1. God and His Principles Are the Starting-point for Understanding

World Scripture

Without faith there is no knowledge, without knowledge there is no virtuous conduct, without virtues there is no deliverance, and without deliverance there is no perfection [Nirvana].
Uttaradhyayana Sutra 28.30 (Jainism)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Proverbs 9.10

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him.
James 1.5

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.
1 Corinthians 2.4-7

Truth is the way; truth is the goal of life, Reached by sages who are free from self-will.
Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.6 (Hinduism)

A disciple in training will comprehend this earth, the realm of death and the realm of the gods. A disciple in training will investigate the well-taught Path of Virtue, even as an expert garland-maker picks flowers.
Dhammapada 45 (Buddhism)

Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek understanding that you may believe, but believe that you may understand, as was said, “Except ye believe, ye shall not understand” (Isaiah 7.9).
Saint Augustine, On the Gospel of John 29.6 (Christianity)

Carefully ponder moral principles and cultivate their source.
Chu Hsi (Confucianism)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

To reach the goal of philosophy, to know the ultimate truth, it is necessary to posit a transcendent or absolute Being. Why is this? Apart from the Absolute Being, one cannot understand the origin of existence or its meaning. Therefore, when facing serious difficulties, people have sought solutions through making a relationship with the Absolute Being and the truth of that Being.
(24:318, September 14, 1969)

The truth is one, and it is the principle that rules both the natural world and the human world. In nature this principle is the root and source of all things of the universe. For human beings this principle is the absolute value of true love, which guides us to complete our personalities through harmonizing our spirituality and physicality and to realize truth, goodness, and beauty.

I do not believe that the claims of theism, humanism, and materialism are in irreconcilable conflict. I think, rather, that they were incomplete and one-sided expressions of the one principle of absolute values.

In order to fundamentally solve various human problems of the modem world, we should find this one principle, the absolute value—which can cope with the whole, beyond any existing ideologies and claims.

The search for absolute value leads us ultimately to the fundamental question of God. To accept that God exists is to recognize that there exists a universal principle which operates consistently in nature and the human world.

On this foundation, values that appear to be relative can be understood as interrelated with each other when viewed from the viewpoint of the absolute value.
(170:268-70, November 27, 1987)