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G. Breland: Address to Summit 2022, Session IXa
Written by Gregory Breland, executive director, International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences (1984-2000)
Saturday, August 13, 2022
Address to Summit 2022 and Leadership Conference,
Seoul, Korea, August 11-15, 2022
I was the executive director for the International Conferences for the Unity of the Sciences from 1985 to 2000. That was really the last time we met. And then there was a period of dormancy, shall I say, until 2017, when Mother Moon started it up again. But I'm going to talk about Father Moon's focus for starting ICUS in 1972. Actually, we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first ICUS. So it was 50 years ago this year that it started. But let me start with the people who attended ICUS and their experiences with it and their reflections.
Dr. Richard L. Rubenstein, a distinguished professor of religion at Florida State University, said at the 12th ICUS in 1983, “Reverend Moon is one of the most important religious leaders of our time.”
Now, that is quite a startling statement if you dwell on it for a bit. I think we have to ask: Who was Dr. Richard Rubenstein? Well, he held a doctorate in religion from Harvard University. He was an ordained rabbi, a distinguished professor of religion and the author of several books on religion and the Holocaust. At one point, he was associated with the “death of God” movement. So he was quite a well-respected theologian.
In his introduction to Reverend Moon at the 12th ICUS, Dr. Rubenstein reflected that in 1965 Paul Tillich, the greatest theologian of the 20th century, had died, as had other greats in religion: Martin Buber the same year, and Carl Barth a few years later. At that time, Dr. Rubenstein was thinking: What will come after Tillich? What will the future bring? He said that in 1976, “I received part of that answer in a letter written by Dr. Frederick Sontag, who was writing a biography on Reverend Moon. ‘Something new, something genuinely important is happening,’ he wrote.”
Dr. Rubenstein was initially skeptical. He was a theologian, a professor of religion, Harvard trained. But as he got to know our movement and got to know Reverend Moon, his opinion changed. Also in his introduction to Reverend Moon, Dr. Rubenstein said, “We are in the presence of a man who is not only inspired, but possesses the capacity to inspire.” And he gave two examples of that: The Washington Times newspaper, which was founded a year earlier in 1982, and ICUS, where true academic freedom is encouraged.
Dr. Rubenstein was really impressed with the ICUS conferences and the amount of academic freedom. I went to eight of them. There really were no bounds on what people could say. They could express themselves. and Dr. Rubenstein picked up on that.
I want to talk about three significant things that came from ICUS:
- Reverend Moon was one of the first on a large international scale able to promote an interdisciplinary and value-laden approach to the world's problems.
- ICUS was the first major effort by the Unification movement to do international conferencing. The results have been enormous. And actually, we can see one of the results here today, in this Summit 2022 and Leadership Conference that we are attending.
- Reverend Moon expected that when scientists understood the scientific basis of the Divine Principle and came to understand that God exists, the need for religion would end. Scientists would take the lead in promoting harmony among all people, and the goal of world peace could be achieved. So you can see Reverend Moon had a really great vision for ICUS.
Reverend Moon was one of the first on a large international scale able to promote an interdisciplinary and value-laden approach to the world's problems.
There were six committees that made up the conference. They would have either a “Unity of Knowledge” theme or a “Science and Values” theme.
Putting this simply, the “Unity of Knowledge” theme was to have a multidisciplinary approach to an issue, such as the oceans or nuclear energy. The “Science and Values” theme would look at the ethical issues surrounding a particular topic, such as health care or the environment.
Morton Kaplan, a renowned political scientist from the University of Chicago, said, regarding the “Unity of Knowledge” theme at ICUS, “Nowhere in the history of intellectual movements has there been a series of conferences so concerned with interdisciplinary matters that affect the human condition as this one.” These are not my words; these are Morton Kaplan's words.
He also said: “Regrettably, a physicist can't talk to a chemist these days, and quite often he can't even talk to another physicist. … One man had the vision to put these conferences together, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.” Morton Kaplan knew Reverend Moon very well. He chaired four different ICUS conferences.
Alexander King, a co-founder of the Club of Rome, said about the “Unity of Knowledge” theme: “The major problems can no longer be solved by politicians alone, nor by economists, engineers or scientists in isolation. I know of no other forum which offers such a rich and comprehensive opportunity for multidisciplinary thinking.”
So these are the academics, the scholars on a world level. These are really the highest level of academics on the world stage. Those were their comments about the “Unity of Knowledge” theme and what Reverend Moon put together.
Let's look for a moment at the “Science and Values” theme. Sir John Eccles, a Nobel laureate in physiology, said in 1973: “Reverend Moon believes that intellectuals have a particular responsibility to use their knowledge and creative imagination in the urgent task of rebuilding society with values as a supreme guide.”
Alvin Weinberg, a distinguished fellow at the Institute of Energy Analysis who also worked on the Manhattan Project, which was referred to earlier, said about “Science and Values”: “As for values, science was not supposed to be concerned with these at all. ICUS has provided these benefits, magnificent opportunities to discuss these issues, to help overcome this trend toward fragmentation and restore the discussion of values to scientific respectability.” So when I say Reverend Moon was one of the first, I think you see my point.
D.H.R. Barton, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, said at the 20th ICUS in 1995: “The possibility that political ambition might overcome this moral reason represents a fearsome hazard that must unite all humankind in a crusade for peace.”
Reverend Moon, speaking on “Unity of Knowledge” in the Founder’s Address at the 16th ICUS in 1987, said: “The complicated problems of the world cannot be fully understood simply within the narrow perspectives of individual fields of knowledge. The human being has both a physical body and a material desire and material senses and a spiritual self with spiritual desires and spiritual senses.”
So if humans are that way, humans’ problems are that way. We have to solve them by looking at them that way. Simple ideas, but profound in their depth.
And on “Science and “Values, Reverend Moon said: “With reason only, however, we become separated from the ultimate purpose of the human being, who has a twofold nature. … This principle in the human being is the absolute value of love, which guides us to complete our personalities through the harmony of our spirituality and physicality and to realize truth, goodness and beauty.”
So what are some of the examples in today's society where we see that ICUS was leading the way?
We see team approaches in our schools and companies where groups are asked to solve problems. When I was in school 50 years ago, it was every man for himself, and you didn't want other people to succeed because they'd be doing better than you. That's all changed.
In the recent excavation of a power plant in my hometown, concerns were expressed about the possibility of disturbing the Native American burial sites. They took that into consideration. They took the proper precautions, and they preserved the Native American artifacts that they found.
Years of ignoring the ethical aspects of development have caused the birth of the environmental movement. And even with the reiteration of ICUS you see today, Mother Moon's focus is on the environmental movement. So it just continues to show the foresight and vision that Reverend Moon had in starting the science conference. Thirty-seven Nobel laureates have attended ICUS. Again, reaching the highest levels of academic excellence.
ICUS was the first major effort by the Unification movement to do international conferencing.
The effects have been enormous. We at this Summit 2022 and Leadership Conference are the beneficiaries of all of this conferencing. But ICUS was the first one on an international level that really laid the framework, laid the foundation for these other ones to come.
I noticed [in the audience] Dr. Thomas Ward and Dr. Frank Kaufmann. They, as well as Dr. Thomas Selover, all came to early ICUS conferences. They sort of cut their teeth, so to speak, in the early ICUS conferences, and we’re grateful for their contribution. And it just goes on and on.
Reverend Moon expected that when scientists understood the scientific basis of the Divine Principle and came to understand that God exists, the need for religion would end.
Scientists would take the lead in promoting harmony among all people, and the goal of world peace would be achieved.
So there are many different aspects of the Divine Principle. One of the basic ideas is that everything exists in a subject-object relationship. This is the basis for existence, growth and multiplication. Let me give just a couple of examples. If you have oxygen and hydrogen, you bring them together, they make a relationship, they have a give-and-receive action and you create water. You have a stamen and a pistil within a plant, the give-and-receive action results in a fruit. When you have a male and female goose, their offspring are baby geese. It's a universal principle. When you bring husband and wife together, through the harmonious give and take they have a child. Also in our physical body, whether it's the circulatory system, the respiratory system, or the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
This principle applies in every case. In the relationships of a government and its people, the teachers and their students, give and take action is in place.
At the eighth ICUS in 1979, Reverend Moon said: “Up to now, although science in its quest for truth has investigated immediate causes of particular phenomena, it has not taken up the search for motives or reasons for existence as a whole.
“Thus, the final challenge that science confronts is this question of the ultimate reason for existence. …
“I propose that in clarifying reasons, one must first admit purpose, and before admitting purpose, one must recognize the will that made that purpose. … This leads to God.”
This is quite similar to Mother Moon’s thought, her point that to really solve the world's problems we need to understand God. Reverend Moon was preaching from the same prayer book.
Lastly, Karl Pribram, a noted neuroscientist, stated: “This is perhaps the first scientific discovery since Galileo that will bring together science and spirit in the Western world. … [In the past it's always been:] You must choose between Darwin and God, between your telescope and spirit. … An unfolded order which is so closely aligned in its description to the order which mystics and religious philosophers have been speaking about in the East, and also the esoteric tradition of the West. … Something really important is going to happen to bring us together, the unity that Reverend Moon stands for personally so much.”
We did 21 ICUS conferences, and this quote just shows that the scientists were finally starting to get the point. Thank you.
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