Evolution And Economics

Our purpose is set by the divine plan of the Kosmos, to which we strain every interest and activity. The happiness of man is the vision of the divine essence, and above that, the actual evolution to God. The Traditional Church defines the vision of divine essence, the Theoevolutionary Church joins to this, the evolution to God.

This planned achievement creates a functional theory of society, a society of gradations, from physical necessities to spirit. Religion “leads the things that are lower to the things which are higher, through the things which are intermediate.” (This seems like a good definition of Conservatism.)

Society becomes stable when it organically strains upwards. Like the human body, society is composed of different members, each member has its own function.

With the Theoevolutionary Church, a fourth part is joined to the other three parts of the Church: priests, defenders, laborers; and the fourth is the evolving species. Gradations help the lower to the higher by way of religion.

Economic interests are essentially subordinate to the real business of life, that is, the vision of divine essence (Inward Path), and the evolution to God (Outward Path). Labor is necessary and honorable. Trade is necessary too. Finance can be sordid, if not immoral, and it seems best when the state has some form of economic nationalism to protect the nation's business and people. Basically, I prefer the free market approach to business with as little government interference as possible. We can’t be communists. Men will work more and dispute less when goods are private than when they are common. The value of goods are what people are willing to pay for the goods.

As in economics, profit should not become an end in itself and only a means, so also Evolution is not an end but a means to reach God. Therefore, undue value must not be given to the evolving species who have not yet achieved Godhood. Like a winning coach on a winning team, the leading players are a vital concern but the whole team must be always improving and advancing. In keeping with natural evolution, this is not a formal eugenics, this is a better appreciation of higher intelligence, higher consciousness and refined complexity (which after all are attributes of God) joined to Christian values and morals.

This suggests light federalism, natural divisions, localism, along with a church infused state, but with religion separate from the state.


(The view above, in regard to capitalism and the old Church values, was adapted to my thinking from R.H Tawney’s excellent old study: “Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism," 1954)

The Profound Conservatism Of Including Evolution In Church Tradition

It is not the affirmation of evolution that has doomed the Modernists, it is the rejection of evolution which has doomed the Traditionalists.

The Modernists destroy the Church by rejecting Traditions, the Traditionalists destroy the Church by rejecting evolution.

The Conservative seeks to harmonize the differences and contrasts, and to “order novelty” (to adapt Whitehead’s definition of beauty.) Including evolution in Church Traditions is a profoundly Conservative action.

The Theoevolutionary Church, affirms the Traditions initiated by Christ and the Apostles in the Inward Path, and includes the biological evolution to supermaterial Godhood in the Outward Path. Traditions help us see and know God, supernaturally, evolution helps us reach God naturally and supermaterially.

Social traditions create the environment for our evolution to Godhood. The Theoevolutionary Church places high value on higher consciousness and higher intelligence, which are attributes of the Godhood we seek to evolve to.

Tradition And Evolution In Harmony, Unlike Modernism

How can Traditional Christianity relate to evolution? Not as the modernists attempt to do, by changing the  Traditional. All the Traditions of the Church from Christ and his Apostles can be maintained as the most authentic and, indeed, the sacred way to see and communicate with God. And Traditional Christian social and economic teachings must be maintained as the best way for men to live. Nothing of Tradition is rejected in the Theoevolutionary Church, as it is in Christian modernism.

What is added to the Traditional way of seeing and communicating with God---which is the glory of Tradition ---is the bio-spiritual path to God through evolution. Tradition creates the best, ordered, environment for evolution to take place, and it is most harmonious with the laws of nature and the natural law. We can affirm this in the new science of sociobiology, which finds Traditions as also often having been the best way to survive and reproduce successfully.

Our symbol shows Tradition and Evolution dynamically together. “Reason” gets it “food” for thought, as someone put it, from the above aspect of the symbol, where intellection or Revelation take place, and the below aspect of the symbol bring knowledge through observed phenomena. Truth depends on both, even though science tends to deny Revelation and Revelation denies science. Both work together in the Theoevolutionary Church.

Naturalism is represented by the lower half of our St. Andrew cross, supernaturalism by the upper half. Intellection in the upper half suggests the Omega of God, observed phenomena in the lower half suggests the Alpha of God. We are not asked to make a choice between these.

The Theoevolutionary Church Does Not Affirm Liberalism

The Theoevolutionary Church (TC) affirms evolution but it does not affirm Liberalism. The ideas of liberalism, developed in the Enlightenment, eg. the idea that each individual is completely free, that human nature is perfect, and that man’s human reason is as good as it gets, are not fully affirmed by TC.

Unlike the Traditionalists we see human nature evolving toward a higher and higher nature, human nature is not perfect and thus we are subject to change.

Man is not completely autonomous, as the liberals suggest. We are created with a nature that has a purpose–Godhood’s purpose. We obey the laws of Godhood when we obey the laws of nature, which including the ultimate evolution to Godhood.

Secular democracy, government from below rather than from above, is not the end of all political systems. The state could protect religion. None the less, light federalism, subsidiarity, and localism are the preferred political system.

This is not liberalism.

Direction In Evolution

To imply that genes “seek” or “strive” to survive and reproduce successfully, and that they create culture and even religion to enhance their survival, seems to give a “cause,” or “direction,” to the genes. But evolutionary thinkers do not really want to give a “cause” to natural selection, other than the cause of successful survival. Why should there be this “cause?” It just “is,” the evolutionists might say, sounding not unlike some religious people.

This conception of “striving,” is central to religion, as John Haught has written about in "Deeper Than Darwin." And it is logical, it seems to me, to apply the same “direction” of striving regarding religion as one does to the genes: striving for survival of the genes when hypertrophied, means striving for the immortality of the genes; and immortality has defined Godhood. This is the biological “teleology” that evolutionary thinking seems to lead to, although all evolutionary thinkers want to deny “direction” in evolution. There is direction in evolution, and life’s striving is directed toward immortal survival, which has always been defined as Godhood.

We identify the striving, the cause behind evolution as the activating Spirit-Will, which activates life before life is shaped by evolution.