Claim. The unique characteristics of every created being — ‘personal individual image’ in humans, ‘species individual image’ in non-human creatures — originate in the Individual Images within God’s Inner Hyungsang, making individuality not accidental but a divine attribute.
Elaboration. Sungsang/Hyungsang and Yang/Yin are universal — found in every being — hence called the ‘Universal Image.’ But each mineral, plant, animal, and human also has unique character: build, looks, disposition, personality. Lee locates the source of this uniqueness in the Inner Hyungsang of God’s Original Sungsang, called the ‘Individual Image’ (3. Individual Image).
The individual image is the universal image individualized for each instance. The particular look of a person is the universal image of the human body particularized for them; the unique character is the universal image of the human mind particularized. In non-humans the individual image differs species-to-species, not individual-to-individual; in humans, it differs person-to-person. Lee explains the asymmetry teleologically: humans are created as object partners of joy for God and as His children, while all things are created as object partners of joy for humans.
Lee engages evolutionary biology: the theory of evolution treats mutation as the appearance of new characters by chance and parental DNA recombination. UT treats these as ‘phenomenological understanding of the process of creation’ — the appearance of new character is actually ‘the creation of a new being with a new individual image through gene recombination,’ meaning ‘an Original Individual Image is given to a species or to a person.’ Evolution describes the mechanism; UT supplies the metaphysics behind it.
Lee draws a humanistic-but-grounded conclusion: human individuality is ‘far more holy and precious’ than other beings’ because humans are lord of creation, eternal spirit-self-plus-physical-self beings, created to practice love through their individualities. Secular humanism affirms human individuality’s preciousness but cannot ground it without God; UT supplies the missing ground. Critics from evolutionary biology engage on whether ‘phenomenological understanding’ is doing any explanatory work beyond gloss.
See also. ut-individual-image-as-individuated-universal-image, individuality-grounded-in-divine-individual-image, inner-hyungsang-as-ideas-concepts-laws-mathematical-principles