Eternal life - the bright side

According to the Principle, God being an eternal, loving parent has created human beings – his direct objects - to last eternally, too. Thus men and women live eternally, but not their physical bodies.

The Principle explains, that God created a spiritual and a physical universe, which resemble each other. Physical objects like the human body live only for a limited time, but the human spirit, once it exists, lives forever. According to the movement’s belief, the spirit exists from the moment of the physical birth onwards. The time in the womb has an effect on the life after birth but in the womb everything exists only as a potential. It becomes real and eternal in the moment when the spirit appears – with the third breath of the newborn.

This modifies the stance of the movement towards abortion, for example. Members do not take this issue lightly, but they won’t  equate or even compare the act to the killing of a human.

Humans should mature during their early life on earth through relationships with each other and the environment, growing their capacity to give and receive love.

The family is central to this process. Here people can experience what the teaching calls the three kinds of God’s love – love of a child, love of spouse and love of parents. After a more or less brief time - the number 120 years frequently appears here – all humans leave their body and continue to live in their true home – the spiritual universe, shortly called the spirit world. That is in the original design. Physical death is not a result of deviation, as some Christians believe. It is a normal experience.

Normally, people could have experienced the spirit world even within a physical body. However, as a consequence of a deviation from the original course, the relationship to that part of reality deteriorated - to the degree that most people are completely unaware of its existence.

After having perfected the capacity to give and experience three kinds of God’s love, humans would be well prepared for eternal life. After their physical bodies stop to function they would naturally ascend to the highest realm of the spirit world –  Heaven.

The Principle gives a few more details but in essence the explanation of the original design stays as simple as this.