Can Religions Really Become One?
In a world where people who believe in different gods have fought for centuries — and even those who share the same god have split into sects that turn on one another — can religion really become one again?
Before anything was ever called “religion,” what did humanity truly want? Even knowing that joy and health never last forever in this world of suffering, people longed for a life that would one day escape that cycle and enter eternal happiness — that longing is the deepest root of faith. At this stage there is no fixed shape, no one interferes, and it isn’t even called a religion yet. And this longing was no different from one age or one land to another.
And humanity has long waited for someone who would bring that longing into reality — only the name differed. 참성경 says:
“The one who restores this universe, the one who restores all creation — in the Buddhist scriptures he was called 생미륵불, in the Bible he was called 구세주, and in 격암유록 he was called 정도령… the one who comes bearing the dew.” — RU 4:7
격암유록 likewise declares he is without doubt 구세주, without doubt 정도령, without doubt 생미륵불 (GAR 2:5). Different scriptures, as if by agreement, were pointing to the very same person.
But trouble began the moment this longing and this waiting were built into organized “religions.” Each built its own framework out of partial knowledge; the names of god differed, the teachings differed. Add to that the pride and the struggle for power among followers, and conflict and division took root.
Does that mean religious unity means tearing these organizations down and returning to a time before religion existed? No. This is exactly what 참성경’s term 원시반본 points to. 원시반본 doesn’t mean going back to a time before religion — it means that because a person was originally 하나님, originally 부처님, that person returns to that original state: to being 하나님, to being 부처님.
“Even the old texts speak of 원시반본 — returning to the original state. This is the fundamental logic of every religion in this world today.” — RU 1:10
So when the Bible speaks of restoring the Garden of Eden (RU 1:11-12), and the Buddhist scriptures speak of reaching Paradise (RU 4:13-14) — both, in different words, were pointing to the very same goal: a person becoming 하나님, becoming 부처님, once again.
So religious unity is not something that happens because different religions agree to merge. Even though they believed in different gods and taught in different words, what humanity ultimately wanted, within each of those frameworks, was one and the same from the very beginning. As rivers flow together into the sea — religious unity truly begins when that one shared goal, and the one awaited protagonist who fulfills it, appears and shines the complete light of truth.
