Claim. Human beings were created as God’s direct object partners of love, and all things as His indirect object partners of love (i.e., direct partners for humans) — making the purpose of creation, motivationally, love and, resultantly, joy.
Elaboration. With Heart as motive, God created humans as His direct object partners of love and all things as His indirect object partners. The fact that all things are indirect partners means they were created to be direct partners of love for humans (Creation of the Universe and Heart). ‘Seen from the motive of creation, human beings and all things are object partners of God’s love, but seen from the result, human beings and all things are the object partners of God’s joy.’
This dual perspective — motive (love) versus result (joy) — lets Lee resolve a tension. Joy cannot be primary because joy presupposes something else to provide it; love is the operative cause and joy is the necessary effect. So ‘the purpose of creation’ has two senses: God’s purpose in creating (to seek joy via love-objects) and the purpose for which created beings exist (to return joy to God by being loved and loving in return).
The asymmetric ranking — humans as direct partners, things as indirect — generates the doctrine of human dominion over creation: things were not made directly for God’s joy but for human joy, which then redounds to God. This grounds the Third Blessing (dominion). It also creates a normative obligation: human beings must love each other and love all things, thereby giving joy to God; all things must give beauty and joy to humans while harmonizing with each other.
Lee uses this to ground his solution of ‘actual problems’: contemporary social confusion comes from human activities pursuing purposes disconnected from God’s purpose of creation. The remedy is alignment of all human creative purposes with the original purpose: love. Critics engage on whether ‘love’ is specified concretely enough to do normative work or whether it functions as an empty placeholder.
See also. heart-shimjung-as-core-of-gods-sungsang, creation-was-necessary-not-accidental, concept-of-heart-emotional-impulse-seeking-joy-through-love