Eleventh Unification Thought Seminar Held in Korea

The 11th seminar on Unification Thought was held October 7-9, 1973, with 23 invited professors participating. Held at the Segong Hotel in Chunchon city, Korea, the seminar was under the joint sponsorship of the Unification Thought Institute and the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principle (CARP).

Mr. Chong-Hwan Kwak, President of CARP, first lectured the Principle of Creation from the Divine Principle, and Dr. Sang-Hun Lee, Chairman of the Unification Thought Institute, lectured on ontology and ethics from the Unification Thought. In the deep discussions following the lectures, the participating professors raised a number of questions: “If in history there are cycles of progress, how can you explain direction?” “What do you think of the history of civilization as proposed by Spengler in the Fall of the West?” “Why does man always have to fall back and pay indemnity? Why can he not progress?” “Is it possible for man to become God?”

After Dr. Lee and Mr. Kwak answered questions, the professors engaged in constructive give and take among themselves on the viewpoints of the Divine Principle and the Unification Thought.Mr. Chang-Kuk Choi, professor of politics at Seoul National University said, “The give and take logics of the Unification Thought with its new forward-looking ideas has overcome the weak points of both Aristotle’s logics and Hegel’s dialectical logics. Also, the Unification Thought’s view of history is more progressive than Toynbee’s or Hegel’s view.”

Dr. Ki-Kim Chang, president of the Chinese Literature Research Institute of Seoul National University, said, “I think this new Unification Thought and its theory of ethics based on the family contains much Eastern thought.” Throughout the 11 seminars, about 600 professors have studied the Unification Principle and Unification Thought, the last two seminars dealing primarily with Unification Thought. Mr. Chong-Chang Choi, who presided over the seminar, felt that the success of the program was due to the high intellectual level of the participating professors and their great interest in the ideas. Dr. Lee predicted that after this seminar, competent professors will soon research into the Unification Thought in depth.