Questions Christians Askabout the Divine Principle

No — and this is the single point on which the Divine Principle differs most sharply from mainstream Christian teaching. The Divine Principle argues that Jesus came as the Messiah to establish the Kingdom of God on earth in his own lifetime, by being recognized, marrying, becoming the True Father of a sinless lineage, and restoring all of humanity into God's family. The crucifixion was not God's original will. It was the result of disbelief — first of John the Baptist, then of the Jewish leadership, then of the people — which made the original course impossible.

What Jesus did achieve through the cross was spiritual salvation: a path by which humans can be reborn spiritually through faith in him. What was left undone, and what the Second Coming exists to complete, is physical salvation — the restoration of humanity at the level of the body and the lineage.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 4 — "The Messiah: His Advent and the Purpose of His Second Coming"

The Divine Principle reads passages such as Isaiah 53 and the Last Supper sayings as God's contingency course, prepared because God foreknew that Jesus would be rejected. It points to passages where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44), warns the cities that did not repent (Matthew 11:20-24), and prays in Gethsemane "if it is possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matthew 26:39) as evidence that the cross was not the celebrated original plan but a path Jesus accepted only after the original was lost.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · p. 101 · Part 1, Ch. 4, §1 — "Salvation through the Cross"

John the Baptist was sent in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17, Matthew 17:12-13) to prepare Israel for the Messiah and then to publicly testify that Jesus was that Messiah, becoming his foremost disciple. The Divine Principle teaches that John initially testified to Jesus at the Jordan, but later — from prison — sent disciples to ask, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?" (Matthew 11:3). For the Divine Principle this question reveals doubt, and that doubt was decisive: with the most respected religious figure in Israel openly uncertain, the people had no clear ground on which to receive Jesus.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 2, Ch. 4 — "The Mission of John the Baptist"

Yes. The Divine Principle teaches that Jesus, as the second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), came to fulfill the original blessing given to the first Adam in Genesis 1:28 — "be fruitful and multiply." That meant marrying a fully restored woman who would become the second Eve, together becoming the True Parents of a sinless lineage into which all humanity could be grafted. Because Jesus was killed before he could marry, this part of the providence was left for the Lord of the Second Advent to complete.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 7 — "Christology"

The Divine Principle teaches that Jesus is one with God in heart, in love, and in will, and that he can rightly be called divine — but that he is not God himself in essence. He is the perfected man in whom God dwells fully (John 14:10), the second Adam who attained the original ideal that the first Adam lost. He stands between God and humanity as the model of what every human being was created to become.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 7, §1 — "The Value of Jesus from the Standpoint of the Purpose of Creation"

The Divine Principle reads the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as a symbol, not a literal piece of produce. The argument is straightforward: God, who is love, would not curse all of human history over a piece of fruit. The fruit symbolizes Eve's love — the most precious thing she had to give. The Fall, on this reading, was a misuse of love.

Evidence cited from the text: Adam and Eve immediately covered their lower parts with fig leaves (Genesis 3:7), not their mouths or hands. The serpent (identified with Lucifer in Revelation 12:9) is described as desiring Eve. The lineage of fallen humanity is traced as if from a corrupted bloodline.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 2 — "The Human Fall"

Yes. The Divine Principle teaches that the Fall happened in two stages.

The spiritual fall: the archangel Lucifer, jealous of God's love for the as-yet-unperfected Adam and Eve, seduced Eve into a spiritual sexual relationship. Through this Eve received Lucifer's nature — fear, doubt, the impulse to dominate.

The physical fall: realizing what she had done and seeking to recover, Eve then drew Adam into a sexual relationship before either of them had reached spiritual maturity (the moment at which God would have blessed their union). Lucifer's fallen nature was thus passed into the human lineage at the body level.

This is why, on the Divine Principle's reading, all subsequent humans inherit "original sin" — not as guilt for someone else's mistake, but as a real lineage problem that must be restored at the level of the body and the bloodline.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 2, §2 — "The Process of the Human Fall and its Motivation"

Satan is the fallen archangel Lucifer. Before the Fall he was the chief of the angelic world and the channel through which God's love flowed to Adam and Eve while they were still growing. When God's love began to focus more on the human children — who were destined to become God's true sons and daughters and to have dominion even over the angels — Lucifer felt the loss of love and acted to take Eve for himself. The Fall, in other words, is rooted in the misuse of love by a being who could not endure feeling less loved than before.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 2, §1 — "The Root of Sin"

In the Divine Principle, original sin is not abstract guilt inherited at birth. It is a real, concrete inheritance: the lineage of Satan transmitted from parent to child since the Fall. This is why the Divine Principle holds that even faith in Jesus does not by itself eliminate original sin — spiritual rebirth is given through Jesus, but the lineage problem requires the work of the True Parents at the Second Coming.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 2, §3 — "The Power of Love, the Power of the Principle, and the Commandment"

The Divine Principle teaches that human beings were created with a "portion of responsibility" — a small but irreducible share of the work of perfection that God deliberately leaves to the human will. Without it, humans would be objects of God's perfection, not partners in love. Stopping Adam and Eve would have eliminated this portion of responsibility and with it the very thing that makes humans worthy of being called God's children. God did not will the Fall; He warned against it ("for in the day that you eat of it you shall die," Genesis 2:17) and then honored the human freedom that made love possible.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 1, §5 — "The Period of Growth for the Creation"

No, not literally. The Divine Principle reads the "clouds of heaven" language (Daniel 7:13, Matthew 24:30, Revelation 1:7) as the same kind of symbolic prophecy that surrounded the first coming. The first coming was also predicted in dramatic apocalyptic imagery — a sun darkened, stars falling, Elijah returning — and yet Jesus was born of a woman in an obscure village.

The Divine Principle holds that the Second Coming will likewise be a man born of a woman, who must again be recognized, believed in, and supported by the people of his time. The "clouds" symbolize the sanctified people from whom and to whom he comes.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 6 — "The Second Advent"

The Divine Principle gives a set of providential signs by which to recognize the time and place. It argues that the nation in which the Lord of the Second Advent appears will be (1) a nation that has suffered greatly on the side of God's providence, (2) a nation on the front line between God and Satan in the modern era — interpreted as the line between the democratic and communist worlds — (3) a nation with a long prophetic tradition of preparing for the Messiah, and (4) a nation in the East where the sun rises (cf. Revelation 7:2-4).

Applying these criteria the Divine Principle identifies Korea as the nation of the Second Advent. It does not name a specific individual.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 2, Ch. 6 — "The Second Advent of the Messiah"

The Divine Principle gives several reasons. Korea endured prolonged suffering under colonial occupation; it sat at the 38th parallel — the front line of the Cold War between communism and democracy, which the Divine Principle reads as the latter-day Cain–Abel conflict at the global level; it has a deep religious history of prophecies and preparations for a coming holy figure; and it lies in the East. The argument is not nationalist but providential: a nation suited to bear the suffering and the foundation of substance required of the Lord of the Second Advent.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 2, Ch. 6, §3 — "The Nation of the East where Christ will return"

The Divine Principle reads "the end of the world" as the end of an age of evil sovereignty and the beginning of an age of God's direct sovereignty — not the destruction of the physical earth. Passages about fire (2 Peter 3:10, Malachi 4:1) are read symbolically, in line with passages such as Jeremiah 23:29 ("Is not my word like fire?") where God's word itself is the fire. Earth, on this reading, is the eternal stage of God's kingdom; what passes away is the fallen order, not the planet.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 3 — "Eschatology and Human History"

The Divine Principle, as a written text, predicts the Second Advent and gives criteria for recognizing him; it does not in its body declare that Sun Myung Moon is that figure. The Unification movement that grew out of the Divine Principle does affirm Rev. Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon as the True Parents — the Lord of the Second Advent and his bride — who together fulfilled the marriage and the True Family that Jesus could not complete. Whether to accept that identification is, in the movement's own framing, the same kind of decision that faced people standing in front of Jesus.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 2, Ch. 6 — "The Second Advent of the Messiah"

The Divine Principle teaches that faith in Jesus is sufficient for spiritual salvation — being grafted spiritually into Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit, having one's spirit reborn (John 3:5-6). But it distinguishes spiritual salvation from physical salvation: the restoration of the body and the lineage from the inheritance of the Fall.

Because Jesus was killed before he could marry and establish the True Family, physical salvation was deferred to the Second Coming. This is why even Christians, on the Divine Principle's view, still die physically and still inherit a fallen lineage; the spirit is reborn but the body has not yet been restored.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 5 — "Resurrection"

Indemnity (Korean: 탕감, tanggam) is a "condition" — an act of faith and substance — by which fallen human beings reclaim what was lost in the Fall. The principle behind it is that what was lost on a certain level must be restored on at least an equivalent level.

Crucially, the Divine Principle does not teach indemnity as God demanding payment. It teaches indemnity as God's way of giving humans a meaningful share in their own restoration: a way for the human will to be involved in undoing what the human will participated in losing.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 2, Introduction — "The Principles of the Providence of Restoration"

Genesis 1:28 records God's first words to Adam and Eve: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion." The Divine Principle reads these as three stages of the original blessing.

First blessing — individual perfection: each person grows into oneness with God in heart and character.

Second blessing — multiply (family): the perfected man and woman marry, become the True Parents of a sinless family, and extend that family into a tribe, nation, and world.

Third blessing — dominion of love over creation: humanity, perfected in heart, exercises loving stewardship over the natural world.

The Fall cut all three blessings short. Restoration is the process of recovering all three, at every level, beginning with the individual and ending with the world.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 1, §3 — "The Purpose of Creation"

The True Parents are the man and woman who, at the Second Coming, fulfill what Adam and Eve and what Jesus and his unfound bride could not — becoming the first sinless couple, the first family fully grafted into God's lineage, and through whom all humanity can be re-grafted into the lineage of God rather than the lineage of Satan. This is, in the Divine Principle, the central work of the Second Advent: not symbolic, not merely spiritual, but the real beginning of a restored human family.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 7, §3 — "Rebirth and the Trinity"

The Divine Principle teaches that God works through every age and every people, raising up central figures and laying foundations of faith and substance throughout the long history of restoration. The benefits of the Messiah's work are not limited to those who, by accident of geography or generation, heard the gospel preached. The Divine Principle takes seriously that God is the God of all humanity and has been at work throughout history; it interprets the resurrection of "all the dead" through cooperation between the spirit world and earth in the last days.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 5 — "Resurrection"

Yes, but reframed. The Divine Principle teaches that God's nature has dual characteristics — internal and external, masculine and feminine — and that the Trinity is fulfilled when God, a perfected man, and a perfected woman are united in love as one. Adam and Eve were to have become the first Trinity with God; the Fall prevented it. Jesus, as the perfected second Adam, was to have completed the Trinity with his bride; the cross prevented it. The Lord of the Second Advent and his bride, united with God, complete the original Trinity that God always intended — and become the True Parents of restored humanity.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 7, §3 — "Rebirth and the Trinity"

The Divine Principle teaches that the Holy Spirit, in the providence after Jesus, has functioned as the feminine spirit of truth — the spiritual counterpart of Jesus, working through the hearts of believers as a comforting and cleansing mother-presence. This explains, on the Divine Principle's reading, why Christian rebirth is described as being "born again" of water and the Spirit (John 3:5): a spiritual mother (the Holy Spirit) and a spiritual father (Jesus) together generate the spiritual rebirth of the believer.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 7, §2 — "Rebirth and the Holy Spirit"

The Divine Principle's central description of God is "the harmonious union of the dual characteristics of God." God is the eternal, absolute, unchanging being whose essential nature is heart (Korean: 심정, shimjeong) — the irrepressible impulse to feel joy through loving an object of love. Heart is, on this reading, the deepest motive of God's whole creation. God created in order to have an object of love that could love Him in return.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 1, §1 — "The Dual Characteristics of God and the Created Universe"

For joy through love. The Divine Principle teaches that God's nature is heart, and that even God could not feel the fullness of joy alone — joy requires an object of love. Creation, especially humanity, was created so that God might have children to love and to be loved by. This is why the Divine Principle treats the Fall not as a small tragedy but as the deepest possible grief: the loss of the very purpose for which everything was made.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 1, §3 — "The Purpose of Creation"

Yes — the Divine Principle treats the Bible as the inspired record of God's providence, but distinguishes the truth itself from the language used to convey it. Scripture, in this view, is like a lamp that bears witness to the light; the truth it carries is eternal, but the words and images were given to the people of a particular time and culture. The Divine Principle does not present itself as a replacement for the Bible but as a clearer light by which the Bible's deeper meaning can be understood.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Introduction — "General Introduction"

The Divine Principle teaches that the providence of restoration unfolds through repeated historical patterns: the 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham, the 2,000 years from Abraham to Jesus, and the 2,000 years from Jesus to the Second Advent each contain parallel ages with parallel central figures and parallel time periods. This is not coincidence; it is, on this reading, evidence that God is patiently re-laying foundations that humans repeatedly fail to complete, until at last a foundation can stand.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 2, Ch. 5 — "The Period of Preparation for the Second Advent of the Messiah"

The Divine Principle reads the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4) as the archetypal pattern of restoration. After the Fall, both brothers were in the position of fallen humanity, but Abel stood on the side of God while Cain stood on the side of Satan. For restoration, Cain was to humble himself before Abel and receive God's blessing through him; instead, Cain killed Abel. Throughout history this pattern recurs — between brothers, between tribes, between nations — and the Divine Principle reads modern conflicts (notably the Cold War) as a global Cain–Abel division.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 2, Ch. 1, §2 — "The Foundation for the Messiah in Adam's Family"

Yes. The Divine Principle treats Adam and Eve as real first ancestors of humanity, while reading the surrounding details (the Garden, the tree, the serpent, the fruit) as symbolic of the spiritual and physical realities of the Fall. The historical reality is the lineage; the imagery is the language Genesis uses to communicate it.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 2 — "The Human Fall"

The Divine Principle presents itself as the completion, not the contradiction, of Christianity. Its view is that the same God who spoke to Abraham, raised up Israel, sent Jesus, and inspired the Christian church is the one giving the Divine Principle in this age, in order to bring to completion what the cross left unfinished. Whether a given Christian community can accept that framing is, in practice, a separate question — and the Divine Principle is honest about the fact that any Messianic claim in any age has divided believers as much as it has united them.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Introduction — "General Introduction"

Because, in the Divine Principle, marriage is the very thing the Fall destroyed. The first man and woman fell at the threshold of becoming husband and wife; restoration must come at the same place. Marriage between a husband and wife who have been re-grafted into God's lineage — the Blessing — is the practical means by which the lineage of Satan is exchanged for the lineage of God. This is why the Unification movement places such weight on the Holy Marriage Blessing: it is, in their teaching, not merely a wedding but the central sacrament of restoration.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 7, §3 — "Rebirth and the Trinity"

The Divine Principle teaches that God has worked through every major religion to prepare humanity for the providence's completion — Judaism and Christianity most directly, but also the great religions of the East. Truth is one because God is one; different religions reflect different aspects of the same providence as it appeared in different cultures and ages. The mission of the Unification movement, on this view, is not to displace other religions but to serve their unity by bringing them all into clearer relationship with the True Parents.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Introduction — "General Introduction"

The Divine Principle teaches that the spirit self continues to live after the death of the physical body, and that the spirit world is a real place organized by levels of growth in heart and love. There is no permanent hell of God's own design; rather, spirits live in the conditions their own loves on earth created. The Divine Principle teaches that spirits can return to earth to cooperate with people on earth and complete the growth they could not complete in their lifetimes — and that, ultimately, every human being has the possibility of full restoration.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 5 — "Resurrection"

Conditionally. The Divine Principle teaches that God's will — the purpose of creation — is absolute and predestined, but the fulfillment of that will requires human responsibility. God predestined that humans should be perfected; God did not predestine which individuals would or would not perfect themselves. Likewise God predestined the coming of the Messiah, but the success of the Messiah's mission depends on the response of the people of his age. Sovereignty and responsibility, in the Divine Principle, are not at odds.

Source: Exposition of the Divine Principle (1996) · Part 1, Ch. 6 — "Predestination"