The First Cause of all existence did not merely create the world long ago and let it run on its own steam ever since. God is sustaining and moving the world, continually causing reality from moment to moment.
Furthermore, as the Cause, God determines the purpose and qualities of all beings.
In this regard, Father Moon teaches that as the cause of human beings, God is a personal God who created human beings with characteristics resembling Himself. Nothing exists apart from a preordained purpose and goal, towards which it moves by God’s unseen hand.
This means that God is also the cause of history. Father Moon points out that history moves in accordance with God’s purpose—a divine providence governed by definite laws and that advances towards a clear goal.
When the world reaches that goal, the Cause (God) and the effect (humanity) will be one.
011. The Cause of All Existence
I am the nucleus of every creature, Arjuna; for without me nothing can exist, neither animate nor inanimate…
Wherever you find strength, or beauty, or spiritual power, you may be sure that these have sprung from a spark of my essence. Bhagavad-Gita 10.39, 41 (Hinduism)
There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist. Corinthians 8.6
The loving sage beholds that Mysterious Says Nanak, Ever is He in bliss, Existence wherein the universe comes to have one home; Adi Granth, Japuji 3, M.1, p. 2 (Sikhism) Therein unites and therefrom issues the whole: The Lord is the warp and woof in created beings. White Yajur Veda 32.8 (Hinduism)
Eternally, He doles out gifts; Those receiving them at last can receive no more. Infinitel,y the creation receives from Him sustenance.
He is the Ordainer; By His Ordinance the universe He runs. Says Nanak, Ever is He in bliss, Ever fulfilled. Adi Granth, Japuji 3, M.1, p. 2 (Sikhism)
If God removed His hand, the world would end. Proverb
(African Traditional Religions)
Surely it is He who originates, and brings again, and He is the All-forgiving, the All-loving, Lord of the Throne, the All-glorious, Performer of what He desires.
Qur’an 85.13-16
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Before we were born, God designed our eyes, ears, mouth, etc., so that they might perceive and know all that exists in this world. Could human beings have known beforehand everything they needed to live? There must be a Being, omniscient and transcendent of human beings, who knows everything. That Being is God.
(Way of God’s Will)
God is the Causal Being of the universe. He is the Causal Being of all faculties. He is the Causal Being who adds energy. He is the Causal Being who gives direction and purpose… He presents a purpose with a direction always centered on His deep motivation, and He keeps this position without wavering. That is why, if we begin from the Cause and fix on His direction, we can move to the world that fulfills His purpose. (89:75-76, July 11, 1976)
Everything about human beings—alive with consciousness, pursuing goodness and higher value, and having a sense of sorrow and sadness—began from their Origin, not from themselves. In this resultant human life, we are going through the process of connecting with the original Cause. (140:123, February 9, 1986)
For anything on this earth to exist, there must be a cause that enables it to exist. The community in which we live, our nation, and the entire visible world are each at different levels of effect.
The complexity of connections that form each of these environments must have developed from a cause. Human beings create societies, nations, and the world. Yet, the fundamental cause that formed human beings does not lie within us.
Without a doubt, we are resultant beings. We were formed from some preexisting motivation and content. We came from a cause. God is the First Cause. How do you think He created human beings?
God made us in His image, like Himself. That means the Father resembles us just as we resemble the Father. So when someone asks you, “What kind of being is God?” you can answer, “He is someone like me.” This answer will hit the mark. (127:233)
Every individual has unlimited hope, unlimited ambition, and unlimited ideals.
For us, resultant beings to be this way, there first had to be a causal being that possesses these qualities.
The causal being is a real existence. We call it God. God is a personal God; therefore, God can be the total motivation and cause for us human beings.
Because God, the Cause, possesses such a nature, human beings, who are the effect, must necessarily possess the same nature. It stands to reason that one day, God—the cause—and we human beings—beings-the effect-will become so inseparable that nothing can tear us apart.
That day of reunion must appear in the human world. God has kept this cherished desire as He sought for humanity. (28:282-83, February 11, 1970)
022. The Cause behind History
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,”
calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it.
Isaiah 46.9-11
On the day when we shall roll up heaven as a scroll is rolled for the writings;
As We originated the first creation, so We shall bring it back again—a promise binding on Us; so We shall do. For we have written in the Psalms, after the Remembrance, “The earth shall be the inheritance of My righteous servants.” Qur’an 21.104
I testify that Thou art the Lord of all creation,
and the Educator of all beings, visible and invisible.
I bear witness that Thy power hath encompassed the entire universe,
and that the hosts of the earth can never dismay Thee,
Nor can the dominion of all peoples and nations deter
Thee from executing Thy purpose. I confess that
Thou hast no desire except the regeneration of the whole world,
and the establishment of the unity of its peoples,
and the salvation of all they that dwell therein.
Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh 115 (Baha’i Faith)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
God is the First Cause and Creator of the universe—this is the starting point of religion. Moreover, God is good, and He is eternal and unchanging, unique and absolute. As such, a God created this world, He must have first formed a purpose for the creation. The purpose of creation would also have to be eternal, unchanging, unique, and absolute. (100:241, October 19, 1978)
A human being manifests the result. No one insists that human beings are the First Cause. Even if we do not know our cause, we know that we are the result of some existence, because we were born. In order to know what a human being is, we should know the Being who made human beings as resultant beings.
Therefore, we should have a clear answer to the question of God, the First Cause. Only by knowing God, the Causal Being, is it possible to set our direction in life.
Only with God can we find the teaching for how we should live, how our family should live, how society, the nation and the world should function. It concerns not only my individual direction, but also the way the world is going in these Last Days. (100:234, February 26, 1986)
Of everything that happens in the flow of history, nothing occurs without a relationship to thy providence. (140:62, February 1, 1986)
Although the direction of history appears to be heading toward evil, that is not true. History progresses as human beings, through the operation of the mind, restrain their bodies, and determine with resolve the direction they will go. Thus does God work in the background to govern and direct history’s development over certain times and periods. (4:191, April 20, 1958)
In the past, the present, and the future, the eternal God directs His providence.
Therefore, the sagas recorded in God’s heart pattern the history of every age, and the sagas that shaped those ages foreshadow the future. (16:253, June 19, 1966)
END OF BOOK CHAPTER