Claim. True love is intrinsic to human and divine nature, not a learned skill or doctrine. It is realized through experience — the lived succession of child → sibling → spouse → parent — rather than through instruction. SMM uses this to argue against treating love as a moral or intellectual achievement.
Elaboration. The empirical observation grounds the claim: “Did you learn how to love at home? What kind of father would tell his child to learn how to love from him? Also, does a mother tell her child to learn how to love from her? Furthermore, did the parents learn from someone how to love their children? Did the bride and bridegroom learn from someone that they should love in a certain way? They did not learn it, but they know it well” (5.2. Love is not something that is learned, 23-20, 1969.5.11).
The experiential structure is then spelled out as a developmental sequence: “True love is to be attained through experience and understood through feeling. True love is not something that can be mastered through words, writings, or general education. It can be completely attained only through daily living. In their process of growing up from infanthood, Adam and Eve were supposed to reach perfection by experiencing and feeling the heart of true children, the heart of true brother and sister, the heart of true husband and wife, and the heart of true parents through step-by-step daily living” (ibid, 277-196, 1996.4.16).
Significance: this is the philosophical-anthropological warrant for UC’s intense focus on family-stage formation as the primary spiritual curriculum. Pulpit teaching, doctrinal study, and even religious experience are subordinate to the lived sequence of family-stage loves.
See also. csg-parental-love-as-essential-and-unchanging-form