International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences

The unity of the sciences

True Parents founded and hosted the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences (ICUS) which pursued the realization of world peace based on absolute values. This began in 1972, drawing the participation of world-renowned scholars.

The first conference was held November 23-26, 1972 under the theme “Moral Orientation of the Sciences” at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The second conference was held November 18-21, 1973 under the theme “Modem Science and Moral Values” at the Tokyo Imperial Hotel.

It was remarkable that five Nobel laureates, including renowned physicists, participated in the second conference.

From then on, each ICUS was held with the theme, of “absolute values.”As the founder, True Father spoke on each occasion. “

1. When I received the call of heaven, the question was how to put the current world in order and find a shortcut to transforming it into the ideal world that God desires. To address this question, we assembled a group of professors and created the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences.

In 1971, when I went alone to America, I remember that I felt like an unprotected orphan in a desolate wilderness with a pack of wolves prowling around me. I thought to myself, “I came here to this place with the mission of turning this country upside down within three and a half years.

I must turn the country upside down.” The question was how to establish a foundation in that environment. (142-188, 1986/03/09)

2. When I first went to America, the annual budget of our American church headquarters was about $26,000. Now, almost ten years later, we have established an economic foundation that is several hundred times greater than when we began.

As we attained this level, a problem arose in that the church's applications for long-term visas for overseas members working in the United States were being denied, and some foreign members had to return home. Nonetheless, before they had to leave, that foundation had been laid.

Why did we have such a battle? It was because we were building a foundation to overcome communism. For that purpose, it was inadequate to have only young people. Therefore, the problem was how to bring together the most intelligent scholars in the world, those who could address that purpose. That is why I made ICUS. (110-173, 1980/11/17)

3. When ICUS was launched, I probably looked like an errand boy from the local district office.

However, this is not a bad thing. I fully went along with it. If I had created opposition then, everything would have collapsed and would have been discarded long ago.

There was one incident when after I gave my keynote address, a world-renowned biologist loudly objected and stormed out. I was treated like this.

But I said what I had to say. I did not dwell on that. My heart was to forgive and forget. A high mountain is struck by wind first and is buried in snow even during the summer. If it does not remain steadfast, what will happen? That famous mountain will break into pieces.

While people live comfortably in the world, the snow-covered peak lives a lonely and isolated life. But in the end, that mountain, like Mt. Baekdu or Mt. Everest in the Himalayas, will be a sign of hope for the brave heroes who strive to reach its summit. (207-186, 1990/11/09)

4. According to my research, I can see that to this day communists have actively opposed the United States government, in particular the administration and its foreign policy.

Campus-based activities are unstable and subject to change. So, before communists appear in the open, we must try to reach eminent people who have broad influence. The country must take this on; yet as it can not, we must do it.

The purpose is to save the United States.

We plan to form a strong union connecting Japan and Taiwan in the future. After holding conferences on science and government, we must develop global activities to prevent communist powers from establishing hegemony in the United Nations.

If America does not do that, we need to do it. I have to take this action. To carry out this work, I have been making preparations of which you are not aware.

Why are we doing this? We need to show a new direction to the United States, but we are not a recognized public voice. Therefore, we need to broaden our foundation and create a proper base.

I am doing this to transfer this pressing mission fully to the people in the United States, so that they, in doing the will of heaven, will be able to contribute to the advancement of the democratic world. (067-314, 1973/07/22)

5. Scholars in each ICUS committee are experts. They are influential in their fields.

Nevertheless, there was not one among them who had a vision or determination to influence the whole world through uniting scholars in the academic community. Nonetheless, this is the effort we are making, and for this, the Unification Church deserves appropriate recognition.

If I continue this work, what I see happening is that I will inspire the brightest intellectuals in America to align with and assist in our activities to save America.

Because scholars gather at international academic conferences restricted to their fields or specialties, the themes of those conferences are often quite limited.

However, we hold an assembly that interconnects all fields and specialties, so I envisage that this conference will reach the world level and gather more than 70 Nobel Prize winners. Viewed in this way, these academic conferences are unprecedented.

It is my vision that the ten major universities in America will each align with a Nobel laureate, enabling them to take the lead and indicate the direction toward the future.

My hope for the science conferences is that the universities will systematically select professors to show the direction and that students will also mobilize to build their movement. This is my hope and vision for ICUS.
(074-113, 1974/11/25)

6. The first ICUS was held in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. At that time, 32 scholars attended, and I was sitting in the corner like an errand boy without anyone noticing whether I was there or not. However, even though I could not speak English back then, I gave an address as the founder.

We continued to hold such conferences over the ensuing years and the outcome was good. People started saying that it was Reverend Moon, not the chairman, who did a good job. Having come to this point, the world's scholars began to respect and welcome me as their elder.

If I were to visit any country in the world, invite the scholars who attended our science conferences, and host a big banquet, I would be able to bring together hundreds of other people too. We already have a global foundation of this magnitude. (107-221, 1980/05/19)

7. ICUS was created to prepare the foundation to mobilize the great scholars of the world. The second conference was held in Tokyo, and we let famous professors, mainly from Tokyo University, lead the group of well-known scholars. As the founder of that conference, I intended to give the opening remarks.

An address given by the host would be reasonable in any organization, but I discovered that my speech was completely left out of the program. Therefore, that evening I turned things upside down. I felt they held me in contempt and I corrected their attitude.

Until that time, people who did not have a chance to meet me on previous occasions thought they would see a person wearing some sort of royal crown or having some important title and wearing a long flowing robe.

People who were oblivious to my identity were still wondering, “Who is this Moon person, the founder of the Unification Church?”

Even when I was walking up to the stage, people were still looking around, trying to see this person named Moon. In such upside-down circumstances, I smiled and began my speech, standing in a dignified manner. I said, “I am standing here with the destiny of Asia and the world at stake.” (109-235, 1980/11/01)

8. The first ICUS was held in New York City, and the second was held in Tokyo. Now we are holding the third in London. The 4th will be held in New York City again. In doing this, we are creating a movement that gathers the great stars of the world stage, the stars of the academic world.

By the 4th conference, when international celebrities speak again, and it comes to light that a significant number of Nobel prizewinners are participating here, the conference will approach the world level and will be publicized on a grand scale.

This means we are building a foundation and will no longer need to be embarrassed, even when relating to the media.

Therefore, after the New York conference, we want to call scholars from around the world to begin this work in earnest. Until that time, we will pull these scholars from in front and push them along from behind.

We are taking action to move the world into the future. Mobilizing distinguished international scholars through interdisciplinary conferences will be the basis to move the world. (071-173, 1974/04/30)

9. In November 1975, scholars of 60 nationalities gathered for the ICUS. We invited them to New York City and hosted a banquet. It was attended by 350 world-renowned scholars, including Nobel prizewinners.

This has been continuing for the past five years. By the sixth year, all scholars will have heard about ICUS. To accompany those events, I plan to strengthen the worldwide Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) and bring it into unity with those scholars.

If you are going to move the world, you start by moving university campuses. The world's campuses create ideas that impact the media world and economic world. Therefore, the one who moves the world's campuses can lead the world.
(085-290, 1976/03/04)

10. Even if you hold a PhD, you must understand not only your field but other fields as well. That is why I formed ICUS to break down the walls in the academic world.

For example, those who study the natural sciences do not know very much about other fields. They do not know the fields of economics or political science. I created ICUS to establish a common base among scholars from all these fields. (375-238, 2002/04/15)

11. I established ICUS, which gathers world-renowned scientists. At first, they said on various public occasions that they suspected we were trying to use their names. Even if we were to use them, there is nothing in what we did that would ruin them or affect them adversely.

I would like to ask them, who broke down the walls in the academic world? Natural scientists usually do not speak with economists, political scientists, or philosophers, even if they meet each other at their universities.

By developing a movement that enables top scholars to experience each other as brothers and sisters beyond race and ethnicity, I have established a foundation that will develop a transnational realm of heart and history, and that is one of history's greatest achievements. It was I who decided the themes of the conferences.

Therefore, the scholars were impressed with me. History will honor me for this great accomplishment. (351-305, 2001/08/28)

12. About ICUS, our first mission is to select important people. First, you must make recommendations. Important scholars need to be selected. Second, forming long-term relationships is important.

Do not form only temporary relationships. Once you make a relationship, you need to maintain it and develop it. You need to make the effort to establish long-term relationships. Scholars must not just attend the science conference once and then drop out.

Third, in the future, we need to organize conferences in such a way that the expenses for the professors from America will be taken care of by the professor's home state.

Furthermore, other nations also need to take responsibility for the expenses incurred by the professors they send. Only then will this conference expand on the international level.

Fourth, we need to inspire these scholars to serve as editors. In the future, when we create newspaper companies in various countries, these people will surely be competent to some degree to act as editors.

Therefore, we must prepare from now on to involve them on a practical level. You need to take this responsibility. From now on, please take an interest in ICUS. Select important people, form long-term relationships, clarify funding responsibilities, and tackle the problems inherent in mobilizing campuses, the media, and so on. (088-177, 1976/08/10)

Absolute values

True Parents believe in the necessity of establishing God-centered absolute values to solve problems in the world as well as to meet the challenge of developing unity among religion, science, and ideology.

This is why True Father selected the topic “absolute values” to be the theme of ICUS. Beginning with the third conference, the central theme of all the ICUS conferences was absolute values.

The following were conference themes, “Science and Absolute Values,” “The Centrality of Science and Absolute Values,” “The Search for Absolute Values: Harmony Among the Sciences,”

“The Search for Absolute Values in a Changing World,” “The Re-evaluation of Existing Values and the Search for Absolute Values,” “The Responsibility of the Academic Community in the Search for Absolute Values,” “Absolute Values and the Search for the Peace of Mankind,” “The Search for Absolute Values and the Creation of the New World,” “Absolute Values and the New Cultural Revolution,” “Absolute Values and the Reassessment of the Contemporary World,”

“Absolute Values and the New World Order,” and “Absolute Values and the Unity of Sciences: The Origin and Human Responsibility.”

13. What we need is not an industrial or technological revolution, but a great revolution of human consciousness. The solution to social problems does not lie with the natural sciences alone. We must transcend value-free empiricism and work with sociology, the arts, religion, and other fields.

It is not as if these social problems are restricted to one country or a specific era. They are fundamental historical problems affecting the past, the present, and the future.

They are the ultimate issues of human history. By facilitating this revolution of human consciousness, we need to lead people to use the results of research to bring about the peaceful coexistence of all humankind through applying creative and productive methods.

The ideal of humankind can be realized only when the individual purpose and purpose of the whole exist in complete harmony. In the field of natural science, as in every other field of research, the immediate individual purpose must be fulfilled together with the long-term, broader purpose.

This requires that we integrate other fields for the sake of the whole of humankind. By doing so, we discover the true meaning of the results of research. To integrate all specific fields of research, we need a much larger design or blueprint.

In this way, as we proceed to achieve this integration, we will come to realize our common ideal. (081-092, 1975/11/28)

14. The main objective of holding this ICUS is to produce a blueprint that integrates the specific fields of research. We are aware that we have life within ourselves because our minds, which originate from a source of the highest dimension, are not restricted to time and space. That very source may be called the universal mind, or the first cause of all existence. For

us to grasp the meaning of life, we must understand the cosmic centrality of absolute values.

By setting up a new world order where all people are brothers and sisters transcending national and racial boundaries, and thereby living as one global human family, we can enjoy the ideal world of true peace and happiness. To build this world in reality we must examine science from a larger perspective. (081-093, 1975/11/28)

15. Policy governing science must be determined from the perspective of the whole. Science exists not for its own sake but for the welfare of all human beings.

Therefore, it has to give priority to the purpose of the whole as its central point. In other words, for the development of science to have meaning in everyday life, human beings must deliberately discuss and establish the standards of value for science from the perspective of the whole.

Science begins with the research into visible and external things. However, science can assist our understanding of areas that are invisible to the eye, and assist our grasp of the internal, spiritual dimension. Eventually, we must integrate these two realms.

Thus, we must be able to seize the central point located in the external, physical world and, at the same time, be able to take hold of the central point located in the highest dimension of the metaphysical world.

So, when the former reality eternally revolves around the latter reality, which functions as its unchanging axis, then through give-and-receive action, all existence in time and space will be endowed with absolute meaning and absolute value. (081-093, 1975/11/28)

16. When you look at events such as the Washington Monument Rally, the Yankee Stadium Rally, or the Yeouido Island Rally for Freedom, you may think they were tremendous, but they will be remembered simply as singular, one-time events.

By contrast, the historical fact that international scholars set a tradition of joining, going beyond the knowledge available within any specific field of study, and heading in one direction, is a resource that will remain and can be praised on earth eternally.

Because of this achievement, even a single scene of recorded video from those scholarly conferences will remain a valuable treasure for eternity. Whenever people look at those scenes and think about that tradition, they will say, “Through what system of thought did Reverend Moon accomplish that? His philosophy provoked a remarkable response.”

That can become motivation, globally, for a great revival. If that happens, thanks to those professors, these teachings will ultimately shape the thinking of all young people, who then assuredly will govern the coming age. (090-179, 1976/12/14)

17. As a religious leader and scientist, I have long been interested in the issues of science as well as religion and philosophy. I believe that there is a relationship between different fields, whether a person is engaged in the contemplation of eternal truths or simply in the careful observation of an event. Indeed, without a relationship with a transcendent being, it would be impossible to conceive of events occurring in space and time.

Religion and philosophy concern themselves with metaphysical and moral questions that have occupied human consciousness throughout history. Where do we come from? Why is there suffering? What is good and evil? Is there life after death? These questions concern all of us, regardless of what our academic discipline may be. Science limits its concern to the regularities of the universe and attempts to understand things in time and space.

As we all know, scientists have made brilliant advances in knowledge in the past few hundred years.

However, without a standard of value to guide it, science will inevitably become destructive. The possibility of nuclear warfare attests to this.

We must concede that the whole range of knowledge, from theology to the physical sciences, has no meaning unless we understand its purpose and direction. The search for an original and true standard of value is the search for this purpose and direction. (095-201, 1977/11/25)

18. I have insisted on advocating absolute values centering on ICUS. 10, 15, 20 years the more time that passes, the less one can ignore the science conferences, which discuss absolute values.

Therefore, from the 12th conference forward, a solid organization will be formed that can ignite a new Cultural Revolution. Buddhists will have to rewrite their encyclopedias based on these absolute values. In addition, Christian theological systems will need to be illuminated anew in the context of absolute values.

Furthermore, we will need to publish a new encyclopedia. We need to create economic structures based on absolute values. The same is true for philosophy and all academic fields.

There have to be people who lead these fields with such vision. Someone must begin by raising the banner of a new Cultural Revolution. Thus, given this extraordinary enterprise, the day will come when the waves of hope that visit Korea will sweep across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and advance to the world with the sound of joyful cheers.

Because I see this being realized inevitably through such a foundation, I have cherished this dream and continued to work on it, even while receiving persecution. (109-258, 1980/11/01)

19. True Father sponsored a total of 19 International Conferences on the Unity of the Sciences. We need to continue investigation of the values associated with reciprocity. Of course, reciprocation cannot be established by one entity alone.

There are so many attributes possessed by all things of the creation, but what are the central attributes of the whole? If each entity is absolute, how can an absolute entity meet its object partner? Furthermore, each entity has to have some uniqueness.

Then, they can become reciprocal partners. You cannot see it internally or externally but, as they form a core of oneness, movement arises. Reciprocation is not possible without a subject partner and an object partner.

Absoluteness, uniqueness, changeability, and externality are an entity's four basic attributes. Saying that an entity is not changing does not mean it is not developing and should disappear. Absoluteness requires uniqueness for reciprocation to take place.

That which we call absolute, we call heaven, but heaven is also a unique existence. The expression “absolute and unique” implies the union of two entities. This means these two can interchange with each other.

That which is mine is my partner's, and that which is my partner's is mine. The fact is that these two entities can freely exchange everything they have and replenish each other eternally. (586-066, 2008/02/06)

20. A baby makes his or her parents the owners of love. It is the wife who enables her husband to be the owner of love. The object partner determines the absolute value of the subject partner.

A determination of absolute value is afforded through the object partner. God created the cosmos by this principle, and thereby, the cosmos came to exist.

The world that humankind has created must disappear in the end because it began with human beings who stood in opposition to this principle. Only the ideals that attribute absolute value to the object partner can take root in the new heaven and new earth.

Family, love, and peace are all rooted in the ideals that value the object part. Because it was not yet the right moment, I could not reveal Unification Thought in full about this principle at the science conference.

Educational circles throughout this world discuss only reciprocal values but do not address absolute values. (506-267, 2005/09/04)

21. I educated many world-renowned professors through ICUS, focusing on the theory of absolute values.

In 2004, I included the emphasis on absolute values. I helped them understand the final element of absolute values at the time of transition from the Era Before the Coming of Heaven to the Era After the Coming of Heaven.

It is the baby who transforms its parents into the owners of love. Currently, when the baby is born, the parents become the owners of love. Furthermore, when a man and woman are married and experience their first love, they enable each other to stand as the owner of love.

It is the wife who makes her husband the owner of love, and it is the husband who makes his wife the owner of love. So far in the history of human culture, such a concept has not existed, but now teachings based on an absolute values system have emerged. (515-316, 2006/02/01)