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Welcome back to our series of presentations on the Unification Principle. 

Whether or not people believe in the fall, or in religion, humankind is aware that something is very wrong with the world. That is why in every culture we find an expectation that the world is going to end. This ending is often called the apocalypse, and in the field of religion it is the study of eschatology, or the last things. 

Eschatology brings to mind big natural disasters, terror and war. Religious groups present dazzling scenarios of the end of the world, and even though these prophecies are always wrong, people's faith in eschatology continues. The Book of Revelation of St. John presents dramatic natural and social phenomena. Some make predictions as to when it will happen. American religious groups from the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Family Radio all the way to the Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate and People’s Temple did so. The Japanese group Aleph, and local Korean Oh Tae Yang church and All Mission church are other examples. Recently people said that the ancient Mayan calendar predicted an apocalypse on December 21, 2012, caused a buzz in the media and inspired the movie “2012.” 

 All of this confusion shows we don’t have a reliable view of history. We need a systematic view of the principles of history. We need to find order during chaos, some way to grasp history universally. We need principles that underlie the cause and effect behind historical events and trends, not just externally—based on geography, economics and politics—but internally, based on the human relationship with spiritual forces. 

 

What is the value of a correct historical view? Through a correct historical view we establish our vision and strategy to realize it. Through a correct historical view we can establish plans to solve realistic problems. Also, the establishment of a correct historical view is connected directly to our outlook on life. A correct outlook of life naturally will include a correct view of history.(please move position)

 Views of history can be categorized by three factors: who or what is the driving force of history, the nature of the start, direction, and destination, and whether history's direction is straight, spiral or circular. Methods of interpretation include the providential view, social history view, archeological view, “great-man” theory, conflict of cultures view, materialistic view, and many others. 

The Unification Principle addresses this in its chapter entitled, Eschatology. 

Until now, men and woman have not known how history started, and how it develops. That is why we don't have any basis to talk reasonably about the end of history.

 To know these things, we must understand why God created the universe and the mission of human beings in the universe, the truth of the fall, our relationship with God after the Fall, and the basis on which God continues His relationship with us. 

As I mentioned in the Purpose of Creation, God’s purpose in making the universe was to achieve happiness. Therefore our purpose in life is to fulfill the Three Blessings, which makes us happy and returns happiness to God who is our Parent.  

People can’t become the partner of God’s happiness by just knowing His purpose. We have to live according to that purpose. To stand as a partner of God’s happiness is the perfection of individuality. If a person accomplishes authentic individuality, God will dwell in their heart, and eventually he or she will become a temple of God and will live according to God’s will. A person who has become one with God will gain divinity, and would have no desire ever to sin, and therefore would never fall.

  

If Adam and Eve completed their individuality completely free of sin, and had children and accomplished one family, society, and nation according to the Genesis 1:28 blessing of multiplication, that would have been a heaven centered on one set of True Parents. Heaven works like a person of completed individuality. Just as a body follows vertical commands from the brain and has cells and organs that work in a horizontal relationship, a society would follow vertical commands from God and have individuals, families and social entities that work together. In a society like this, if a person were hurt, the whole society would feel God’s sadness together, so no one would hurt others. .(please move position)

As God blessed us to have dominion over all things, if we develop science to love and steward nature, we will create a comfortable and healthy community. That would be heaven on earth. Like this, if people live by fulfilling heaven on earth and enter the spirit world, spirit world becomes heaven in heaven. Therefore, God’s purpose of creation was always to build heaven on earth, and to do that first.  

However, because the ancestors of humankind fell, the object partner that resembles God was incomplete. We became one body with Satan, and become malign, not divine. Because people with this malady reproduced children with sin and made families, societies, and a world, this is hell on earth. Here on earth the vertical tie to God is broken, so the horizontal ties between people are also broken. People don’t know that God and the spirit world exist, don’t feel the pain of their neighbors, and even seek to harm their neighbors. We have made a world that considers Satan as god. People like this live in the hell on earth and eventually go to hell in the spirit world. .(please move position)

But God is the God of feelings and He is our Parent, Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, so He doesn’t let this be and just leave the people and world in this situation. God has to save this world of crime and sins. God also will not save some people and not others. His saving will be complete, will be universal, and will be for everybody. The history of God’s saving people is the essential, true history of humanity. It is of God, so we call it providential, and it is to save us, so it is the providence of salvation. And to save people who fell means to return them to their original state of creation. So the history of providential salvation becomes the history of returning. And the primary purpose of history is to create a world that has fulfilled the Three Blessings, which means means to bring heaven on earth.

As you see here, the history of humanity is God’s history, the providence of salvation, and is the history of the providential return to the state of the original creation. We must fulfill heaven on earth first. Therefore the world cannot literally end. God does not save only a few, but saves everyone universally. God, as the Parent of humankind, will take interest in every little lost lamb, pay no attention to gender, not treat the rich and poor differently, jump the wall between nations, races, and religions, and save all of humanity with the history of providence. .(please move position)

Therefore the Unification Theory’s historical view begins with the beginning point of humanity’s creation, explains the Fall, and presents God’s purpose of creation as the direction and destination of history. Because the destination of history is the realization of heaven on earth, God will not destroy our universe, and certainly He will not allow us to. 

Thank you for your kind attention. I’ll see you next time.