The Love Materialism Failed to Explain

From materialism to Godism: How the mystery of love points beyond materialism toward a deeper understanding of life

Continued from part 1: When the Promise of Equality Turns to Control

Continued in part 3: Can Revolution Change Human Nature?

Lee Sang-heon (이상헌 – also romanized as Sang Hun Lee) questioned whether class solidarity could account for the love, conscience, and self-sacrifice that lead people to put others before themselves.

What makes a person willing to sacrifice their life for someone else? Why do people sometimes choose to do what is right even when nobody will reward them, or when doing so places their own safety at risk? And where does the love come from that enables people to care for others beyond their immediate interests?

For Lee Sang-heon (1914–1997), a South Korean physician and philosopher who developed Unification Thought (통일사상) [See editor’s note 1 below], such questions eventually became central to his reassessment of communism. Having once believed that communism offered a path toward national independence and human liberation, he began to question whether its philosophical foundations could explain the very qualities that had motivated his own commitment.

In the second installment of its series Communism Without God, published on 15^th October 2026, Segye Ilbo religion correspondent Jeong Seong-su (정성수) examines Lee’s reflections on the relationship between materialism and human love.

Lee’s doubts emerged from a personal question. What was the source of the love for his nation and humanity that had inspired him, and of the willingness to endure hardship for the sake of his comrades? Both the independence movement [See editor’s note 2 below] and the communist movement, he recognized, had appealed to people partly because they promised a better future for others. Yet the origins of this commitment seemed difficult to explain through the materialist philosophy underpinning communism.

Materialism holds that matter, rather than spirit or a divine being, constitutes the fundamental reality of the universe. Human consciousness and ideas are understood as products of material conditions. Within the communist tradition, this perspective was closely connected to an analysis of economic structures, class relations, and the exploitation of workers.

As Jeong explains, communism did not lack a concern for human suffering. Karl Marx’s criticism of capitalism was driven in part by the conviction that economic systems could alienate people from their labor and from one another. Under capitalism, labor becomes a commodity, while relationships between human beings can be reduced to transactions governed by money.

This critique identified genuine problems. Nevertheless, Lee wanted to go beyond asking how exploitation arose. He wanted to understand why people were capable of love and sacrifice in the first place.

If human beings were fundamentally material entities and the mind merely a secondary product of matter, Lee reasoned, then conscience and love would also have to be explained as products of material circumstances. But could such an explanation adequately account for moral choices that appeared to transcend personal advantage?

Consider parents who risk their lives to protect their children, strangers who rush into danger to rescue someone they have never met, or individuals who forgive those who have harmed them. These actions may involve emotional, social, or psychological factors, but they are not easily explained by the pursuit of material gain.

Nor, Lee believed, could class solidarity provide a complete answer.

Workers may unite because they share economic interests and face common conditions. Their cooperation can be understood as a collective effort to improve their position in relation to employers and capital owners. Such solidarity can be powerful and meaningful, but it does not necessarily explain love that extends beyond one’s own group.

When solidarity is defined primarily by class, the distinction between those who belong to the group and those who oppose it can become morally decisive. Affection for workers may be accompanied by hostility toward capitalists, while revolutionary objectives may be used to justify the removal of perceived enemies.

This creates a fundamental contradiction for an ideology that claims to seek the liberation of all humanity. How can a movement establish a society for everyone if its understanding of solidarity encourages people to divide the world into allies and adversaries?

Lee concluded that class-based love could not encompass every human being. Universal love, in his view, had to extend beyond shared economic circumstances and political allegiance.

His concern also extended to the question of what happens after a revolution succeeds. Even if private property is abolished and relations of production are fundamentally transformed, what guarantees that people will cease to seek power over others?

Changing economic arrangements may alter incentives and redistribute resources, but it does not automatically eliminate selfishness, the desire for domination, or the impulse to control others. A society can remove one group of exploiters only to see another emerge if the people exercising authority remain motivated by greed and resentment.

This was particularly significant for Lee because his criticism did not stem from indifference to poverty or exploitation. On the contrary, he wanted to understand why an ideology committed to overcoming these injustices could nevertheless produce new forms of oppression.

The problem, as he saw it, was that changing external conditions did not fully explain the inner life of human beings. The desire to help others, the willingness to sacrifice personal interests, and the capacity to act according to conscience called for a deeper account of human nature.

Lee’s search therefore moved beyond the question of how society should distribute wealth and organize production. He began asking whether love itself might be more fundamental than materialism allowed.

If love is an essential dimension of human existence rather than merely an accidental product of circumstances, then understanding humanity requires an account of its deeper origins. For Lee, this question would ultimately lead toward religion and the possibility that human love reflects a source beyond matter.

Based on an article by Jeong Seong-su (정성수) in the South Korean daily Segye Ilbo, 15^th October 2026, “The Love Materialism Failed to Explain”, the second installment of the series “Communism Without God”.

Continued from part 1: When the Promise of Equality Turns to Control

Continued in part 3: Can Revolution Change Human Nature?

Text: Knut Holdhus, editor

Featured image above: The love that materialism failed to explain. Illustration: ChatGPT, October 2026.

[Editor’s note 1: Unification Thought is a philosophical system developed by Sang Hun Lee (이상헌 – 1914-1997) from the teachings of Sun Myung Moon (1920-2012). It was designed as a comprehensive worldview that integrates religion, philosophy, science, ethics, and social theory into a single framework centered on God’s purpose for creation.

At its core, Unification Thought argues that reality reflects the nature of God, understood as a being of “dual characteristics”: internal character and external form, as well as masculinity and femininity in harmonious unity. Human beings, according to this view, are created to embody divine love through mature relationships, family life, creativity, and moral responsibility.

The system places strong emphasis on purpose and relationality. Everything exists through “give-and-take action”, a dynamic process of interaction that produces harmony, growth, and development. Human history is interpreted as a providential process aimed at restoring the ideal world originally intended by God, overcoming alienation, conflict, and selfishness caused by the human fall.

Unification Thought also attempts to respond to modern ideologies. It criticizes both materialistic Marxism and purely secular humanism while also seeking to modernize traditional religious thinking. Its ethical and political applications include theories of education, art, economics, and social organization grounded in family-centered ethics and mutual cooperation. The philosophical system can be regarded as a synthesis of Eastern and Western thought, religion and science.]

[Editor’s note 2: The Korean independence movement (독립운동, Dongnip Undong) was a broad struggle to free Korea from Japanese colonial rule, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. It encompassed peaceful protests, diplomatic efforts, cultural preservation, education, and armed resistance, involving Koreans both on the peninsula and throughout East Asia.

Japan formally annexed Korea in 1910, ending the Korean Empire. The colonial government imposed strict political control while promoting the assimilation of Koreans into Japanese society. Many Koreans resisted these policies by establishing schools, newspapers, and religious organizations that sought to preserve Korean language, culture, and national identity.

A defining moment came on 1^st March 1919, when Korean leaders issued a Declaration of Independence, inspiring peaceful demonstrations across the country. Millions participated in what became known as the March First Movement (3·1 운동). Although the protests were largely nonviolent, Japanese authorities responded with severe repression, killing and imprisoning thousands of participants. Despite its immediate failure to achieve independence, the movement attracted international attention and strengthened Korean nationalism.

Following the March First Movement, Korean leaders established the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai, China. It coordinated diplomatic efforts and supported resistance activities abroad. At the same time, armed independence fighters operated in Manchuria, Siberia, and parts of China, engaging Japanese forces in a series of guerrilla campaigns. Korean independence activists also cooperated with Chinese nationalist forces and, later, with the Allied powers during the Second World War.

Japan’s defeat in August 1945 brought an end to colonial rule. However, Korea was divided along the 38th parallel, with Soviet forces occupying the north and American forces the south. This temporary division eventually led to the establishment of two separate states in 1948 – the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) – making the legacy of the independence movement central to the historical identity of both countries.]

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