The short answer
The Divine Principle teaches that God possesses dual characteristics — pairs of complementary qualities held together in perfect harmony. There are two such pairs: internal nature and external form (an invisible, mind-like aspect and a visible, form-giving aspect), and masculinity and femininity. These are not two Gods, nor a God split in two, but the harmonized inner and outer, and masculine and feminine, dimensions of the one living God. As the Exposition of the Divine Principle summarizes it, in God these characteristics “form a harmonized body” in a relationship of give and take. (Unification Thought)
This teaching answers a question people rarely put into words but often feel: what is God actually like, and why is the world built the way it is? The Divine Principle's answer is that everything God made derives its own paired characteristics from his. That is why creation is so full of complementary pairs — mind and body, man and woman, the visible and the invisible — all designed to unite in love. This article explains each pair, shows how creation mirrors God's dual nature, and draws out why this leads the Divine Principle to speak of God not as a distant force but as our Heavenly Parent.
Internal nature and external form
The first pair of dual characteristics is internal nature and external form. Internal nature is the invisible, mind-like aspect of a being — its purpose, character, thought, and intention. External form is the visible aspect through which that inner nature is expressed and made real. The clearest example is a human being: your mind is your internal nature, holding your intentions and love, while your body is your external form, the means by which those intentions become action in the world. Mind and body are not enemies; they are meant to work as one, the body faithfully expressing what the mind intends.
The Divine Principle teaches that this pairing exists in everything because it exists first in God. God's internal nature is the source of the invisible, purposeful aspect of all created things, and God's external form is the source of their visible, structured aspect. As one Unification Thought summary puts it, “God's Sungsang is the cause of the internal, invisible aspect of created beings, and God's Hyungsang is the cause of the external, visible aspect.” This is a striking claim: the material world is not a lower or lesser thing set against the spiritual, but the outward expression of God's own external aspect. Matter and spirit belong together in God, and so they belong together in us.
Masculinity and femininity
The second pair of dual characteristics is masculinity and femininity — sometimes described with the language of yang and yin, the active and receptive, initiating and responding qualities found throughout creation. The Divine Principle teaches that God, as the origin of both men and women, harmoniously contains the qualities of masculinity and femininity within himself. This does not mean God is male and female in any biological sense; God is spirit. It means that the complementary qualities we recognize as masculine and feminine both have their source in God's own harmonized nature.
This is the reason the Divine Principle gives for one of the most basic facts of creation: that humanity was made male and female. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image… male and female he created them.” If both men and women bear God's image, then both masculinity and femininity must exist, in some perfect and harmonized form, in God. Man and woman are therefore not accidents of biology or interchangeable variations, but complementary reflections of God's own nature, each designed to complete the other. This gives marriage and the union of man and woman a profound dignity, as we explore in the four position foundation.
How creation reflects God’s dual nature
Once you grasp the dual characteristics, the whole of creation begins to look like a mirror of God. Everywhere you look there are complementary pairs designed to unite: mind and body in a person, stamen and pistil in a flower, positive and negative charge in an atom, subject and object in every relationship. The Divine Principle sees this not as random duality but as the fingerprint of a God who himself harmonizes inner and outer, masculine and feminine. Creation is, in this view, a vast expression of God's nature rendered in visible, relational form.
This is why the Divine Principle regards the natural world with such reverence rather than suspicion. If every created thing carries paired characteristics drawn from God, then studying creation is a way of learning about God, and the world is a kind of textbook of his character. It also explains why creation is fundamentally relational: paired characteristics exist in order to relate and unite, and their union produces life, beauty, and growth. This connects directly to God's purpose in creating the world — a world built from complementary pairs is a world built for love.
God as our Heavenly Parent
The dual characteristics lead the Divine Principle to one of its warmest and most distinctive convictions: that God is best understood as our Heavenly Parent. If God harmoniously contains both masculinity and femininity, then God's love is not only fatherly but also motherly — protective and providing, but also tender and nurturing. To call God “Parent” rather than only “Father” or only a distant “Almighty” is to say that the fullness of parental love, in both its masculine and feminine expressions, has its origin and perfection in God.
This reframes the entire relationship between God and humanity. We are not primarily God's servants or subjects but his children, made to receive his love and to love him in return. The ache many people feel for a love that is both strong and tender, both a father's and a mother's, is not a longing that creation can fully satisfy — it is a longing that points back to the Heavenly Parent from whom both kinds of love flow. Seen this way, the dual characteristics are not an abstract metaphysics but the ground of intimacy: they tell us that the God who made us is a Parent whose heart contains everything we most deeply need. This is closely tied to the question of why God created us at all.
Why it matters for how we see ourselves
Understanding God's dual characteristics changes how you understand yourself. If your mind and body both reflect God — internal nature and external form drawn from his — then your physical life is not a distraction from spirituality but part of how you bear God's image. The body is meant to be the faithful expression of a God-centered mind, and the goal of maturity is the harmony of the two, not the suppression of one. This dignifies ordinary embodied life: work, rest, affection, and care of the body all become arenas in which God's image can be expressed.
It also dignifies who you are as a man or a woman. Because both masculinity and femininity have their source in God, neither is superior and neither is incomplete on its own; each is a genuine reflection of God, designed to complement the other in love. And because God is our Heavenly Parent, your deepest identity is not defined by achievement or failure but by belonging — you are a child of the God whose nature you carry. To grasp the dual characteristics, then, is to see both God and yourself more truly: God as a harmonized, loving Parent, and yourself as one made in his image, body and soul, to live and love as he does. This is the heart of what it means to be made in God's image.
Frequently asked questions
What are the dual characteristics of God?
They are pairs of complementary qualities held in perfect harmony in God: internal nature and external form, and masculinity and femininity. These are not two Gods or a divided God, but the harmonized inner and outer, and masculine and feminine, aspects of the one God from whom all created things derive their own paired characteristics.
What is the difference between internal nature and external form?
Internal nature is the invisible, mind-like aspect of a being — its purpose and character — while external form is the visible aspect through which that inner nature is expressed. In a human being, mind is the internal nature and body is the external form. God is the source of both, so every created thing has both.
Does God have masculinity and femininity?
The Divine Principle teaches that God, as the origin of both men and women, harmoniously contains the qualities of masculinity and femininity within himself. This does not make God biologically male and female, but it explains why humanity was created male and female, and why the Divine Principle speaks of God as our Heavenly Parent.
How do the dual characteristics relate to being made in God’s image?
Genesis says humanity was made in God's image, male and female. Every person has an internal nature (mind) and external form (body) reflecting God's internal nature and external form, and humanity as male and female reflects God's harmonized masculinity and femininity. To bear God's image is to carry the same paired characteristics found in God.
Why do the dual characteristics of God matter?
They answer who God is and why creation is full of complementary pairs designed to unite in love — mind and body, man and woman, subject and object. This dignifies the body, marriage, and the material world as expressions of God rather than obstacles to him, and it presents God as a warm Heavenly Parent rather than a distant force.