Toward an evolutionary social contract

Our lives have cosmic meaning, we are part of life evolving to Godhood in the cosmos. The divine is within us as the Spirit-Will, activating life to evolve to Godhood, which keeps us in touch with the cosmic whole. We are the measure of the cosmos in this sense. We can realize that we are a microcosmic reflection of macrocosmic nature.

We are part of nature's natural law which runs through the whole cosmos. We have the capacity, or “freedom,” to be in harmony with the divine Spirit-Will within, or to do nothing contrary to it, which activates us to evolve to Godhood. We have not much control over nature, or our fate, but we can have self-control regarding the divine activation of the Spirit-Within us.

When we realize that others have the same Spirit-Will, and the same fate in this sense, we can rationally attune ourselves to others. We are all of us subject to the same laws of nature, the same activation of the Spirit-Will, even though different people respond differently to their divine nature, and many are not even aware of their divine nature.

The evolutionary social contract can bond a world of evolving small states, with all their variety and ethnic distinctiveness. This is a contract that can be defended against those who irrationally seek supremacy and imperialism, and those who make revolution against the social contract of many small states. It is the community of small states and not any individual state that wins.  Light federalism can protect the individual states, and the Church can help guide evolution.

With this religious realization, all states can affirm the higher purpose of evolving to Godhood, which is best realized in thousands of small independent states. This is a rational understanding of the world, and of human nature, and a rational social contract. War is not evolutionary, it stops evolution, it ends the great rise of evolution in all its variety. We need peace to continue our evolution to Godhood, and paradoxically, peace can be defended, even in war if need be, to restore the evolutionary social contract. War is irrational and peace is rational for this reason.

(This was my response to an excellent essay by Prof. Donald Kuspit, “The Noble Death in Western Visual Art,” in “American Arts,” Summer, 2011)