Readers are invited to share their reflections and questions on the Divine Heart Principle by entering a Comment below – in the “Leave a comment” box at the bottom of the page, or by replying to an already posted comment. Comments are moderated.
Readers are invited to share their reflections and questions on the Divine Heart Principle by entering a Comment below – in the “Leave a comment” box at the bottom of the page, or by replying to an already posted comment. Comments are moderated.
One of the recurring questions among believers has been why God, who is all powerful, could not prevent the Fall of Adam and Eve. I find that the Chapter I. i. 21 sets a solid framework to begin to understand why Our Creator cannot possibly be in control of our choices.
“….once He/She finished each creation as an independent entity, He/She had to provide the creation freedom of choice, to choose either from the good or bad, true or false, heart-principled or unprincipled/sinful possibilities. This means any creation is designed to possess the capacity to realize what He/She deems to be the good standard and also to feel the temptation to do the bad or what is against its created purpose. In other words, if He/She had developed a reality where only the good possibilities are available, and any creation does not feel tempted to do the bad, it would be equivalent to Him/Her already having made 100% good choices for all in creation. In this scenario, the creation would be nothing but perfect automatons…..”
A following passage explains further:
“…although Heavenly Parent had to give free will to all in creation to choose the good or bad/evil standard since He/She must at the same time strive that all in creation that share His/Her partial image…. or complete image as human beings, be ultimately returned to Him/Her in His/Her standard of goodness, the entire creation is also designed such that once a creation makes an unprincipled or bad choice, an indemnity will automatically follow. In the first place, an indemnity is for any creation to take responsibility for their unprincipled action by paying restitution to return to Him/Her.”
It makes sense now why God does not interfere with human beings’ free-will and portion of responsibility. However, as Our True Parent, it must be an incredibly difficult position to maintain!
Reading Chapter 1 of “Divine Heart Principle” gives me so much to think about. I was just reading about how God didn’t want a world full of robots, all preprogrammed and therefore 100% predictable. This is a good thing. It would be a boring world if every choice was already predestined by our Creator.
All of creation always has free will to choose how to behave, to make a good choice, or not. But this is not just the free will a cat uses to reject the food they enjoyed so much yesterday. This free will is every creation’s 5% portion of responsibility to pursue the right choices for their type of being, to reach “perfection” if you will. Human beings are not special in this respect. What is special about us, human beings, is that our choices affect all of created reality, not just ourselves, for good or ill. That’s quite a responsibility!
The Divine Heart Principle explains:
“He/She had to grant each entity free will, which He/She does not interfere with, for if He/She makes 100 percent of the choices for every creation, then, theoretically, each creation would never become a separate, self-standing, independent entity. Instead, each would remain automaton 100 percent, manipulated by their Creator. … given the 5 percent free will of the created entities and especially human beings, who, as the sum of the entire creation, have the most responsibility to complete the perfection of the Collective Reality, the Collective Reality can change at any time by the deeds of the creation and especially human beings.”
Finished reading Chapter 2 on The Human Fall and Adam/Eve’s Family. (105 pages compared to Chapter 1 at 230 pages. The reading also went faster by having absorbed foundational concepts from the first chapter.)
A big impression at this moment: Rev. Moon struggled with the question of why God did not intervene to prevent the Fall, calling it an unsolved mystery of the ages (Exposition of Divine Principle, Part I, Chapter 2, Section 6). His text then offered three reasons, without claiming that these provided a definitive answer. By contrast, Ye-Jin Moon’s Divine Heart Principle provides clear explanations for why Adam and Eve’s responsibilities for the Fall were far greater than that of Archangel Lucifer, and why Heavenly Parent would not/could not interfere with that responsibility. The detailed Heart Principle foundations dispel any mystery.
I was inspired reading this passage from “Divine Heart Principle” Chapter 1 which explains that human beings are indeed created to be the most like God, in the image of God. And not only that, but God is also both male and female, our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, who are equal in value – just like men and women are equal in value and responsibility:
“The creation of human beings, God’s last creative act, which represents God in the most complete way among all creations, ended not with a single human being but with two human beings of different sexes/genders. At the same time, Heavenly Parent of the Origin position most thoroughly manifested His/Her Dual Position like human personhood as a father/a mother in the distinct person-like beings of Heavenly Father/Heavenly Mother. Just as the last creation, human beings, were a man/a woman of separate individual status but of equal human value/responsibility, once Heavenly Father/Heavenly Mother had emerged independently, Heavenly Father/Heavenly Mother each undertook a distinct individual status of equal value.”
The Wounded Healer
(finding this archetype within the Divine Heart Principle)
“…the Wounded Healer has been one of the most widely accepted archetypes… It makes sense. People who have suffered often develop deep empathy, perception, and sensitivity. They know what it feels like to fall apart. They recognize pain quickly in others. [Swiss psychiatrist] Carl Jung described the wounded healer archetype as the paradox of healing arising directly from personal suffering. It is through confronting our own wounds that empathy, insight, and wisdom begin to develop.” (Laura Carlgren)
“To heal others, we must first heal ourselves. But to heal ourselves, we must first know ourselves.” — Carl Jung
Marie-Louise von Franz, a close colleague of Jung, wrote, “the wounded healer IS the archetype of the Self [our wholeness, the God within] and is at the bottom of all genuine healing procedures.”
The archetype of a Wounded Healer speaks to us universally precisely because God, our Heavenly Parent, Heavenly Father/Heavenly Mother, is Himself/Herself, the very substance of a Wounded Healer.
We find this model recurring in the Old and New Testaments (think of Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers, and Jesus, crucified on a cross)—yet the model feels diminished or overshadowed by doctrines about God being in absolute control, predestining everything.
Father and Mother Moon have both spoken about Heavenly Parent’s grieving heart in the process of restoration.
Now their First Daughter, Ye-Jin Moon, penetrates to discern the Wounded Healer not just as part of God’s restorative heart, but as integral to Heavenly Father’s/Heavenly Mother’s heart to co-create with their children. We find it in the 95% parental portion of responsibility; we find it in the humility to limit Himself/Herself and leave Himself/Herself vulnerable to potentially bad free-willed choices by His/Her children. The Parent, wounded and vulnerable within Himself/Herself, guides the wayward child to discover innate healing power within himself/herself. Together, Parent and child heal each other. That can make all the difference. Healing and co-creating are intricately interrelated.
[All of this is the reader’s reflection. Divine Heart Principle does not use the terminology “Wounded Healer”]
The first Chapter in Part I is an incredible exploration of God’s Creative Process. These new ideas are intricately framed together for the reader to progress and gain a new perspective.
Also, we are accustomed to vague generalities concerning God. This a significant change in that respect. For instance, It is often said that ‘God is Love’ and I wondered at which point we, human beings can claim that our love is true. Divine Heart Principle approaches this topic with astonishing clarity.
‘Had He/She chosen not to create, since His/Her very existence is the ultimate reality beyond which nothing can be compared, no ethical/moral criteria to differentiate good from evil, truth from falsehood, or heart-principled from sinful, etc. would have been necessary.’ Ch.I.i.21
Because God is Our Ultimate True Parent, it would have been irresponsible to create human beings with free will and let us figure out through trial and errors what is true or false love. There had to be an absolute standard from the beginning which we could always rely on. The initial Commandment referred to in Genesis was only what young children could comprehend of the Purpose of Creation.
Another earlier passage in the book also made perfect sense:’…out of free-willed, Heart-centered loving choice, He/She established the Heart Principle, and based upon it, He/She true-love multiplied other individual entities, all resembling Him/Her in varying degrees’. Ch I. i.8.
This has all been very enlightening. Thank you so much Ye Jin Moon.
I agree with Charles Ray Kannal.
Having finished the first chapter, “Heavenly Parent’s Purpose of Creation,” (236 pages!) I will simply say that this is the most profound content ever written on the nature of God, and humanity’s place in the universe.
The reading can be difficult at times, with long complex sentences that strive for complete accuracy, yet as stated in the Introduction, “…whatever is lacking in the author’s intellectual and creative capacity should be judged separately from the fundamentals of [Heavenly Parent’s] Heart Principle, which should remain absolute and unchanging.” The author conveys those fundamentals with dedicated intensity.
About King Saul in Part ll:
By the way, Ye-Jin Nim comes highly recommended:
“Because a woman fell first, the restoration of woman is done first. Afterward, the restoration of man is completed. Who is actually in the position of the first restored woman? The first female child born from True Parents is in that position. The first male child is the second child of True Parents. This is only an outline and a very brief explanation; there are very deep and complicated processes behind it.” The Way of Restoration, April 1972, Paris, France [God’s Way and the World]
[My comment about the section on King Saul]
I think it would be beneficial to point out the parallel between Abraham/Isaac on the family level and King Saul/Jonathan on the national level in terms of the Divine Heart Principle and the human portion of responsibility. This parallel is basically a missing page of Divine Principle.
Major Points:
1) Both Abraham and Saul made a second offering after having failed the first offering.
2) The second offering for both Abraham and Saul involved their sons.
3) Abraham/Isaac succeeded in the second offering.
4) King Saul/Jonathan failed the second offering, after which God changed the lineage to that of King David.
5) How, specifically, was the second offering failure of King Saul also Jonathan’s? At the battle with the Amalekites, Jonathan was also there and should have shouted at his father to obey the command of God through Samuel:
[1Samuel Chapter 15]
15 Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
see: “A Man After His Own Heart”: Revisited
https://tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Nordquist/Nordquist-941102.htm
Thank you for our feedback, Peter. Your comment on the importance of the firstborn female child for the worldwide/cosmic level restoration course is well taken.
In terms of your reading of Part II, however, your comments about King Saul are somewhat misleading. There is an important difference between Abraham and Saul, namely that Abraham’s course was on the clan level while by the time of King Saul the Israelites’ course was on the national level. The significance of this difference makes your comparison between their failed offerings incompatible.
This difference is explicated in Chapter 5, Section iv, Subsection 5: Comparison of the Third Indemnity Periods Within the First Six and Second Six Indemnity Periods. Briefly, in the period pertaining to Saul, the three generations (three kings) did not need to come from the same direct lineage as all the Israelites from the 12 tribes were from the same common ancestral lineage, descended from Abraham and Sarah.
Thus, when Saul failed and God could no longer work with him, his son Jonathan was not the inheritor of the mission. Instead, with the Abel-position lineage (of Benjamin, Jacob’s Abel-position wife’s son) having failed, the next choice was Judah’s lineage, Judah being the only qualified son of the Cain-position wife Leah. This is explained in detail in Chapter 5 Section iv, Subsections 6-8.
Hello Jennifer,
I pick up on your sentence, “Thus, when Saul failed and God could no longer work with him, his son Jonathan was not the inheritor of the mission.”
Because Saul was a number 3 just as Abraham was a number 3, God could still work with him just as He/She could still work with Abraham by asking for a 2nd offering of greater indemnity, where both Abraham and Saul were about to kill Isaac and Jonathan, respectively.
After Abraham/Isaac’s 2nd offering success, God continued through their lineage. Only after Saul/Jonathan’s 2nd offering failure regarding the Amalekites, did God in fact change to David.
This parallel is clearly in the Biblical record and it is a very clear parallel, but only clear if you accept that two versions of the first 7 days of Saul’s kingship appear in 1 Samuel due to the purposefully (according to the rabbi’s) mixed sources: l Samuel 10:8 and l Samuel 13:8-14.
Peter
Peter, your response appears to be an attempt to re-interpret the Bible rather than to clarify or appreciate the depth of understanding of God and God’s purpose of creation that Ye-Jin Moon has recovered and presented in the Divine Heart Principle texts.
She notes (in Chap 1 Sect i: 41) that the Bible, or any revelatory material for that matter, can never contain 100% truth. Rather, its content as well as the interpretation of that content is subject to the limitations imposed by the level of understanding of humanity at the time the content was written, and one’s level of understanding in attempting to interpret the message.
As I already noted in my previous reply, Chap 5 states that Saul failed as king. This was a position that was not God’s plan but rather was demanded by the Israelites whose Old Testament level of understanding was far below God’s original ideal for human beings. Saul’s failure is well-documented in the Bible, for anyone who desires to study it. However, the point in the Divine Heart Principle is not how Saul failed but that his successor had to come from the lineage of Judah, the reasons for which are clearly stated.
Deeper study of the Divine Heart Principle text clarifies all these points, providing not the limited human interpretation of human history that has been available until contemporary times but rather connecting the events and hoped for outcomes to God’s ideal of creation.
Masayuki Nakamura wrote :
The Introduction says that “ …when Father/Mother Moon could not recover the Heart Principle, it then became their First Daughter or the author’s providential responsibility to struggle to recover and convey it to others during her course.” I am a Japanese member of the Movement and have a PhD. in dentistry.
I have been studying the Unified Science for many decades. In this study, there are some Big Questions and Hard Problems in science, such as:
*Was there anything that existed before the cosmogenesis event?
*Is the emergence of a living system (biogenesis) a random fluke, similar to the random chance event of cosmogenesis suggested by the standard scientific paradigm? Or is it the result of an identifiable, explicable ordering process by which physical systems in the universe naturally tend towards greater levels of complexity, diversification, interrelation, and organization?
* What about the fine-tuning problems for optimally biophilic (supporting of life and living) systems?
* How does consciousness arise? and so on.
Surprisingly, Chapter 1, Section 1, answers many of these Big Questions and more!! I highly recommend it!
From Japan,
Masayuki Nakamura
Thank you, Dr. Nakamura for corroborating how the Divine Heart Principle addresses some deep scientific questions of our age. The author undertakes a monumental task to integrate external scientific knowledge with internal religious/spiritual knowledge. Design and order within the created/evolved universe intricately connects to human meaning and purpose.
I am amazed at this level of undertaking, by Ye Jin Moon, to be publishing the Divine Heart Principle in 4 Volumes. I have purchased Part 1 in hardcover as I believe it will be a study guide and a keepsake. Though I was born and raised in NY, my first time to meet Ye Jin Moon was just several years ago, I think in 2018 when she visited our area and first introduced the concept of the Gender Balanced Heavenly Parent. She was able to explain it very well as it was the topic of her Seminary Doctoral Thesis and I was very interested. Now, even to read the Introduction to the Heart Principle, I can see the content is way beyond what I imagined. Fully documented with footnotes, it takes us from the heart and purpose of the Creator, and Heavenly Parent’s unchanging dream, all through the history of restoration, to the present day. Though I am only on the first chapter, the Table of Contents is showing me what is ahead and I look forward to further study and further comments from other readers. Thank you to Ye Jin Moon for all the effort it must have taken to bring this to publication at this time.
This is a fascinating book. Interestingly, I just finished reading the 1st Chapter of Part I. and I would like to quote one excerpt from The Divine Heart Principle Part I p260 :”…[..]..essential tools of His/Her creation, such as symbolic numbers, are neutral and [..} it is up to human beings who hold the key to the perfection of the Collective Reality to manifest them for the greater good, always coinciding with Heavenly Parent’s heart-principled true love choice or not. ” It does shed a deeper light on the necessity and significance of the indemnity courses which providential central figures were called to assume because the applied restorative numbers are exactly the same employed during the Creative Process. Heavenly Parent does not introduce or create anything new and different specifically for the purpose and times of Restoration, not principles, numbers, things or even human beings. It is solely up to the human 5% portion of responsibility to recover what we lost and misused in Fallen History, including our own absolute human value as God’s true children.
I am very grateful for the publication by Ye Jin Moon, first daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Moon of the Divine Heart Principle. For many years now I have been deeply concerned about the education of not only the children of those who like myself joined the Unification Movement in the 70s and 80s but also now their children as well. In the Divine Heart Principle I find deeply thought through answers to my questions and answers to the questions of, my children and their children and hope for the future. My recommendation is for all interested to take their time and thoroughly digest these volumes, the first of which is now available. I look forward to being able to study more and to the release of Vol. 2, 3, & 4. I encourage readers to ask questions and communicate on the DivineHeartPrinciple.org website.
Dear, Beloved Ye Jin Nim & Fellow Readers,
Greetings. I haven’t the chance to read these books yet. But I’ve had a first impression from 2016 and 2017–when Ye Jin Nim began her world-speaking tours. I have an important question:
What arguments to argue against God being a trans-gender or bi-sexual creator ? I believe that Dr. Ye-Jin Moon had good intentions with her publications. But the issue of having the correct Gender Pronouns for God is very delicate.
In Korean, there is no such issue. We say “당신” which is non-binary form of addressing a superior person. Much like the word “Usted” or “Su” in Spanish. But, everything is either male or female in English. Continuing to say “his/her” when referring to God is extremely confusing. It’s better to say “It.”
I’d like a response from the author or readers above. Thank you.
Thank you Jorge Cuello for your comment! Indeed, the nature of God is the crucial starting point for understanding the purpose of creation and human responsibility. You say you have not read the text yet; when you do you will find clear answers to your questions in the first subsections of Chapter 1.
Briefly, God originally existed as a single unified Being, the Original Oneness, in the prior position before creation. That God will forever remain unknown fully to all created beings, including us. God chose to create, establishing the Ideology of Divine Heart Principle which would bring about the creation centered on Heart. Then, acting on that creative purpose, God in the Cause position began the creative process through which not only the creation appeared but also God’s Dual Positions emerged as co-equal sex/gender-balanced Male/Female. At the end of this creative process, God in the Effect position exists substantially as Heavenly Father/Heavenly Mother, in the Parental position to the first human beings who were created in the complete image of God – “male and female” as it says in Genesis.
There is no transgenderism in God. Unlike in Christianity God was never only male, or even the male Heavenly Father first with the female Heavenly Mother appearing later. God became both Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother through the creative process. The equal and balanced dual position is the cornerstone of the principle of creation, forming the Four Position Foundation in the creative process. As to being bisexual, how could that be? Heavenly Father’s partner is Heavenly Mother and vice versa.
Regarding pronouns, unlike Christianity with the male God whose appropriate pronoun is “He,” Divine Heart Principle emphasizes the dual position of Heavenly Father/Heavenly Mother. Thus, God can be expressed in Korean as “하늘부모님” (Heavenly Father/Mother) which means appropriate pronouns would also be gendered. Yes, in Korean “당신” and in Spanish “Usted” are non-gendered 2nd person pronouns, and in English the 2nd person is also the non-gendered “you.” The text discusses the nature of God, so a 3rd person pronoun is needed, which in English is the gendered “He/She/It.” “It” in English is used for nonliving things (and for lower-level beings whose sex can only be determined on close inspection by knowledgeable people). Would we ever use “it” as the pronoun for a human being? No! That is insulting. How much more insulting it would be to call our Heavenly Parent “It.” Surely, then, the appropriate 3rd person pronoun for Heavenly Father/Heavenly Mother is “He/She”?
Thank you again for your comment. Please feel free to comment further, especially when you have had time to study the text.
This is not light reading but very rewarding for those willing to penetrate the step-by-step process wherein the Oneness of God as a single unified Being chose to create. Ye Jin Nim was raised from birth in South Korea hearing and learning the Divine Principle which was compiled by her father’s early disciples into a text format. In her decades of lived experience, she has found that there was a bias which left the feminine side of the Creator, Heavenly Parent, in an unequal status to the masculine side. This central theme is carried forward with clarity and well documented sources.
I highly recommend this to anyone seeking to get a full understanding of missing portions of the Divine Principle which resulted in unfinished work left to be accomplished by humanity as we are witnessing in our current reality.
I have often wondered about God’s existence – did God exist “before” the creation, was there a point where God decided to create, was this God different from “before,” and how does this Creator God relate to the creation? The Divine Heart Principle text answers these questions clearly and logically: Yes, God originally existed alone as a single unified Being. Yes, God chose to create. Yes, by creating, God became Heavenly Parent, substantially Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother to human beings. Yes, this God co-exists with all in creation.
I got all this from the first subsection of Chapter 1. Looking at the Table of Contents, I was amazed to see that each point has its own subsection. So much more understanding is available!
Very impressive! I’m amazed at the detailed explanation of God as Heavenly Father/Heavenly Mother and His/Her purpose to co-create with His/Her children.
Yes, I am so happy to understand God as both Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother – equal partners in everything. And if human beings were created in God’s image, male and female, then men and women were created as equal, both to become co-creators with God!