IV. Changes In History
The laws of creation and the laws of restoration discussed above were all at work in history, but the most important ones are the Law of Give-and-Receive, the Law of Repulsion, the Law of Indemnity, and the Law of Separation. Among them, the Law of Give-and-Receive becomes the "Law of Development" in changes in history, and the other three together become the "Law of Turning." (The Law of Turning is also called the "Law of the Struggle between Good and Evil.")
It has already been explained that history has been developing through give-and-receive action; that is, development in the political, economic, cultural, and all other fields takes place through harmonious give-and-receive action between various pairs of subject and object, such as spirit and matter, people and the environment (society and nature), government and people, organization and organization, individual and individual, people and machinery, and so on.
Development refers to growth, progress, improvement, and the appearance of a new quality-all of which are irreversible types of forward motion. These phenomena appear when the correlative elements of subject and object engage in give-and-receive action centering on a common purpose. On the other hand, struggle occurs between a subject and a subject that have different purposes and different interests. When struggle takes place, development or progress will be either suspended or reversed. Accordingly, any kind of development or progress appearing in history took place, without exception, through give-and-receive action.
Subject and subject oppose and struggle with each other according to the Law of Repulsion. In human history the repulsion between one subject and another refers to the conflict between one leader and another. One example is the struggle between the leaders of the bourgeoisie and the royalist aristocrats centered around Louis XVI, namely, the struggle between new leaders and old leaders at the time of the French Revolution. The two parties were separated according to the Law of Separation, with one party on tile relatively good side (the position that was relatively closer to God's providence) and the other party on the relatively evil side (the position that was obstructed God's providence). The subjects formed their good and evil camps, respectively, by attracting people, who were in the object position, to their respective sides (separating the people into two parts), and fought with each other. The question of which leader is good and which is evil is a matter to be decided on the basis of the extent to which a leader is in accordance with God's providence. In many cases, however, the leaders in an existing society were carrying out tyrannical rule, leaning toward self centered desire, and so God would often establish new leaders on the good side and would work a providence through them.
In the struggle between good and evil, if the good side wins, history turns to a better direction. Subsequently, when history reaches yet another new stage, another leader, who is even better, will appear. Then the old leader will come to stand in a relatively evil position, and a new struggle between good and evil will start. Again, if the good side wins, history will turn once more to an even better direction. Finally, through this process, history will reach the stage of perfect goodness, that is, the stage of the ideal of creation. Only then will the struggle between good and evil come to an end. Accordingly, struggle does not bring development, but it does change the direction of history.
In the struggle between a good subject and evil subject, when the evil side was stronger, God would attempt to bring the evil side to surrender by using the Law of Indemnity. To explain, God would guide die leaders on the good side to sacrifice and walk the path of persecution. With that as a condition, He would influence the people on the evil side to come to a natural surrender to Him, would isolate the leader of the evil side, and would finally lead the good side to victory. It has been through this Law of Indemnity that religions have been propagated throughout the world until today, even through persecution.
In the struggle between good and evil, when the good side does not fully accomplish its responsibility and the evil side wins a victory, then naturally history does not turn to a better direction but is prolonged in its existing direction, remaining as it is. After a specified length of time, God again establishes a good leader and works to win victory over the evil side. This is the way God has been guiding history toward a better direction. Therefore, human history, has not been the history of class struggle, but rather the history of the struggle between good and evil.
In this way, history develops through the give-and-receive action between the subject and object, and when it comes to a certain point of time, its direction is turned through the struggle between good and evil, and after the turn, history once again develops through the give-and-receive action between the subject and object. History has undergone changes by repeating this process. The process of historical changes can be illustrated in Fig. 8-2.
Fig. 8-2: Change in History through Give-and-Receive Action and the Struggle of Good and Evil
From what was said above, we see that history has undergone changes in two directions, namely, the direction of development (progress), and the direction of restoration (turning). Development here refers to the development of science, economy, and culture; and restoration refers to the recovery of the lost ideal world originally intended-a world of love and peace. The reason why these two directions have occurred in history is that human history is the history of re-creation and at the same time the history of restoration. The future world will be a world of highly developed science and technology, and at the same time a highly ethical society. The world of science and technology is attained through development, while ethical society is attained through restoration.
Restoration is achieved through the struggle between good and evil, but this does not necessarily refer to military conflict involving armed forces. If the evil side obediently surrenders to the good side, then it is possible for peaceful social change to be accomplished. In this way, history has been changing, following the two directions of development and restoration. Development will continue forever, whereas restoration will come to an end when the original ideal world is restored, after which the ideal world will come to continue forever.
