God's Will

[하나님의 뜻 · 天意 · 창조이상 · Hananim-ui Tteus · Heaven's Purpose]

What Is God's Will?

In the theology of the Unification Movement, God's Will (하나님의 뜻, Hananim-ui Tteus) is not an abstract divine decree or an inscrutable mystery — it is a precise, historically engaged purpose that God has been striving to accomplish since the very beginning of creation.

At its core, God's Will is the fulfillment of the Three Great Blessings: the perfection of the individual, the establishment of the ideal family centered on true love, and the realization of a world in which God reigns as the loving Parent of all humanity.

This purpose is expressed most concisely in Genesis 1:28, where God charges the first human ancestors to “be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion over the earth.”

God's Will has two inseparable dimensions. The Essential Will — God's ultimate goal — is absolute, eternal, and unchanging. The Conditional Will — the method, timing, and pathway through which God's purpose is fulfilled — is conditional upon human cooperation and can be extended or altered when human beings fail to fulfill their portion of responsibility.

This distinction is one of the most theologically significant contributions of the Exposition of the Divine Principle to systematic theology: God's ultimate goal never changes, but God's providential strategy can and does respond to human freedom and failure.

The will of God is to consummate the purpose of creation. God's will cannot be consummated just within Himself, but rather in relation to others. At the time of creation, Adam and Eve were supposed to be in the object position to God to consummate the purpose of creation. Their perfection would have accomplished this. Therefore, individual perfection and the will of God are the same and cannot be separated.

— Sun Myung Moon (02/27/1977) The Will of God and Individual Perfection

This foundational statement — that God's Will and human perfection are inseparable — distinguishes Unification theology sharply from traditions that place God's Will entirely beyond human influence. For Rev. Moon, the answer to the question “What is God's Will?” is ultimately personal: it is the calling of every individual to become a true person, to build a true family, and to work alongside God in building the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

Section I — Etymology and Linguistic Background

The primary Korean expression 하나님의 뜻 (Hananim-ui Tteus) combines three elements: 하나님 (God, literally “the One Being” or “Heavenly Parent”), the possessive particle 의, and 뜻 — a word of unusual depth. The noun 뜻 encompasses will, purpose, intention, heart, and meaning simultaneously. It is the same word used in Korean translations of the Lord's Prayer: “뜻이 하늘에서 이루어진 것같이 땅에서도 이루어지이다” (Matt. 6:10).

In everyday Korean, 뜻 carries the sense of both a person's deep inner intention and the meaning they convey — suggesting that God's Will is not merely a command to be obeyed but a living meaning to be understood, internalized, and enacted.

The Hanja 天意 (Cheoni) — “Heaven's Intention” — is used in classical and literary contexts, reflecting the Confucian and Taoist concept of Tian (Heaven) as the source of moral order.

Unification theology both inherits and transcends this tradition: God is not the impersonal Heaven of Chinese cosmology but a personal, heart-filled Parent (하늘부모님, Haneul Bumonim) whose Will is rooted in love, not merely in cosmic law.

Related terms frequently used in Unification texts include:

창조이상 (Changjo Isang) — the Creation Ideal, God's original design before the Fall
섭리 (Seomni) — Providence, God's ongoing historical activity to restore His Will
삼대축복 (Samdae Chukbok) — the Three Great Blessings, the concrete content of God's Will
뜻성사 (Tteus-seongsa) — the Accomplishment of the Will, a phrase frequently used in prayers and exhortations
하늘의 뜻 (Haneul-ui Tteus) — Heaven's Will, a slightly softer, more pastoral expression used interchangeably with 하나님의 뜻 in sermons and daily speech

Section II — The Theological Definition: Three Great Blessings as the Content of God's Will

The Exposition of the Divine Principle provides the clearest systematic definition of God's Will in Unification theology. It is the fulfillment of the Three Great Blessings (삼대축복) given to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28:

The First Blessing — “Be fruitful.” This means the perfection of the individual character: mind and body united under God's direct dominion, the person becoming a temple of God, overflowing with true love and expressing God's divine nature. A perfected individual can never fall because goodness does not contain the seed of its own destruction. This is God's Will at the personal level.

The Second Blessing — “Multiply.” This means the establishment of an ideal family founded on True Love — a husband and wife who have both realized individual perfection, who marry under God's blessing, who become True Parents, and who give birth to sinless children, thereby realizing the Four-Position Foundation (사위기대). This is God's Will at the family level.

The Third Blessing — “Have dominion over the earth.” This means the establishment of a world in which humanity, as God's representative, exercises loving stewardship over creation. Not domination over nature, but responsible care reflecting God's own mastery and creativity. This is God's Will at the cosmic level.

Had Adam and Eve reached perfection, being thereafter insusceptible to sin, they would have borne good children and founded a sinless family and society in complete concordance with God's blessings. They would have founded the Kingdom of Heaven, which consists of one great family with the same parents.

— The Completion of God's Purpose of Creation

The Kingdom of Heaven described here is not a remote eschatological event but the natural, inevitable outcome of human beings fulfilling the Three Great Blessings generation by generation. God's Will, in this view, is eminently practical: it is the world that results when every person, every family, and every nation lives according to the Principle of Creation.

Section III — God's Will Is Absolute but Requires Human Cooperation

A theological paradox stands at the center of Unification teaching on God's Will: it is simultaneously absolute and dependent on human beings. God's Will cannot fail in its ultimate sense — it will be accomplished — but it can be delayed, extended, and even derailed at the level of particular individuals, peoples, and generations who fail to fulfill their portion of responsibility.

This is grounded in the Principle of Creation's teaching on the Realm of Indirect Dominion: during the growth period, human beings operate within the realm of God's indirect guidance, not direct command. God allows free will to develop and holds humans responsible for their choices. This means that the method through which God's Will is fulfilled is genuinely conditional — human cooperation is not merely desirable but structurally necessary.

There is one important principle. When God fulfills His will, He cannot do it Himself. He has to go through men and women. We are the instruments of God. God's will is also eternal, unchanging and unique. The will of God has never changed, though the application or the method to fulfill the will of God has to change from one time to another.

— Sun Myung Moon (03/21/1976) The Will Of God

The phrase “has to change from one time to another” is not a concession to divine weakness. It is a statement about the nature of love: God, as a true Parent, will not override human freedom even when that freedom is used wrongly.

Instead, God persists — working through successive generations, raising new central figures, and redirecting the path of providence toward the same unchanging goal.

This is why providential history appears to move in spiral or circular patterns. The Exposition of the Divine Principle on the Periods in Providential History demonstrates this through the typological parallels between the Old Testament Age and the New Testament Age: the same providential patterns — preparation, central figure, foundation, crisis, extension — repeat at successively higher levels until the Will is finally accomplished.

Section IV — God's Will and the Providence of Restoration

Because human beings fell at the very beginning of history, fulfilling God's Will became inseparable from restoring what was lost.

The Exposition of the Divine Principle teaches that “God's work of salvation is the Providence of Restoration” (복귀섭리). This is the theological framework within which all of human history makes sense.

God will save this sinful world, by all means. He must expel the evil power of Satan from this sinful world, thereby bringing it back to its original state prior to the Fall of the human ancestors. Salvation must then continue until the good purpose of creation is fulfilled and God's direct dominion is established.

— God's Work of Salvation is the Providence of Restoration

The phrase “by all means” (반드시) is significant. God's commitment to fulfilling His Will is unconditional. The cost — centuries of suffering, repeated failures by central figures, the prolongation of the age of restoration — is enormous, but God's perseverance does not waver.

The Goal of the Providence of Restoration is stated concisely: the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven, which in its totality is God's good object partner and the fulfillment of His purpose of creation.

Every providential event from Abraham to Moses to Jesus to the present age is a chapter in this sustained effort. No generation is outside of God's Will. Every person who has ever lived has had a role — however small — in carrying forward the providence.

Section V — God's Will and True Love: The Heart Dimension

If the structural content of God's Will is the Three Great Blessings, its motivational core is True Love (참사랑, Cham Sarang).

Rev. Moon consistently taught that God did not create the world out of necessity or to demonstrate power, but out of a profound desire to share love. This insight grounds the concept of God's Will in the emotional-relational dimension of God's own heart (심정, shimjeong).

Even almighty God cannot experience the value of love, life, and His ideal when He is alone. That is why God created His object, man. God is the subject of love, the subject of life, and the subject of ideals. We are the objects of love, the objects of life, and the objects of ideals.

— Sun Myung Moon (10/20/1973) God's Hope for Man

The implication is radical: God's Will is not God's decree over creation but God's longing for creation. God needs human beings not as servants or instruments, but as partners through whom He can experience the fullness of love. This reframes the entire providential drama: history is not primarily a story of human failure and divine punishment, but of a Father and Mother God persistently reaching toward the children they created and love absolutely.

The Cheon Seong Gyeong's teaching on God's purpose in creating human beings makes this even more explicit:

God created human beings because of love. We differ from other things in creation because we were created as God's sons and daughters — as God's object partners who can receive God's direct love. This is the privilege of human beings.

— Sun Myung Moon (132-244, 06/20/1984), Cheon Seong Gyeong

To understand God's Will is, therefore, to understand God's Heart. A person who knows what God wants must first feel what God feels — the joy of creation, the grief over the Fall, the patient longing through thousands of years of providential history, and the hope for the day when restored humanity returns to God's embrace.

Section VI — God's Will and Human Responsibility

One of the most consequential teachings about God's Will in the Unification tradition is the direct relationship between it and human responsibility (책임분담, Chaeknim Bundamn).

God's Will is not a fate that unfolds automatically, nor is it solely dependent on the Messiah. Every human being — every Blessed Family, every tribal messiah, every individual believer — participates in carrying the Will forward.

Rev. Moon articulated this through the concept of living for the sake of others (남을 위해 사는 것) as the practical content of aligning with God's Will. To live for God's Will means to subordinate personal interest to the larger purpose, to invest one's resources and energy in the restoration of the individual, the family, the tribe, the nation, and the world.

This principle has a cost. As Rev. Moon explained in his 1976 sermon:

Once you have found complete unity between mind and body, then you are in parallel with the Universal Being. You are a son of the universe. Through that, God will fulfill His providence. God is seeking such a man. And we desire to become such men.

— Sun Myung Moon (03/21/1976) The Will Of God

The emphasis on mind-body unity is not incidental.

In Unification theology, the disunity between mind and body is the fundamental symptom of the Fall — the original sin manifesting in every person. To unite mind and body under God is to make oneself “parallel with the Universal Being,” to become the conduit through which God's Will can actually flow into the world. This is why personal spiritual growth is not merely a private concern but a providential one.

Section VII — God's Will at Each Providential Age

God's Will expresses itself differently at each major age of providential history:

In the Old Testament Age, God's Will centered on the restoration of the Foundation of Faith and the Foundation of Substance — preparing the ground for the Messiah through the course of the chosen people.

The offerings, the commandments, the prophetic witness — all were instruments through which a people was shaped to receive the one who could fulfill God's Will completely.

In the New Testament Age, God's Will took the form of Jesus' call to the Kingdom — the urgent invitation to repent and enter God's direct reign on earth. The tragedy of the cross, which the Exposition of the Divine Principle explains as a consequence of Israel's failure, represented a detour rather than the final destination. God's Will was not changed, but its fulfillment was extended.

In the Completed Testament Age, God's Will reaches its climactic expression in the mission of the True Parents, who come to accomplish at the family and cosmic level what Jesus could only accomplish spiritually. The Blessing Ceremony is the central sacramental act of this age: through the Blessing, fallen lineages are grafted into God's lineage, and the family becomes the foundational unit through which the Kingdom of Heaven is built, nation by nation.

Section VIII — Comparative Perspective

Christianity

Classical Christian theology frames God's Will largely in terms of divine sovereignty (voluntas Dei) — either as God's antecedent will (what God desires for all people: salvation) or His consequent will (what God permits to occur, including evil, within His providential plan). Calvinist traditions emphasize the absolute character of God's decrees; Arminian traditions emphasize human freedom within God's permissive will. Unification theology's contribution is to hold both poles in constructive tension: God's ultimate Will is absolutely fixed (the fulfillment of the Three Great Blessings), but God's concrete working plan is genuinely responsive to human choices. This resembles Open Theism more closely than either classical Calvinism or classic Arminianism, while adding a providential structure (indemnity conditions, typological repetition) that neither tradition developed.

Judaism

In the Hebrew prophetic tradition, ratzon Adonai (the Will of the Lord) is conveyed above all through Torah — a specific and demanding legal and ethical program through which the covenant people orders its life. The prophets consistently framed Israel's failures as departures from God's Will and called the nation back.

Unification theology resonates with this prophetic view of history as a sustained moral drama in which God's Will is frustrated by human faithlessness and advanced by faithfulness.

The key Unification addition is the concept of typological patterns that repeat across generations, allowing a systematic reading of both Old Testament and New Testament providential failures.

Islam

The Islamic concept of masha'allah — “what God wills, occurs” — and of qadar (divine decree) in its mainstream Ash'arite expression tends toward a more deterministic account of God's Will. At the same time, Islamic theology also maintains human accountability through the concept of free will within the scope of God's foreknowledge.

Unification theology's framework — that God's goal is fixed but His method is responsive — may find more resonance with Mu'tazilite theological traditions, which gave a stronger role to human reason and will in understanding and fulfilling God's purpose.

Buddhism

Unlike theistic traditions, Buddhism does not generally posit a God with a Will in the personal sense. However, the concept of dharma — the cosmic law of right order that underlies all existence — offers a functional parallel to God's Will as the structural principle that the world is meant to embody. The Bodhisattva's vow to remain engaged in the world until all beings are liberated resonates with Rev. Moon's understanding of God as the One who has never abandoned the world despite countless disappointments.

The Unification emphasis on heart (shimjeong) and love as the ultimate reality, however, represents a decisive difference from Buddhist traditions that tend to transcend rather than fulfill personal relationships.

Section IX — Practical Dimension: Living for God's Will

For members of the Unification Movement, the question “What is God's Will for my life?” has both a universal answer and a personal one.

The universal answer is always the same: to perfect one's individual character, to build a blessed family centered on true love, and to fulfill one's role in God's providence as a Tribal Messiah and a peacemaker in the world.

The personal dimension is more specific. Each member is called to discern where they stand in God's providential plan and what contribution is needed from them at this moment in history. This requires the spiritual practice of Hoon Dok Hae — daily reading of Rev. Moon's words — which is understood as a constant recalibration of one's personal compass to God's Will.

The tradition also carries a demanding ethic of sacrifice for God's Will. Rev. Moon's own life — years in prison under two totalitarian regimes, decades of misunderstanding and persecution, relentless global activity into his nineties — is held up as the supreme model of living for God's Will regardless of personal cost. Members are taught that to the extent they sacrifice their own will for God's Will, they receive God's blessing in return — not as a transaction but as the natural law of the Kingdom: those who invest in God's purpose become its beneficiaries.

Prayer — particularly the kind of fervent, weeping prayer that characterized the early Korean movement — is understood as the most direct form of alignment with God's Will. In prayer, the heart is opened to God's grief, God's joy, and God's purpose. What one cannot accomplish through reason alone, God accomplishes through a heart that is willing.

Section X — Academic Note

The Unification concept of God's Will has attracted sustained scholarly attention as one of the most philosophically developed aspects of Unification theology.

Young Oon Kim (Unification Theology, 1980) — the first systematic Unification theologian — analyzed Rev. Moon's distinction between the essential and conditional dimensions of God's Will as a significant contribution to the problem of theodicy. She argued that this framework offers a more coherent account of why evil persists in a world governed by a good and powerful God than either classical omnipotence theologies or process theology.

Jonathan Wells (The Theology of Unification, 1989) explored the relationship between God's Will and human responsibility in the Unification framework, noting its resonance with the theological anthropology of Karl Barth's concept of the “covenant partner” — the human being whose genuine response to God's initiative is a real contribution to the unfolding of redemption.

Ninian Smart and Richard Hecht (Sacred Texts of the World, 1982) placed the Unification concept of God's Will within the broader comparative category of “cosmic intention,” noting that while Western monotheisms typically frame divine will as command, the Unification framework frames it more as divine desire and longing — closer in some respects to Sufi expressions of God's longing for the human beloved.

Within New Religious Movements studies, the theology of God's Will in Unification thought has been analyzed as the framework that gives coherence to the movement's otherwise diverse social, political, and ritual programs. Eileen Barker (The Making of a Moonie, 1984) noted that for Unification members, all activities — from street witnessing to international peace conferences — are understood as expressions of God's Will rather than organizational strategy, which gives the movement a distinctive quality of motivated sacrifice that sociologists of religion associate with high-tension religious movements.

Critics have focused on the question of how God's Will can be known with the certainty that Unification members often claim, given that the movement's history has included considerable redirection of both eschatological expectations and practical programs.

Unification apologists respond that this very redirection is itself theologically anticipated — the Conditional Will changing while the Essential Will remains fixed.

Key Texts on tplegacy.net

The Will of God and Individual Perfection — a definitive 1977 sermon
The Will Of God — the 1976 Barrytown address
God's Hope for Man — the 1973 New York address on love, life, and God's ideal
God's Work of Salvation is the Providence of Restoration — the Exposition of the Divine Principle's foundational statement
The Goal of the Providence of Restoration — the Kingdom of Heaven as God's Will
The Completion of God's Purpose of Creation — individual perfection as God's Will
The God's Will and the World — full series — the canonical collection of Rev. Moon's major speeches on this theme