Thursday, June 25, 2009

Demystifying the concept of indemnity

'Indemnity' is a concept widely used and, unfortunately misused by Sun Myung Moon and many of his followers. Let's have a look at how this concept is defined in the Unification Church, how it has been misused and what it originally should mean.

Indemnity as explained in Moon's Divine Principle

Here are first some quotes from the main teaching of the Unification Church, the Divine Principle (black-book edition).

"What, then, does "restoration through indemnity" mean? When anything has lost its original position or status, certain conditions must be established in order for the original position or status to be restored. The setting up of such conditions is called "indemnity". For example, in order to restore lost honor, position, or health, we must set up the necessary conditions of sincere efforts, good qualification, and sufficient medical care. Suppose there are two people who have loved each other but who are now on bad terms. In order for them to restore the original state of loving each other, they have to set up the condition of apologizing to each other.

In like manner, man, who lost the original position or status endowed at the creation, must set up certain necessary conditions in order to restore himself. This act of restoring the original position or status endowed at the creation is called "restoration through indemnity". The condition to be set up for restoration through indemnity is called the "condition of indemnity". "

And further on:

"Who must set up the condition of indemnity? As already clarified in the principle of creation, man originally was to dominate even the angels, after having perfected himself by fulfilling his own portion of responsibility. The first human ancestors failed to do so, and, in reverse manner, fell under Satan's domination. Therefore, in order for man to be restored to the position of dominating Satan from the position of being under Satan's domination, man himself must set up the due condition of indemnity by fulfilling his own portion of responsibility."

Here you find the original text.

How is the concept of indemnity being misused?

"Indemnity" is defined as the conditions that must be set up for the restoration of the original position or status of someone or something. The concept is linked to the Unification Church's understanding of how God's ideal can be restored. In order to restore God's original ideal, a course of restoration must be gone. On this road, conditions are necessary to reinstall the ideal situation.

I don't see much of a problem until here, but some darkness seems to be surrounding the sentences above:

"Suppose there are two people who have loved each other but who are now on bad terms. In order for them to restore the original state of loving each other, they have to set up the condition of apologizing to each other."

We have to ask ourselves if apologies are sufficient to restore a broken love relationship. Let me give the following example. Suppose that a boy broke a window of his neighbor. Let's say he kicked a ball through the window to show off to his friends. Would it be enough for the boy to later apologize to the neighbor? There are a number of problems here that the boy has. One problem is that he let himself be influenced by friends. Another problem is that he broke the window. And a third problem is that he broke the friendly relationship with the neighbor. A deeper problem still is that he is going to feel guilty in relationship to God.

Common sense tells us that the boy doesn't only need to apologize. For a full restoration of the situation, he needs to overcome being influenced by friends, he needs to restore the broken window, he needs to restore the good relationship to the neighbor, and, most importantly, he needs to restore his love relationship to God.

Forgiveness can come in at this point when the neighbor forgives the boy. But what good would this do to the boy if he would not also overcome his tendency to be influenced by friends? How can the boy be sure that he won't do something similar again in a new situation?

For the boy to restore trust in himself, much more is needed than just 'forgiveness.' Even if he were forgiven, he needs to come in a similar situation once again, and then not repeat the same mistake. Only after this, after being forgiven and after having proved to himself and to God that he is a different person, restoration has taken place. And of course.... also the broken window needs to be repaired!

The Divine Principle book tells us this by saying:

"Therefore, in order for man to be restored to the position of dominating Satan from the position of being under Satan's domination, man himself must set up the due condition of indemnity by fulfilling his own portion of responsibility."

This sentence can mean nothing else than that you or i need to restore our own mistakes. Forgiveness given by God or by others can help us to restore our mistakes, but doesn't extinguish the need for ourselves to go through a process of restoration.

But in the Unification Church, it is now widely stated by Moon and believed by many followers that Moon were capable of paying huge amounts of indemnity, so that people don't really need to restore themselves anymore. They just need to accept Moon's supposedly great deeds of paying indemnity for them, accept Moon as their Messiah, and all would be in good order.

That just doesn't make any sense. How could what Moon does restore your personal relationship to God? Moon is not God. How could what Moon does restore your good relationship to fellow man after you have hurt that relationship by bad deeds? All these things cannot be restored through indemnity paid by Moon.

What should indemnity originally mean?

In order to clarify all the confusion, i would propose a slightly different concept: 'restoration through correction.'

Whatever was done wrong, whatever got lost, it needs to be restored through a process of correcting all the mistakes. This needs to be done by each individual. Even if you may get help from others, through their forgiveness or help in other ways, you still need to correct your own heart, your own mind, your own body. You need to restore your own relationship to God. This can only be done by working through all the problems that you have in that relationship.

You need to restore all the problems that came in your relationship to other people. This cannot be done by you alone. It needs your effort but also the efforts of those other people, or by people replacing them but standing in a similar position.







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