What is the Four Position Foundation and why is it central to God's creation?

The Four Position Foundation is God's universal blueprint for creation. Centered on God, it involves a subject, an object, and their unified new creation. It is the structural basis for all existence, realizing original value through reciprocal give-and-take action. This foundation achieves the three great blessings and is essential for manifesting God's love and ideal, representing the highest standard of goodness and serving as the model for the ideal family and a world of peace.

The Four Position Foundation is a core concept that illuminates God's universal creative pattern and His ultimate purpose for humanity and the cosmos. It provides the essential blueprint for the unfolding of life, love, and multiplication, revealing the structural basis through which all existence is intended to operate. This foundation is crucial for realizing the original value of creation, which is absolute because God is its center.

The Biblical Foundation

The Holy Bible beautifully illustrates the essence of the Four Position Foundation, though it does not explicitly name it as such. In Genesis, we encounter the inaugural act of creation where God declares, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). Subsequently, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). This seminal scripture establishes a fundamental relational structure centered on God as the ultimate Creator and the source of all being (John 1:3: "All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made").

Following creation, God issues the foundational command: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28). This commandment inherently requires a subject (man) and an object (woman), whose union, guided by God's purpose, leads to new life and lineage. The sacred bond between man and woman is further articulated in Genesis 2:24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." This "one flesh" signifies a profound unity, a shared existence that mirrors the relational essence of God. The prophet Malachi reinforces this divine intention, stating, "Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring" (Malachi 2:15). This highlights the multigenerational, family-centered purpose embedded in God's initial design. Jesus himself upheld this divine pattern, quoting Genesis when he said, "So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matthew 19:6). The Bible thus provides rich narrative and prophetic insight into this relational dynamic. The Divine Principle reveals the formal, systematic explanation of its universal application, which is implicit throughout Scripture.

Divine Principle's Clarification

The Divine Principle explicitly articulates and names this universal structure the Four Position Foundation. It systematically clarifies that God, as the absolute Subject and Origin, establishes all phenomena through a reciprocal relationship based on give and take action. This dynamic occurs between a subject and an object, which are initially created in a complementary relationship. When the subject partner, centered on God's purpose of creation, seeks truth, beauty, goodness, and love in their object partner, they establish the purpose of creation through that partner. Similarly, the object partner's original value is realized when it stands as an absolute object to the human subject, bringing forth its God-given truth, beauty, and goodness. This establishes the standard of value, which is God Himself.

This fundamental pattern is not exclusive to human beings but permeates all levels of creation, from the smallest subatomic particles to the grandest galaxies. The proton and electron in an atom, the positive and negative poles in energy, the stamen and pistil in a flower, and the male and female within all living species—each reflects this intrinsic design of God. As Revelation 4:11 states, "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."

When these three positions—God, subject, and object—unite together in perfect accord through give and take action centered on God's purpose and love, they establish a fourth position of oneness or new creation. This completed foundation realizes the three great blessings given to humanity: "Be fruitful" (perfection of individual character), "multiply" (establishment of ideal family), and "have dominion" (responsible stewardship over creation). The Divine Principle explains that this foundation is "the fundamental foundation of goodness" because it is the essential structure through which God's love, truth, and ideal can be actualized and permeate all existence. The vertical force the subject gives to the object is love, and the vertical force the object returns is beauty. When harmoniously united, love exists within beauty, and beauty within love.

Understanding the Deeper Meaning

The synthesis of biblical revelation and the systematic explanation of Divine Principle presents a profound, unified understanding: the biblical command to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28) is the practical manifestation of the Four Position Foundation, which is God's eternal blueprint for all existence. This foundational structure is the basis for the ideal family—God as the parent, the husband, the wife, and the child. This mirrors God's own nature as the God of relationship, who is love (1 John 4:8: "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love") and cannot exist in isolation (John 17:21: "that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you"). The Principle thus completes the biblical narrative by providing the universal formula that underlies the relational truths described implicitly and narratively in Scripture, revealing systematically how creation functions to embody God's love and express His dominion and glory (Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse").

The failure of the first human ancestors to establish this Four Position Foundation due to the Fall was a catastrophic departure from God’s ideal. Consequently, all subsequent divine providence has aimed at its restoration through setting conditions of indemnity to separate from Satan's dominion. Every truly ideal family throughout history, from Noah to Abraham and to the family hoped for by Jesus, represents efforts to re-establish this original pattern. This understanding highlights that salvation is not merely an individual endeavor but is fundamentally relational and familial at its core, culminating in the establishment of ideal families centered on God.

Living the Principle

1. Center relationships on God: Make God the heart of your home through daily prayer and scriptural study, seeking His purpose in all interactions. 2. Practice give and take: In marital and family relationships, prioritize serving one another and finding common purpose with God, experiencing love and beauty. 3. Cultivate godly lineage: Raise children with an understanding they are God's precious gifts, guiding them towards true love and ethical living based on loyalty, fidelity, and filial piety. 4. Extend the principle: Apply foundational harmonious principles of collaboration and higher purpose to community and work settings, pursuing goodness and multiplying it.

These answers explain the Bible in the light of the Divine Principle, the teachings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon. .

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