come into the category of dominion over all things. Dominion over society, namely, participation in politics, also lies in the category of dominion over all things.
Yet, due to the fall, human beings became unable to inherit God’s Heart-centered creativity. Instead, they came to manifest a self-centered creativity, often inflicting damage on people and nature, through, for example, producing weapons for war and causing pollution. Therefore, in this new theory of education, teachers must guide students to manifest heart-centered creativity by resembling God’s nature of dominion.
2. Process of Growth of Human Beings
Human beings were created to resemble God. This resemblance, however, does not occur instantaneously from the moment of birth. In order to come to resemble God, they need time to develop themselves, since the created world is a world of time and space. Thus, human beings have the need to grow through the three stages of formation, growth, and completion, and then come to resemble God in perfection, multiplication, and dominion. Human growth, therefore, is the process of coming to resemble God in terms of His personality, harmony of Yang and Yin, and creativity.
The three great blessings, given by God to human beings, imply that it is after their growing completely that they will be able to fully inherit God’s perfection, multiplication, and dominion. Therefore, these three great blessings are, in fact, three great promised blessings. Due to the fall, however, these three great blessings, or commandments, were not fulfilled. As written in Genesis, these three great blessings were commandments in the form of “Do….” Even though human beings fell away from God, these commandments given by Him have not been annulled, but remain valid even now, today. This means that the will of Heaven has been urging human beings, through their subconscious mind, to fulfill the three great blessings or commandments.
This is why human beings have ceaselessly been endeavoring to fulfill the three great commandments, even if unconsciously. Accordingly, even in fallen society, people have endeavored, according to this will of Heaven, to mature themselves in personality, to find a good spouse and form a family, and to improve society and rule nature. It is for this reason that human beings have the desire to grow, the desire to get married, the desire to rule, the desire to improve oneself, and so on. Yet, these desires have not been completely fulfilled, even until now, because of the fall of the first ancestors of humankind.
Thus, a human being must grow for the purpose of completing the three great blessings. All things grow through the autonomy and dominion of the principle. This means that they naturally grow as the life force within them propels them to growth. The autonomy and dominion of the principle refer to the activity of life. In the case of human beings, however, although the physical self grows through the autonomy and dominion of the principle, like all creatures, the human spirit self does not. In order for the spirit self to grow, a certain condition is required. This is why human beings are given a “portion of responsibility.” This means that human beings perfect their personality only through their own responsibility and effort. Thus, they must make efforts to grow by experiencing God’s love while observing the norm (the principle) with their own free will.
The first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, should have grown by observing God’s commandment, should have become husband and wife after having experienced God’s Heart, and should have actualized God’s love. Since Adam and Eve were to have become the first ancestors of humankind, as the representatives of all humankind they were responsible not only for themselves, but also for their descendants. For that reason, God totally refrained from interfering with their responsibility.
If Adam and Eve had fulfilled such a serious responsibility by observing God’s Word, their descendants would have been able to grow through fulfilling a much lighter condition. In other words, in the case of Adam and Eve, they had to fulfill the three great blessings solely on the basis of their solemn responsibility; in the case of their descendants, however, they would have been able to perfect the three great blessings through a lighter responsibility, that is, simply by following obediently the teachings of their parents. For this reason, Adam and Eve should have achieved the three great blessings by fulfilling their own responsibility solely by themselves without receiving any help from others. Thus, after Adam and Eve had perfected themselves, their children were supposed to obey their parents’ teachings; namely, children should receive education from their parents.
This is the origin of the need for parents to teach their children, or the need for education: education by parents is necessary for children to fulfill their portion of responsibility. Therefore, in its most fundamental form education is the guidance that parents give to their children so that their children may fulfill the three great blessings. Thus, we arrive at an ideal for education: parents teach and guide their children so that the children may be able to perfect the three great blessings. Therefore, the original place of education must be the family where parents and children live. Along with the development of culture, however, the amount of information and learning has increased, and it has become impossible for parents to convey the entire scope of education in the family. Naturally, therefore, the place of education was extended from the family to the school, the professional place for education, where teachers educate students on behalf of parents. Therefore, teachers, as the representatives of parents, must instruct students with a parental heart. This is the original way of education.
3. Three Great Ideals of Education
In the Unification Theory of Education, the purpose of education is to empower human beings to achieve resemblance to God’s perfection, to God’s nature of multiplication, and to God’s nature of dominion. Based on these goals, the ideals of education can be established.
First, based on the idea of resemblance to God’s perfection, the perfection of one’s individuality is established as an ideal of education. This perfection of one’s individuality, or the perfection of one’s character, is the completion of the first blessing.
Second, based on the idea of resemblance to God’s nature of multiplication, the perfection of one’s family is established as an ideal of education: man and woman grow up, get married, manifest conjugal harmony, and build a harmonious family. This perfection of one’s family is the completion of the second blessing.
Third, based on the idea of resemblance to God’s nature of dominion, the perfection of one’s dominion is established as an ideal of education: human beings inherit God’s creativity in order to exercise dominion over all things. This perfection of one’s dominion becomes the completion of the third blessing. Thus, in the Unification Theory of Education, the ideal of education consists of three ideals: perfection of one’s individuality, perfection of one’s family, and perfection of one’s dominion. In sum, one’s completion of the three great blessings.