The 130-year period of the Reformation began in 1517, when Martin Luther raised the banner of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, and lasted until the wars of religion were settled by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
The character of this period was shaped by the Renaissance and the Reformation, both products of medieval feudal society. When the purpose of God’s providence through medieval society was not fulfilled, the direction of providential history shifted and God worked to establish anew the foundation for the Second Advent of the Messiah through the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Therefore, we cannot understand the nature of this period without studying these two events. Let us begin by looking back at medieval society and examining what influences it exerted upon the original nature of the people of that age which led them to embark upon the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation.
In the late Middle Ages, man’s original mind was repressed, its free development blocked by the social environment of feudalism and the secularization and corruption of the Roman church. Faith is the path each person must walk in search of God. Faith should be nurtured through a direct vertical relationship between God and each individual. Yet in that age, the papacy and the clergy, with their rituals and dogmas, constrained the people’s devotional life.
Moreover, the rigid social stratification of feudalism did not allow for religious freedom. Meanwhile, religious offices were bought and sold. Bishops and priests often exploited their offices to lead lives of luxury and decadence. As a consequence, the papacy lost its sanctity and became no different than other institutions of worldly power. It lost the ability to guide the spiritual lives of the people.
In this way, the social environment of the late Middle Ages blocked the path through which the original nature of the people could be restored. Fettered by such circumstances, medieval Europeans were prompted by the impulses of their innermost hearts to break down their social environment to open the way for the restoration of their original nature. Our original nature may be divided into two aspects: internal and external. Let us examine this with reference to the Principle of Creation.
As the substantial object partners to God in image, we resonate with His dual characteristics and bear the likeness of His original internal nature and original external form. The give and take between our internal nature and external form is the basis upon which we exist and thrive. Accordingly, our original nature seeks to fulfill two types of desires: internal and external. When God conducts the providence to restore us, He accommodates these two pursuits of our original nature.
God created the physical self of the first humans before creating their spiritual self (Gen. 2:7). Accordingly, in the providence of restoration, God recreates us by restoring first what is external and then what is internal. It was explained earlier (cf. Foundation 1.3) that we fallen people can make the substantial offering, which is internal, only after successfully completing the symbolic offering, which is external. After these are achieved, we establish the foundation for the Messiah, which is even more internal.
The process of restoring fallen people’s relationship to God has also progressed from external to internal. God first restored people to the position of servant of servants (Gen. 9:25) in the period prior to the Old Testament Age by having them offer sacrifices. Next, He restored people to the position of servants (Lev. 25:55) in the Old Testament Age through the Mosaic Law. In the New Testament Age, God has restored us to the position of adopted children (Rom. 8:23) through our faith. Finally, in the Completed Testament Age, He will restore us to the position of true children through heart (cf. Moses and Jesus 3.3.2).
In the same way, God first worked to restore our external social environment through science and then worked to restore our spirituality through religion. In the order of creation, angels, who are external, were created before people, who are internal. In restoration, God first raises up the angelic world, which is external, and mobilizes it for restoring the external, physical world centering on the human body and then the internal, spirit world centering on the human spirit.
Medieval Europeans were to restore their original God-given nature by first severing their ties to Satan, who had defiled the society when the papacy failed its internal responsibility to restore the foundation of faith and sank into immorality.
As people pursued the recovery of the internal and external aspects of their original nature, the thought of the age branched out into two movements to recover the heritage of the past, which we distinguish in relative terms as Abel-type and Cain-type. The Cain-type movement began as a revival of Hellenism, the culture and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome. It gave rise to the Renaissance, whose core value was humanism. The Abel-type movement began as a revival of the Hebraic heritage of Israel and the early Christian Church. It gave rise to the Protestant Reformation, whose core value was faith in God.
The trends of Hebraism and Hellenism had formed long ago and had encountered each other several times in the course of prior history.
From 2000 B.C., the Minoan civilization flourished on the island of Crete, succeeded by the Mycenaean civilization on the Greek mainland. By the eleventh century, these civilizations had created a Cain-type Hellenic civilization, whose guiding ideology was humanism.
Around the same time in the Near East, the Abel-type Hebraic civilization was born, with Jewish monotheism as its guiding ideology. This was the period of the united kingdom. Had the kings of Israel in that period laid the foundation for the Messiah and received him, this flourishing Hebraic civilization could have assimilated the waning Hellenic civilization to form one worldwide civilization.
However, when the kings failed to fulfill the Will of God, this dispensation was not accomplished. Instead, after the Jews were taken into exile in Babylon, they returned only to be put under subjection to the Greeks in 333 B.C. and then to Rome in 63 B.C. Thus, during the centuries leading up to and including Jesus’ time, Hebraism was placed under the dominion of Hellenism.
Had the Jewish people honored Jesus and united under him, the Roman Empire would have become the messianic kingdom under the reign of Christ. Hebraism then would have assimilated Hellenism to form one worldwide Hebraic civilization. Instead, when Jesus was rejected and this providence was frustrated, Hebraism remained under subjection to Hellenism.
In 313 A.D., Emperor Constantine officially recognized Christianity by the Edict of Milan. From that time on, Hebraism gradually began to overcome Hellenism. By the beginning of the eighth century, it had formed two civilizations: Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholic Christianity.
Had the popes and emperors who were responsible for restoring the foundation of faith in the Carolingian period not become faithless, the foundation for the Second Advent of the Messiah would have been established at that time. Hebraism would have completely assimilated Hellenism to form one worldwide civilization.
Instead, their faithlessness and immorality allowed Satan to corrupt the guiding medieval ideology, which was founded upon Hebraism. As a consequence, God had to conduct a new dispensation for the separation of Satan.
Just as God had divided fallen Adam into Cain and Abel to separate Satan, God divided the prevailing ideology of the Middle Ages into two trends of thought: the movements to revive Cain-type Hellenism and Abel-type Hebraism. These bore fruit in the Renaissance and the Reformation, respectively.
The Hellenic trend of thought, revived by the humanism of the Renaissance, soon took a dominant position over the Hebraic trend. This period was thus to restore through parallel indemnity conditions that phase in the period of preparation for the advent of the Messiah, when the Jewish people were under the dominion of the Greeks and Hebraism was under subjection to Hellenism. We recall that only by Cain submitting to Abel could Satan be separated from Adam, thereby laying the foundation of substance necessary for receiving the Messiah in Adam’s family.
Likewise, only by Cain-type Hellenism submitting to Abel-type Hebraism could Satan be separated from the prevailing spirit of the age. Then the foundation of substance necessary for receiving Christ at the Second Advent could be established worldwide.
Sun Myung Moon