1) The Current of Thought

When we look back the history of 2,000 years after Jesus, we find that a great number of Christians have developed various movements in order to rediscover God. As the result of the movement, the Roman Empire, which had persecuted Christianity extremely, came to authorize Christianity. As established by the Vatican in Rome, Christianity came to conduct the affairs of state centering on the papacy. Through this papacy, Christianity came to provide an important foundation in forming the feudal society. However, in medieval times, when the papacy was decayed, as the reaction against that, humanism came to emerge. Humanism gave a great influence on the medieval feudal society. Because of the influence of humanism, medieval Christians gradually came to grow far away from God. A great number of people gave up their faith and embraced humanism instead. Humanism has developed through the course of history. It passed through the age of enlightenment, and finally gave birth to historical materialism.

Historical materialism is based on rationalism and empirical philosophy, which emphasize human reason and experience as the base of philosophy. This materialism is having a great influence on modern society. Especially through the influence of materialism and capitalism, modern society has fallen down in a world where the idea that money is everything is prevalent. Then, who made the medieval feudal society collapse? God collapsed it. God had wanted to develop His Will centering on the Vatican in Rome, but because Christianity decayed under the feudal society, God could not but collapse the medieval feudal society.

God raised up humanism. Humanism came to play a decisive role in destroying the medieval feudal society. That is, since medieval people, who believe God, betrayed God's will, God could not help reprimanding Christians by destroying the feudal society through humanism. However, in order not to lose His providential base, God raised up Martin Luther, who was worrying seriously about God's providence, and had him reform the decayed religion. Likewise, God partly reprimanded the decayed religion, and God raised up a new religion through the Reformation. In other words, while humanism representing the Cain-type developed by destroying the decayed social system, Christianity representing the Abel-type, developed by reforming its own religion and by undergoing various historical courses.

That is, the two thoughts of humanism and Christianity came to develop respectively in a dialectical relationship. Providentially, Christianity formed the realm of the second Israel through various historical courses. Christianity not only passed through the confused situation of the Renaissance, but also passed through the current of enlightenment centered on humanistic philosophy. Finally, in this modern society, Christianity is contending with materialism, which was derived from humanism.

Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu had thought that Christianity would collapse. However, even though Christianity was confronted by the currents of enlightenment, pious people from Germany had saved Christianity by raising the pietist movement which emphasizes the internal, mystical experience with God. The pietist movement influenced England, and John Wesley from England revived the pietist movement by raising the Methodist movement. Moreover, Quakers contributed to the development of Christianity by raising the mystic movement to emphasize the internal experience. Thus, God has worked providentially in the background of the history of Christianity. On the other hand, because of the influence of materialism, modern people not only grew far away from God's love, but also were isolated from their own reason and themselves. They were secularized and came to adore materialism, whose most precious value is material. However, even though humankind is fallen, because humanism ultimately has to return to its original position before the Fall, materialism, which prevents humankind from returning to the original position by denying human personality, will by necessity be destroyed.

The Medieval Age centered on God has passed away, the rationalism and empiricism centered on rational philosophy has also passed away, and the materialism based on historical materialism is losing its influential power gradually. In the future, people will not be satisfied with only loving material things, and will not resolve humanity's fundamental problem even by the teachings of past historical figures. The world of the future will be confronted by a miserable situation which humans cannot manage. Communism cannot be the fundamental solution for the future world.

This is so because Communism regards humanity as the outcome of matter and tries to have human society prosper by the productive capacity of matter without regard to God. Thus, Communists will never have dominion over the world as they wish. In the 21st century, with the onset of the atomic age, as the influential power of material civilization decreases, the Communists' dream of having dominion over the world will be frustrated. Then, after Communism, what period will come? The age of love will come. People will find joy in the world of love, and share joy by living for the sake of one another. Therefore, we should be wise persons who can fit the coming age of love. In order to do so, we should be able to analyze all trends of thought and synthesize them. In fulfilling such a mission, we can be proud people in the age of love and before the universe.

Because you must go through the course of fallen Adam and Eve, each individual has to inherit the historical mission of the second Adam. However, you have to know that you do not qualify yourselves to fulfill such mission. Moreover, you have to know that today's history was formed by the process of finding God, true humans, and true all things, which had been lost due to the Fall. (4-17)