The Return Of Teleology

Theological materialism affirms teleology. The end-goal of material evolution is supermaterial Godhood, which was formerly seen as attaining the God or Father Within in the Inward Path. There is a material end-goal and purpose, beyond human limitations.

This is a spatial, temporal, material/supermaterial Godhood, and not as Eastern sages, Plato and Christian mystics believed, not an Idea, or sacred word, not a sacred vision alone, which can now be seen as preliminary to the Godhood-goal of material evolution.

The zenith of beauty, truth and goodness is not merely apprehended in a vision, they are the highest realm of value and morality in the evolution of material life. Conscious life needs to be guided toward these highest ends, even as unconscious life is guided toward these ends.

Religion, philosophy, art, science, politics, etc. can be oriented toward the highest realms of material evolution, reality and value. The best work in these fields will know the sacred goal of evolving life.

Awareness of the return of teleology comes about through the process of applying all the methods of gaining knowledge, from rationalism and empiricism to pragmatism and even the super-sensuous intuitive apprehensions of mysticism.

But the high, united, goal of beauty, truth and goodness, defined as material or supermaterial Godhood, is not the unchanging “permanence” defined in Tradition. Life is seen as endlessly evolving ever beyond into higher realms of value, reality and Godhood, with stops and new starts along the way.