User:Jacklavalley/Sun myung moon's philosophy of ideal families

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Sun Myung Moon's philosophy of ideal families ... Sun Myung Moon's philosophy of ideal families is rooted in metaphysical assertions about the nature and reality of love. Moon asserts that a pre-given, objective, and structured ideal of love was formulated in the "mind of God" before the emergence of human life on earth. According to Moon, the universe exists to fulfill God's ideal of love. This ideal of love is realized when human beings and all things of creation come together in a harmonious love relationship centering on God's love. Such a view poses the problem of evil. For Moon, evil is not just the absence of goodness (privato boni) but is traceable back to a rebellious angel (Lucifer) from the spiritual world who was in direct conflict with God's original ideal of love. Moon points to and redefines the traditional biblical account of our ancestors separation from God to explain why men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and parents and children have been living with enmity and violence throughout history. His reference to a premodern biblical worldview appears to be at odds with the post-modern scientific worldviewthat rejects any notions of reality or truth that can't be verified through empirical evidence.

Original impulse of love misdirected 

Moon believes our first ancestors made a mistake with love and this mistake is the root cause of all divisions and perversions of love throughout human history. Adam and Eve were created to grow in God's love, eventually get married, give birth to children of goodness, and become the first True Parents of all humankind. The commandant God gave to Adam and Eve to "not eat the fruit" meant that Adam and Eve were to wait until the time was right before engaging in conjugal sexual relations. Contrary to God's expectation, before Adam and Eve were spiritually mature, they acted like husband and wife by having illicit sexual relations. This self-centered action on the part of Adam and Eve turned their love in the opposite direction from God's original intention and set them up to become false parents instead of true parents. Adam and Eve failed to inherent God's original love and multiplied a lineage of sinful children. The original sin of Adam and Eve was that they enjoyed the fruits of sexual love before they had matured enough to take full responsibility for the consequences and rewards inherent in this kind of love.

Redirecting love

According to Moon, the problem of love must be addressed within the context of family life, starting with the relationship between husband and wife. Husband and wife need to recognize that man was created for the sake of woman and woman was created for the sake of man. The same goes for the sexual organs of human beings. Man's sexual organs exist for the sake of woman and woman's sexual organs exist for the sake of man. Love does not start from "myself" but emerges when a reciprocal partner appears. An ideal couple comes into being when each partner is able to live for the sake of the other. The partner in the reciprocal position becomes the master of love and not myself. The husband sacrifices his life for the sake of his wife and the wife is able to sacrifice her life for the sake of her husband. Moon believes that one man and one woman are the substantial object of the invisible God, with man representing God's masculine(+) nature and woman representing God's feminine(-) nature. The marriage of a man and woman is more than a social contract or legal agreement between two people that creates kinship. Marriage is the means by which man and woman combine with a higher love, God's love. The institution of marriage is not just a human invention as the cultural anthropologists have concluded, but rather, is a rule of the universe, whereby God's vertical (subjective) love meets the horizontal (objective) love of man and woman. Man and woman must marry to connect with God's vertical love.

The evolving path of love within family life

Moon proposes a paradigm he calls the four great realms of heart as the solution to end family conflict and marital discord: "What do I mean by the four great realms of heart? I refer to the perfection of the heart of parents, the heart between a husband and wife, the heart of children, and the heart of siblings. This is found in a true family bound by God's original true love, true life and true lineage ... Here, the love between parents and children establishes the vertical relationship between upper and lower; the love between husband and wife establishes the horizontal relationship that brings left and right into definitive oneness, and the love between siblings establishes the relationship between front and back.  In this way, God's ideal of creation is no longer a mere concept or dream. It is perfected in reality through the completion of the four great realms of heart centered on true lineages, family by family." The family environment is the location where God's vertical love is connected to and experienced by human beings.