Throughout history, people have anguished over the fundamental questions of human life and the universe without arriving at satisfying answers. This is because no one has understood the root principle by which humanity and the universe were originally created. To approach this topic properly, it is not enough to examine resultant reality. The fundamental question is that of the causal reality. Problems concerning human life and the universe cannot be solved without first understanding the nature of God. This chapter deals extensively with these questions.

How can we know the divine nature of the invisible God? One way to fathom His deity is by observing the universe which He created. Thus, St. Paul said: Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. -Rom. 1:20

Just as a work of art displays the invisible nature of its maker in a concrete form, everything in the created universe is a substantial manifestation of some quality of the Creator’s invisible, divine nature. As such, each stands in a relationship to God. Just as we can come to know the character of an artist through his works, so we can understand the nature of God by observing the diverse things of creation.

How is a being’s original created value determined? The value of an entity may be determined by the relationship between its purpose of existence and the desire that a human being has for it. To be more precise, the value of an entity intended at its creation is not fixed as an inherent attribute. Rather, it is established through the mutual relationship between the purpose of the entity according to God’s ideal of creation, and people’s original desire to treasure it and bring out its true worth. It finds its true value when it participates as an object partner in a God-centered four position foundation by relating with a person through give and take action and by their union becoming the third object partner to God.

What sets the standard by which the original value of an entity is determined? Since its original value is determined when it participates in a four position foundation, and since the center of this four position foundation is God, it is God who sets the standard for its value. Since God is absolute, the original value of an object partner determined in relation to this standard set by God must also be absolute.

It is recorded in the Bible that after God completed each day of creation, He saw that it was good. This suggests that God wanted His creations to be object partners embodying goodness that He might take delight in them. How can the creation give God the greatest joy?

God created human beings as the final step in creating the universe. He created them in His image, in the likeness of His internal nature and external form, and gave them sensibility to all feelings and emotions because it was His intention to share joy with them. After their creation, God blessed Adam and Eve: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. -Gen. 1:28

These are the three great blessings: to be fruitful (mature and ready to bear fruit), multiply and have dominion over the creation. Had Adam and Eve obeyed this divine mandate and built the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no doubt that God would have felt the greatest joy as His sons and daughters rejoiced in the world of His ideal.

According to the Genesis account of the creation of the universe, amidst the primordial state of chaos, void and darkness, God created light. God next separated the waters under the firmament from the waters above the firmament. He then divided the land from the ocean, created plants, fish, birds and mammals, and finally made humankind. All of this took a period of six “days.” From this account, we can surmise that the process of creating the universe took some period of time represented by six days.

The process of creation recorded in the Bible bears some resemblance to the theory of the origin and formation of the universe as described by modern science. According to modern science, the universe began as expanding plasma. Out of the chaos and void of space, the heavenly bodies formed and gave light. As the molten earth cooled, volcanic eruptions filled the sky with a firmament of water. The land rose and the water fell as rain, creating the continents and oceans. Next, the lower plants and animals came into being. Then came fish, birds, mammals, and finally humankind, in that order. The age of the earth is calculated to be several billion years. Considering that the account of the creation of the universe recorded in the Bible thousands of years ago nearly coincides with the findings of modern scientific research, we are reassured that this biblical record must be a revelation from God.

The universe did not suddenly spring forth complete, without regard to the flow of time. In fact, its origin and development took an enormous length of time. Therefore, the biblical period of six days for the completion of the universe is not to be reckoned by the number of literal sunrises and sunsets. It symbolizes six ordered periods of time in the creation process.

The universe was created after the pattern of a human being, who is in the image of God’s dual characteristics. Therefore, the structure of the universe and every entity in it resembles that of a human being, which consists most fundamentally of mind and body. Corresponding to the human mind and body, the universe consists of the incorporeal world and the corporeal world, both of which are real and substantial. The incorporeal world is so called because we cannot perceive it through our five physical senses. Yet we can perceive it through our five spiritual senses. Those who have had spiritual experiences testify that the incorporeal world appears as real as the world in which we live. The incorporeal and corporeal worlds together form the cosmos.

The body cannot act apart from its relationship with the mind; a person cannot perform true actions apart from a relationship with God. Likewise, the corporeal world cannot manifest its true value apart from a relationship with the incorporeal world. Furthermore, just as we cannot discern a person’s character without fathoming his mind, and we cannot understand the fundamental meaning of human life without understanding God, so we cannot completely understand the nature and structure of the corporeal world without understanding the nature and structure of the incorporeal world. The incorporeal world, or spirit world, is in the position of subject partner, and the corporeal world, or physical world, is in the position of object partner. The latter is like a shadow of the former. When we shed our physical bodies after our life in the physical world, we enter the spirit world as spirits and live there for eternity.