In responding personally to Dr. Noda’s “Interpreting the
Principle: The Transformative and the Objective” I begin telling my
encounters with it to discover whether I am an objectivist, a transformativist,
or an integralist.
My first encounter with the teachings of the
True Parents was in a lecture in the summer of 1970: “The Principle of Creation” (a topic only cursorily mentioned by Dr.
Noda). Certain points in the lecture were transformative as they gave me new
hope. In 1969, I had abandoned my hope
for the conversion to pacifism of individuals in democratic states,
decided to become a rural minister, and enrolled in Union Theological Seminary
to begin my studies in the fall of 1970.
In the
lecture, the first point that stimulated some hope was that individuals exist
in families that protect and help them, and that their decisions concerning
matters beyond the family are influenced by their participation in it. The
lecturer pointed out that, further, families exist in communities that protect
and help… etc. The next transformative insight was the principle of dual
purpose. I immediately felt that, armed with these insights, I should resume my
efforts for conversions to pacifism. This was one factor in my deciding, in
September 1971, to commit myself to discipleship in Master’s project to help
God realize the peaceful world (based on my understanding of the project’s
regulations as they existed). My stance
in interpreting the points was transformativist, experiencing them immediately
in the context of my ongoing life and later also.
My next
encounter with the Principle was the studying of Young Oon Kim’s Divine
Principle and its Applications. (The book does not identify the Divine
Principle as distinguished from its applications.) I was not particularly
interested in the discussion of dual characteristics, but understood the nature
of the subject-object relationship (which I have come to view as most
importantly centered on the subject’s greater responsibility). The principle/
insight of the four-position foundation and its formation I understood as a
description of how everyone thinks. For example, if one feels a slight
penetration in one’s arm, one intuitively knows that it was caused by a force,
that the force had direction, and that it originated as an impulse. The principle/
theory of the three objects purpose I found realistic in its recognition that a
child often takes the subject position, initiating a giving and responding. In
my concluding that these principles are universally true, was my stance ipso facto (critical) objectivist? This
may also be the case with the principle of dual purpose. Especially when it is applied to an
individual in the family, it would appear to almost anyone as an ethical
principle. It may be that family members universally are at least unconsciously
aware of this principle. Nevertheless, I have recently been seeking to apply this
as more fundamental, considering the purpose of the individual of any entity to
be repairing, maintaining, or fortifying the entity’s foundation for realizing
the purpose of the greater entity in which it participates.
Of great
importance to me, second only to the theory of dual purpose, were the theories
of the three stages of the growing process and of indirect and direct dominion.
Miss Kim’s book included Mark 4:27’s description of the stages in the growth of
a plant. Again, I considered this description to be widely comfortably
acceptable, and labels of the stages, such as, ’forming’, ‘growing’, and
‘completing’ apt. I have been spent a
considerable amount of thinking about applications of this theory, both within Principle
texts and outside of them, including in Euclidean geometry and in theory of
narrative, the structuralist theory – especially as codified by A-J Greimas
with 3 stages – becoming an important part of the framework of my thinking.
Already in September 1971 I applied the three-stage theory in developing my
curricula for the second and third years of my M.Div. studies, and found each year’s curriculum
internally coherent. Thus, objectivist
enhancement of my thinking processes became useful, transformative, in my life.
The concept of God’s indirect dominion
of a person (which can be metaphorically extracted from the verse in Mark)
resonated well with my Quaker inclinations, and the concept of God’s direct
dominion supported my hope for the end of religion as prophesied by Jeremiah. I
am considering that the Principle texts’ theories exemplified in the above
Bible verse may be descriptions of the way all human beings think.
While attending the
lecture, I had accepted the discussion of the original mind, conscience, and
the fallen mind as descriptive of my everyday experiences and was pleased that
it affirms my long-held assumption (and the assumption of progressive
education) that everyone is fundamentally altruistic. This had prepared me,
finally, for some discussion of today’s discordant society; however, I doubted
the existence of angels, thinking that that was likely a mythologizing of a
tendency within persons to promote the purpose of the individual over the
purpose of a whole, fearing that pursuit of the latter might lead to total loss.
(Some years later, I proved to myself that if there were no angels, the entire Principle
of Creation would unravel.) The discussion of Jesus’ role in the attempt to
dispel the “fallen mind” was familiar as a description of my ongoing religious
practices.
I have found
that True Father’s persistent use of numerology, which at first bothered me, to
be a tool for understanding the Bible, assuming that the final redactor used
the numbers to signify the nature or meaning of that to which they refer. When
asked about the actual historicity of the Bible’s 10 generations before Noah,
True Father said that they did not need to be generations but could be the
number of providential figures. If my view that, owing to the human portion of
responsibility, the only thing predetermined is the fulfillment of the steps of
the scenario – in the ever- continuing
activities of creation – leading to the realization of the world according to
God’s ideal is true, then any of the biblical and post-biblical periods that
are neatly matched up could have been shorter, perhaps divisible by 10 or 4: however,
the pattern of exemplification through establishment of a communicable standard
to attempts to realize the standard would remain.
I read the
story of the Fall, its consequences, and the analysis of freedom in Exposition
of the Divine Principle. My general response to the story is that which
Alison Wakelin reported in her comment on Dr. Noda’s post, that it is plausible
that all subsequent human ills have stemmed from the spiritual invasion of a
couple who are the ancestors of all subsequent human beings. I find Eve’s growing admiration and love for
the Archangel, past the point where her
conscience warned of its inappropriateness, to the point where she could not stop
but agreed to its consummation, to be typical of the process of yielding to a
temptation. Absent in the story is any mention of Adam, Eve’s sibling
relationship with whom constituted the immediate whole of her existence as she
sought the further realization of her individual purpose by sensual
gratification, new knowledge, and becoming “like God”. Of significance to me greater than the story
is the assertion that the immediate consequence of the Fall was undue fearfulness.
I find that to be a crucial factor in many rational but regrettable decisions.
The chapter on the Fall in Exposition of
the Divine Principle contains two further important principles. The first
is the four-step process of the fallen original nature. Having read that, I
readily began to consciously always seek to perform its converse. (Nonetheless,
on three important occasions I realized that I had failed to do so.) Wholly eye-opening
to me was the chapter’s principle of freedom: that internal freedom consists of
acting according to the Principle and that freedom is complete only with the
intended result. I understand the former to be willing and acting to fulfill
one’s fundamental desire, which is to give love aiming for the greatest imagined
result. It is in the process of forming my will that “evil forces” intervene. Internal
alienation is from one’s fundamental desire.
Finally,
regarding the interpretation of church rituals and key events: Such, if
participated in wholeheartedly, are by their very nature transformative at least
temporarily. I have been wholehearted in the ones in which I have chosen to
participate. My natural intellectual search for their deeper or more precise meaning
has not greatly influenced their effect.
In
conclusion, I have reported experiences in confronting points in a lecture and
in two books promoted or sanctioned by HSA-UWC or FFWPU and in promoted or
sanctioned rituals. I have suggested that my stance in some has been
transformativist and in others universalistic. However, I find that I am
insufficiently clear about and comfortable with Dr. Noda’s concept ‘
objectivist’ to firmly state, in answering
the question posed at the start of this
comment, that I am an integralist –
holding the two posed interpretive stances either alternatingly or
finding them not mutually to be
exclusive, as in my experience of encountering a point novel to me being
transformative and also concluding that it was descriptive of universal human
experience.
