2.3 Human History Is the History of the Providence of Restoration

As clarified above, God’s work of salvation is the providence of restoration. Human
history can be seen as the history of the providence through which God has been
trying to save fallen people and work through them to restore the original, good world.
Let us examine this idea in various ways, beginning with the history of the
development of cultural spheres.
All people, in all ages and places, including even the most evil, have an original mind
which inclines them to repel evil and seek goodness. People’s intellectual
understanding of what goodness is and how goodness is achieved has differed
according to time, place and individual viewpoint; this has been a source of the
conflicts which have made history. Nevertheless, everyone cherishes the same
fundamental goal of finding and establishing goodness. Why does the original mind
irrepressibly induce people of every age and every place to do good? God, the Subject
of goodness, created human beings as His good and worthy object partners in order to
fulfill the purpose of the good. Despite Satan’s crippling efforts, which have rendered
fallen human beings incapable of leading a life of total goodness, the original mind
remains intact within them and prompts them toward goodness. Hence, the ultimate desire of the ages is to attain a world of goodness.
However hard the original mind may struggle to attain goodness, we can hardly find
any examples of true goodness in this world under the sovereignty of evil. Human
beings have thus been compelled to seek the source of goodness in the world
transcendent of time and space. This necessity has given birth to religion. Through
religion, fallen people mired in ignorance have sought to meet God by ceaselessly
striving toward the good. Even though the individuals, peoples and nations which
championed a certain religion may have perished, religion itself has survived.
Religion has endured through history despite the rise and fall of many nations. In the
history of China, the Chao dynasty and the Warring States were followed by an era of
unification in the Ch’in dynasty. This was followed by the Former Han, Hsin, Later
Han, the Six Dynasties, and an era of unification in the Sui and T’ang periods. They
were followed by the Five Dynasties, Northern Sung, Southern Sung, Yuan, Ming,
Ch’ing, the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China. In its history, China
has experienced many cycles of the rise and fall of dynasties and numerous transfers
of political power, yet the religions of the Far East-Confucianism, Buddhism and
Taoism-have continued to thrive. The history of India has witnessed the empire of
Mauryas followed by the Guptas, Harsa, Calukyas, the Mughals, Maratha, the British
Raj, and today’s independent India. Despite the rise and fall of many kingdoms, the
religion of Hinduism has survived and prospered. In the history of the Middle East, the
Umayyad Caliphate was followed by the Abbasids, the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks, the
colonial period, and today’s Arab states. Despite these changes in political sovereignty,
the religion of Islam has endured and continued to thrive. In the history of Western
Europe, we find that the center of power changed many times, from Rome to the
Carolingian court, to the cities of Renaissance Italy. Spain and Portugal then became
the leading powers of Europe, followed briefly by France and the Netherlands, and
then England. In the modern era, the leadership of the West has been divided between
America and the Soviet Union. Despite these political changes, Christianity has
continued to flourish. Even under the despotic regime of the Soviet Union founded
upon Marxist materialism, Christianity remains vital and inextinguishable.
If we were to examine the rise and fall of nations, we would find numerous instances
in which those nations which persecuted religion have perished, while those which
protected and fostered religion have flourished. Often, the people who rose to the
position of ruler of a nation were those who most highly esteemed religion. History
thus assures us that the day will surely come when the communist world, which is
persecuting religion, will perish.
Many religions have left their mark on history. Among them, the religions with the
greatest influence formed cultural spheres. The major cultural spheres which have
existed at various times in world history numbered between twenty-one and twentysix.
With the flow of history, lesser cultural spheres were absorbed by, or merged into,
the more advanced spheres. Through the evolution of cultural spheres, as they were
buffeted by the rise and fall of nations, four great cultural spheres have survived to the
present day: the East Asian sphere, the Hindu sphere, the Islamic sphere, and the
Christian sphere. The current trend has these four spheres forming one global cultural
sphere based on the Christian ethos. This historical development is evidence that
Christianity has, as its final mission, the accomplishment of the goals of all religions
which have sought the ideal of goodness. The history of the development of cultural
spheres, each with its stages of expansion, decline and convergence, is ultimately
aimed at constituting one global cultural sphere based on one religion. This
demonstrates that the essence of human history has been the restoration of one
united world.
Second, we can deduce that human history is the history of the providence of
restoration by observing the progress of religion and science. It was discussed
earlier22 that the purposes of religion and science are to overcome the internal and
external aspects of ignorance in fallen humankind. Although they have been working
independently with little connection to each other, religion and science inevitably
must converge. Today they are on the threshold of reaching this destination, where
they will resolve all their problems together in one united undertaking. This trend
shows that human history has been walking the providential course to restore the
world to its original state.
Had it not been for the Fall, the development of the intellectual capacity of our early
human ancestors would have enabled them to reach the highest level of spiritual
knowledge, thus naturally stimulating their knowledge of the material world to
develop to a corresponding degree. Science then would have advanced rapidly in an
extremely short period of time, and today’s level of science and technology would have
been attained in those days. However, due to the Fall, human beings plunged into
ignorance and could build only a primitive society, far beneath God’s original ideal.
Long ages passed before people could overcome this ignorance through the
advancement of science. The modern world of highly developed technology has now
brought us externally to the threshold of the ideal society.
Third, by examining trends in the history of conflict, we can understand that human
history is the history of the providence of restoration. Battles over property, territory
and people have continued without interruption, expanding their scope in step with
the progress of human society. The scale of these struggles has broadened from the
family level to the levels of tribe, society, nation and world until today, when the
democratic world and the communist world confront each other in a final conflict. In
these Last Days of human history, heavenly law has descended upon the earth in the
name of democracy, bringing an end to the long phase of history in which people
sought to obtain happiness by seizing property, land and people. At the conclusion of
World War I, the defeated nations gave up their colonies. At the end of World War II,
the victors voluntarily liberated their colonies and provided them with material aid.
In recent years, the great powers have invited weak and tiny nations, some smaller
than one of their own cities, to become member states of the United Nations, giving
them equal rights and status in the brotherhood of nations.
What form does this final war between democracy and communism take? It is
primarily a war of ideologies. Indeed, this war will never truly cease unless a truth
emerges which can completely overthrow the ideology of Marxism-Leninism that is
threatening the modern world. Communist ideology negates religion and promotes
the exclusive supremacy of science. Hence, the new truth which can reconcile religion
and science will emerge and prevail over the communist ideology. It will bring about
the unification of the communist and democratic worlds. The trend of the history of
conflict thus confirms that human history is the providential history to restore the
original, ideal world.
Fourth, let us investigate this issue from the words of the Bible. The purpose of human
history lies in the restoration of the Garden of Eden with the tree of life standing at its
center.23 The Garden of Eden does not refer to a specific geographical location where
Adam and Eve were created, but includes the entire earth. If the Garden of Eden were
limited to the small region of the globe where they were created, how could humanity
be confined to such a small place and still fulfill God’s blessing to multiply and fill the
earth?24
Because the first human ancestors fell, the Garden of Eden was claimed by Satan, and
the way to the tree of life at its center was blocked.25 It is written in the Book of
Revelation:
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life
and that they may enter the city by the gates. -Rev. 22:13-14
Human history began with Alpha and will end with Omega. At the end of history, the
hope of fallen people will be to wash their sin-stained robes, enter the restored Garden
of Eden, and approach the long-lost tree of life.
Let us discuss further the significance of this verse. The tree of life represents the True
Father of humanity who, as we have seen, was to have been Adam had he perfected
his character. Due to the fall of the first parents, their descendants were corrupted
with the original sin. To be restored to the state of true, original people, we, as Jesus
said, must be reborn.26 Therefore, history has been humankind’s search for Christ,
the True Father of humanity, the one who can give us rebirth. In this verse, the tree
of life which the saints of the Last Days may approach is none other than Christ. Thus,
the Bible teaches that the goal of history is the restoration of the Garden of Eden with
Christ, who is to come as the tree of life, as its center.
When the Bible states that a new heaven and new earth will appear in the Last Days,27
it means that the old heaven and old earth under the bondage of Satan will be restored
as a new heaven and new earth under the God-centered dominion of Christ. The Bible
also states that the whole creation, groaning in travail under satanic tyranny, awaits
the revealing of the sons of God.28 Created beings do not await the restoration of true
children of God in order to be burned in fire and perish in the Last Days; rather, they
wait to be made new.29 They will be made new by being restored to their original
position under their rightful masters, the true sons and daughters of God, who are able
to govern them with love.
Having examined human history from various standpoints-the development of
cultural spheres, the trend of religion and science, the trend of the history of conflict,
and the evidence in the Bible-it has become clear that human history is the
providential history to restore the original, ideal world.