The Goal of restoration History
Change of Lineage
The Principles of Restoration
The Foundation for True Parents
The Foundation of Faith
The Foundation of Substance
True Human Love Is Last to be Restored
The Role of Religion
Restoration
The Four Principles of Restoration
Returning Resurrection Versus Reincarnation
Spiritual Influences in Human Life
Conclusion
 
 
 
 
 

Due to the fall, God's intimate relationship with the children of His love was lost. As the Heavenly Father of humankind, He has had to deal with sinful men and women rather than innocent and pure beings capable of understanding His heart and will. Although the parental love of God would always seek to embrace His children, there was no one with whom God could share His deep feelings of love and no one who could carry out His will for the cre-ation of an ideal world. God's is the most lonely situation, like that of a parent whose children have been kidnapped and killed by a jealous and rebellious servant.

Since God's will is eternal and unchanging, His original purpose for creating humankind was not changed by the fall of Adam and Eve. However, it became extremely difficult for fallen men and women to fulfill that purpose. They had lost the internal qualities needed to be children of God and lords over creation. As a result, their life became very arduous, both spiritually and physically. Separated from God, people have not understood how to live a virtuous life and maintain themselves physically. In their spiritual ignorance, they have developed adversarial rather than harmonious relationships with their fellow humans and with nature. In the original world, natural human impulses were pure and guided people to God. In the fallen world, natural impulses are, more often than not, governed by fallen nature and, if obeyed, lead peo-ple to disaster.

As a parent of infinite heart, God would never allow His beloved children, however serious their mistakes, to be cast into hell forever. On the contrary, each and every one has to be restored to his or her original nature and purpose. God restores fallen humanity using the same principles of creation by which Re originally made humankind. Applied to the circumstances of fallen humans, the principles of creation become the principles of restoration. This chapter explains how these principles operate in human lives and in history, both on earth and in the spirit world.
 

The Goal of Restoration History

The fundamental problem of fallen human beings is that they lack true parents to connect them to God and raise them with true love to fulfill their original purpose. Without true parents, inevitably they are dominated by Satan through the sinful lineage inherited from the first human ancestors. Thus the key to restoring fallen humans is establishing true parents in place of the false parents, Adam and Eve. Once true parents exist, a pure new lineage, transmitting true love and free from Satan's dominion, can develop as a model for the rest of the world and the point of entry for a com-plete return to God.

Because only true parents can create a world of God's dominion and end Satan's control of humankind, the history of restoration centers on restoring first one man, a second Adam, and then one woman, a second Eve. The true family they establish is the foundation for restoring clans, tribes, nations and, ultimately, the whole world. Thus history is not just a random sequence of events; it is a purposeful movement of humankind towards a goat; the restoration of fallen humanity, beginning with true parents.
 

Change of Lineage

Once the position of true parents is established and a new, purified lineage begun, the purification of all fallen humanity can begin. Ultimately, the restoration of fallen men and women is achieved through their change of lineage from Adam and Eve's fallen line to the sinless tine of true parents. The most internal purpose of restoration history is, then, the change of fallen lineage, under Satan's dominion, to true lineage, under God's dominion. Although the scope of this text does not permit a complete expla-nation of the purification of lineage in preparation for the messiah and his bride, nor does it explain the process of engrafting by which fallen men and women are 'reborn' into the lineage of true parents, readers should know that the core objective of the restoration process, the salvation of fallen humanity, is the change of lineage.
 

The Principles of Restoration

To understand the process of restoration, one must understand the principles that govern it.
God is a God of principle, of law. He Himself exists according to divine principles, and He created according to these principles. God works to restore fallen humanity using the same perfect prin-ciples. History seen from God's point of view is the history of restoration governed by the principles of restoration. How do the principles of restoration work?

As explained in Part I, the principles of creation are the basis for the realization of an ideal world, centered on God. Adam, Eve and the Servant alt acted in violation of these principles. creating a world of distorted love and unprincipled relationships. The most basic law of restoration is that the results of the fall can be eliminated only through humans reversing the feelings, attitudes and behavior that led to the fall. Since the fundamental error of Adam and Eve was their failure to have faith in and obey the word of God, surrendering to His enemy instead, the key to restoring their failure lies in living a life of faith in obedience to God and winning the voluntary surrender of enemies through love.

Because human beings are endowed with a portion of responsi-bility, restoration through receiving God's forgiveness is condition-al on fulfillment of human responsibility. In other words, men and women have to make their own effort to change themselves in order for God to accept them fully. As a God of true love, the only desire of His heart is to be united with His children. Yet God can not share His most intimate love with fallen beings. Thus, to be restored, fallen people must first repent of their sinfulness and then demonstrate their sincere desire to return to God by making efforts to obey God's word and fulfill their true purpose. This reverses the pattern of disobedience established by Adam and Eve. The conditions of faithfulness and obedience established through these acts of surrender are called indemnity conditions. Thus, the essence of the principles of restoration can be summarized as follows: God restores fallen human beings only after they fulfill indemnity conditions.
The suffering of humanity, and in particular the suffering of individual, groups and nations chosen by God to pioneer restora-tion, has alt been related to payment of indemnity for the liberation of humankind from the dominion of Satan. There are three kinds of indemnity conditions:

Conditions of equal value: Each person is responsible for any wrong he or she does to others. Wrongs must be indemnified by conditions of equal value, offered either to the victims or others in similar situations. In other words, the original state is restored by paying indemnity equal in value to the toss or damage sustained. For example, if a man steals a car from another, he should either return the car or provide the wronged party with a car of the same value. (Since the wrong done to God cannot be equaled by human conditions, God never asks humans for a condition of equal value as the price for restoration.)

Conditions of greater value: When a person fails to establish a condition, he has to restore not only that condition but also the failure as well. Thus the new condition has to be of greater value than the original condition. For example, when Abraham made a mistake in a sacrifice of animals he was called upon by God to offer his son as a sacrifice. The accu-mulation of unfulfilled conditions over time has made the restoration process tremendously complicated. People chosen to play key roles in the providence of restoration have to establish indemnity conditions not only for their own restoration but also for the restoration of their ancestors, families, tribes, nations and even the whole of humankind, depending on their mission. Prophets and saints sent to liberate fallen humanity from the dominion of Satan have to establish indemnity conditions on behalf of the people they want to help. The man and woman chosen to be true parents in place of Adam and Eve have to pay indemnity for all humanity. If indemnity is not paid on earth, it has to be paid in the spirit world, where the lack of a body makes payment of indemnity a great deal more difficult.

Conditions of lesser value; Human beings cannot pay back the full value of what they lost in the fall and in subsequent generations of fallen existence. However, they must make conditional offerings of less value to demonstrate the sincerity of their desire to return to God. Given in a true spirit of faith, these offerings are accepted by God as conditions for forgiv-ing the human debt of sin. In the restoration process, condi-tions of lesser value are offered by followers who benefit from the indemnity offered for them by their central figures, who represent God. For example, Christians who follow Jesus can receive the benefits of his sacrifice through participating in the eucharist. The followers of a prophet inherit his founda-tion of indemnity by demonstrating faith in him and living according to his instructions. Following in his footsteps is less difficult than pioneering the path. Ultimately the universal conditions laid by the first couple to establish the position of true parents provide a foundation for all people who have faith in them to become true parents themselves, even though the conditions they have to fulfill are less demanding than those established by the first true parents. The principle of establishing conditions of lesser value to enable restoration is the basis of hope for fallen humans, who can never pay the full cost of restoration.
 

The Foundation for True Parents

The establishing of indemnity conditions is not an arbitrary process. Indemnity has to be paid with a clear purpose and accord-ing to an exact formula. There are two main objectives, the historical and the personal. The historical objective is to set up a foundation for the coming of true parents. The personal objective is to set up an individual foundation to receive true parents and be spiritually 'grafted' to their lineage.

There are two stages in laying a foundation for true parents. The first, called the foundation of faith, is to re-establish that which Adam and Eve lost first: their faith in the word of God (the commandment not to cat the fruit). The second condition, the founda-tion of substance, it to remove the result of Adam and Eve's dis-obedience: the corruption of their original, sinless nature into sinful fallen nature.
 

The Foundation of Faith

The first step fallen men and women must take on the road back to God is to demonstrate faith in the word of God. Faith is demon-strated by making an offering to God, sacrificing what one treasures for the sake of God. This reverses the mistake of Adam and Eve who demonstrated a lack of faith by choosing self-gratification over obedience to God. Prayer; meditation, study of God's word, fasting and tithing are examples of such conditional offerings which indemnify Adam and Eve's disobedience and contribute to makings foundation of faith.

Since Adam and Eve brought destruction upon humankind by pursuing their own desires against the will of God, restoration of fallen nature ultimately requires the complete submission of human desires to the will of God. Such submission requires faith, While this total surrender to God is the final stage of offering, the process begins with individuals offering their possessions and then, eventually, themselves. All self-sacrifice entails a degree of suffering. and therefore all men and women of God have had logo a way of suffering in order to attain spiritual maturity.

It is not enough merely to express an attitude of obedience to God's word. Because Adam's faith and obedience were to be upheld throughout the entire course of his growth to maturity, to re-establish the faith he lost requires a commitment of faith for a meaningful period of time. Because the central objective of restoration is fulfilling the three blessings, based on completion of the four position foundation through three stages of growth, the lime periods required for the creation of a foundation of faith typically relate to the providential numbers 4, 12, 21 and 40.

Because of the importance of these numbers in the separation of humans from Satan and making a foundation of faith, they appear frequently in sacred history. For example, in the Bible and Koran the numbers 4, 12, 21 and 40 are common; Noah's faith was vindicated through enduring 40 days of rain that led to 40 days of flooding; Jacob endured 21 year of exile during which he suffered under his uncle Laban in Haran before returning to Canaan as a victor in faith; three times in his life Moses was called upon by God to demonstrate faith for 40-year periods (in Egypt, Midian and Sinai) and he had to build faith among the Israelites with 12 tribal leaders; Jesus fasted 40 days and ministered to his 12 disci-ples for 40 days after his resurrection; Mohammed began his public mission at age 40 and completed a victorious 21-year course before his death.
 

The Foundation of Substance

A person who demonstrates his desire to return to God by successfully establishing a foundation of faith is then able to take a sub-stantial step of purification by laying a foundation of substance. The original, pure human nature was corrupted through the influence of Satan, who, though a Servant, sought the position that belonged to Adam and drew Eve into an unprincipled love relationship. Under the dominion of Satan, Adam and Eve inherited his unprincipled attitudes; self-centeredness, disobedience, resentment, arrogance and unrighteous lust for power, all derived from denying God's viewpoint. Instead of transmitting true love, life and lineage from God to their descendants, Adam and Eve became transmitters and multipliers of Satan's fallen love, life and lineage.

This means that all humanity, although endowed by God with an original nature that is free from sin, has inherited the nature of Satan. This fallen nature, with its tendency to evil, is at war with the original nature, which seeks only God and goodness. Within every fallen man and woman there is an original nature thirsting for liberation from Satan and oneness with God.

Adam lost his position through indulging in false love. The way to win back his position is through the practice of true love. An Adam figure must give God's love to a Servant figure 50 that the Servant can be won over to God's viewpoint and from his own volition accept Adam as his subject. This is the essence of Biblical and Koranic injunctions to love your enemy and repay evil with good, so as to torn an enemy into a friend. It is the person on God's side (Adam) who must take the initiative to embrace the Servant's side in the establishment of a foundation of substance.

When an Adam figure gives true love to a Servant figure, his own original nature gains ascendancy over his fallen nature, which would have him act in a selfish, satanic manner Likewise, when the Servant accepts the love of Adam and becomes obedient to Adam, his original nature as a beloved and obedient servant of God gains ascendancy over his fallen nature as a rebellious and domineering servant. Thus the purification of fallen humans, in which the good original nature becomes subject over the evil fallen nature, is accomplished through the restoration of good and proper relationships between Adam and the Servant. This restoration process applies to all fallen humanity. Alt people are put in posi-tions that offer the opportunity to restore the fallen nature they inherited by restoring Adam-Servant type relationships.

The foundation for true parents is laid by fallen humans through a process which enables them to achieve substantial purification of their fallen nature by laying foundations of faith and substance. Only a purified person can understand God's will and the dispensation for true parents, and therefore only a person who has been purified in this manner can be expected to unite with God's providence rather than oppose it.
 

True Human Love Is Last to be Restored

The first thing to be lost, a true love relationship between man and woman, is the last thing to be restored. Complete purification of human love is the ultimate goal of history. True love exists where there is purity; and purification, or restoration, of fallen nature begins in the realm of the results of the fall, not the cause. Thus the path to restore the love between Adam and Eve begins with the restoration of the Servant-Adam relationship. The history of restoration reflects this. Providential figures were sent by God to establish foundations for true parents, who would bring true love. As foundations for true parents were established in successive providential eras, the standard of man-woman love was raised. Thus in the era prior to God's first revelation of truth in the Ten Commandments, which included a prohibition against adultery, there was no established law for man-woman relations. When Jesus came on an even greater foundation than Hoses, he said that to lust itself was an act of adultery. This high moral standard is to prepare fallen men and women to receive and then emulate the true love of true parents. Celibacy in Christianity (and other faiths) is a particular condition of purification for this purpose.

Once pure conjugal love is restored, a new lineage can be found-ed and the complete restoration of fallen humanity accomplished. All men and women can regain true love, life and lineage through their relationship with true parents. The establishment of this pure lineage of true love will mark the successful achievement of the goal of restoration, because through this lineage the dominion of Satan over humankind can finally be broken and a new history of goodness begin.
 

The Role of Religion 

The purpose of religion is to inspire and guide fallen people to establish foundations of faith and substance for true parents and to become true parents themselves. Religious activity is not an end in itself but only a means of purifying people. By demonstrating faith in God and then restoring relationships with others, an individual creates the conditions necessary for restoration. The com-pletion of this process, and therefore the ultimate objective of religion, is the creation of purified lineage, free from satanic influ-ences. Once the necessary conditions have been laid, true parents can come and fulfill this purpose, opening the way for all other people lobe engrafted to their restored lineage.

The fact that humanity remains in a fallen state, despite the great efforts made through the ages by countless prophets, sages and saints, proves that this restoration process has not been successfully completed. Religion has not yet accomplished its mission. Only when people do fulfill their responsibilities in obedience to God, as taught by religion, will the conditions for restoration be completed.

Religious history is the central, causal historical process because it has to do with God's uppermost concern for humanity; the restoration of Adam and Eve. Those individuals and groups that God chooses to lead the restoration providence are given primary responsibility to obey His laws and fulfill their missions. If they succeed, they are blessed as God's chosen ones, and through them others can be blessed as well. If they fail, however, they cause a delay in the providence for which they bear particular responsibili-ty. All other historical developments, however important they may seem on the surface, are secondary to the history of restoration and should be examined in that context.
 

Resurrection 

Through the fall, human beings lost their intimate relationship with God. To be separated from God, the source of all love and life, is to die spiritually. Thus, in a spiritual sense, the Servant killed Adam and Eve when he invaded their love relationship.

Restoration of fatten human beings can be understood as resurrection of their dead spirits. Biblical and Koranic scriptures about resurrection are sometimes misunderstood to be referring to a physical phenomenon, but, according to the principle of creation, when a person dies the body has finished its purpose and disintegrates while the spirit continues to exist forever in the spirit world. It is fallen spirits and not dead bodies that need resurrection. After all, would taking on a new body bring an individual closer to God?
 

The Four Principles of Resurrection 

The process of resurrection is accomplished according to the principles of restoration. In particular, there are four laws governing the process of resurrection. These are called the four principles of resurrection.

First, resurrection takes place through God's word, the truth. God created with His word and gave His word, the command-ment, to Adam and Eve to guide them to completion. God has continued to give His word to fallen humans, to guide them back to their original purpose. Revelations of God's truth are the basis for religion. By obeying God's instructions, the fallen human spirit is separated from Satan and grows towards oneness with God in a step-by-step process of learning God's truth and applying what has been learned.

Second, resurrection takes place in three stages, formation, growth and completion. Through the fall, Adam and Eve descended spiritually from the top of the growth stage to a realm below even the formation stage. Thus the providence of restoration aims at raising fallen humans from below the formation stage to the top of the completion stage, the direct dominion of God.

Third, because the human spirit needs vitality elements from the body in order to grow, resurrection takes place on the foundation of the physical body. This is true for people on earth and for the discarnate spirits of those who have died physically. Discarnate spirits tend to seek relations with people still on earth because they can grow spiritually through serving those who are doing good deeds for God and humanity.

The men and women called by God to accomplish important providential missions inevitably attract the support of good spirits who want to benefit by contributing to the providence as directly as possible. Good spirits can be very helpful in facilitating the missions of God's chosen people, but people on earth, with spirit and body united, must remain in the subject position over spirits since restoration takes place on earth.

Fourth, resurrection takes place according to the benefits of the age. Only after a certain spiritual level has been opened up by a central figure of God can anyone else enter that level. Thus the great figures of restoration history, such as Confucius, Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, pioneered new realms of resurrec-tion for their followers to inherit.

In the history of restoration, each successful foundation laid on earth has opened up a new level of resurrection. The result on earth has been the development of enlightened cultures and civilizations, and in the spirit world of ever higher realms of being. The newly opened levels of resurrection are accessible to anyone who unites with the faith and deeds of the pioneers of those levels. The final stage of resurrection, the complete union of humans with God, will be accomplished by the true parents and then, through them, will become available to all other people. Complete resur-rection is the destiny of all humankind, since God's will for His creation can be fulfilled by no other means.
 

Returning Resurrection Venus Reincarnation 

Since immature spirit persons need to serve other people on earth until the spirits have reached full maturity of love, there is an active but invisible involvement of spirit men and women in the lives of people on earth. This is particularly the case at times of providential significance, when God, through a central figure, opens up a new level of resurrection. The central figure and his faithful followers on earth are the first to achieve the new realm, but spirits who assist them can also share in their resurrection. The return of spirits to earth to participate in the resurrection process is called returning resurrection. When it occurs, there are sometimes spiritual phenomena associated with it, such as people seeing visions, hearing voices or experiencing miraculous events in their lives.

However, the phenomena associated with returning resurrection are mistaken by some to be produced by spirits of immature peo-ple in the spirit world entering newborn bodies to fulfill their
earthly responsibilities. This theory of reincarnation holds that the karma of individuals can only be paid off through this type of return to the physical world. But this is erroneous. In fact, it for example, a Christian leader were to experience the presence and assistance of the apostle Paul, it would mean that Paul was work-ing with that leader for the sake of God's providence and for his own resurrection, and not that he had a new life on earth in the body of that leader Each person is born with a spirit of his or her own, and any successful attempt by a discarnate spirit to enter the body of anew human being can only lead to spiritual possession.
 

Spiritual Influences in Human Life 

The need of spirits to descend to earth to participate in resurrection also produces a wide range of spiritual phenomena that are not in themselves directly relevant to resurrection. Many types of mental illness are the result of spiritual interference in the lives of people who lack strong mind-body unity. Failure to put words into action makes a base for foreign spirits to interfere in a person's life, seek-ing to influence his or her thoughts and actions. A person may be troubled by a possessive relative or friend who has entered the spir-itual world already, or by other spirits who simply want to use that person for their own purposes. Only low spirits who do not under-stand their true purpose would seek to interfere negatively in the life of someone on earth. All cases of spirit possession (known to psychologists as multiple personality problems) and obsession are examples of this type of destructive interference. The cure for men-tal diseases lies ultimately in the full restoration of mind-body unity centered on God's will and complete resurrection of fallen spirits.

Fallen nature attracts low spirits. Conversely, spiritual maturity attracts high spirits. Low spirits try to dominate people on earth, exacerbating the effects of their fallen nature, whereas high spirits serve those on earth, reinforcing the power for goodness of mature persons. Thus the direction and value of someone's life determines the type of spirits that will associate with him or her.

If a tow spirit opposes a good person on earth, that person will experience difficulty in doing God's wilt. However through persevering in goodness, the individual will grow and the spirit itself will be educated. Thus men and women who maintain spiritual maturity and live according to God's principles benefit alt those spirits with whom they have relationships; high spirits grow by cooperating with them and low spirits are educated by their principled steadfastness and can grow by applying what they learn.
 

Conclusion

Restoration is accomplished when men and women take responsibility for their lives and willingly offer themselves to God. Through this offering of self, they are able to make a foundation of faith and a foundation of substance, and, as purified human beings, be prepared to receive true parents. The main goal of restoration history has been the creation of a foundation for true parents. Only once true parents come can Satan's dominion of evil be ended and the world of God's original ideal realized.

When individuals establish indemnity conditions for restoration, their fallen spirits can be resurrected by God from the death of alienation from God into a life of oneness wish God. Thus the history of restoration has also been a history of resurrection. The progress humankind makes in this history is determined by the level of human effort. Without people making a total commitment to a life of faith, the restoration/resurrection process cannot advance. To counter the tack of faith in fallen humanity, God has sent many messengers and prophets with the mission to elevate the foundation of truth, to bring enlightenment and to encourage renewed efforts in the preparation for true parents.

The principles of restoration explained in this chapter can best be understood in their historical application. They are not just a set of abstract theories but are rather the very means by which fallen humanity is purified of sin and by which providential history moves forward. The explanation of history that is contained in the following chapters shows how these principles have operated in the lives of providential individuals, families, tribes and nations As a first step, this account returns to the archetypal family of Adam and Eve, which is discussed in the next chapter.