Skip to main content

Providential History of Modern Thought: A Unification Perspective

The Journal of Unification Studies is a forum for committed engagement with Unification theology and practice, published annually by the Unification Theological Seminary.

Its articles address concerns of the theological community and the professional ministry, as well as contemporary social, cultural, political, scientific and economic issues, from a Unificationist perspective.

In addition, the Journal promotes dialogue and understanding by presenting papers from diverse viewpoints that engage Unification theology and practice.

In his article, Providential History of Modern Thought: A Unification Perspective, published in the Journal of Unification Studies, 2017, Dr. Theodore Shimmyo uses the insightful and reliable observations of thinkers such as Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr in order to a little more accurately rewrite the four-hundred year Period of Preparation for the Second Advent of the Messiah in the Divine Principle.


Journal of Unification Studies Vol. 18, 2017 – Pages 1-54

The Divine Principle talks about the Period of Preparation for the Second Advent of the Messiah, which is the “four-hundred-year period from the Protestant Reformation in 1517 to the end of World War I in 1918.”[1] During this period, there were three rounds of division into “Cain-type” and “Abel-type” views of life: 1) the Renaissance vs. the Reformation, 2) the Enlightenment vs. Pietism, etc., and 3) communism vs. a “third reformation” of Christianity. This was so that the “foundation of substance,” or reintegration through love and surrender, between the Cain-type and Abel-type camps might be able to be laid worldwide three times eventually to receive Christ at the Second Advent in the last days.[2]

continue reading…

Theodore Shimmyo, was President of the Unification Theological Seminary from 1994 to 2000, where he continues to serve as an affiliate faculty member. He writes and lectures on theological topics, and he is currently working on a new book about Unification theology. He is a member of the Karl Barth Society of North America.