The Fallacy Of The Pre/Trans Fallacy

Ken Wilber defines the “pre/trans fallacy” as mistaking the experience of “pre-rational bliss” with “trans-rational bliss.” Wilber suggests that these are not the same. The first, Wilber says, is really the Romantic bliss of ignorance in early man, the second is the true bliss of God-consciousness which has been attained only after evolution. This way it seems that Wilber can include evolution and progress for man without getting trapped by a Romantic view of a past Golden Age, as the myths portray.

One benefit of here exposing this non-fallacy is that if pre and trans are essentially the same then Tradition can be affirmed, eg., Perennial Tradition, because the Golden Age bliss is not really different from the New Age trans-rational bliss. The same virtual God was and is experienced, and evolution can be validated, without degrading the Golden Age experience. We have not evolved far from early man.

The problem with Wilber---who has many admirable qualities---and the problem with many mystics, is that they tend to stop their search at God-consciousness rather than at Godhood Itself, or they stop with the Awareness of Nonduality rather than Nonduality Itself.

Nonduality and God-consciousness are possessed only by God, not by animal, man or superman. We can sometimes catch a virtual glimpse of God-consciousness by experiencing the seed or soul of God that dwells within us. This is the Involutionary Way, which is usually accomplished by blocking out the Evolutionary Way.

Evolution is related to the Transcendence of God without and Involution is related to the Immanence of God Within. Immanent Involution leads to the attainment of the virtual experience of the God Within.or the Soul , whereas Evolution leads to the Transcendent of the God Without.

A virtual experience of God, great as that may be, is not enough. The Dual Aspect of the Soul and Spirit must be seen. Both the Immanent and Transcendent Aspects of the Soul and Spirit can be affirmed, and together, with great time and effort, we can bio-spiritually evolve all the way to Godhood, where the Immanent and Transcendent truly become One, Nonduality, or God.

Nonduality Itself

Saints, sages, and mystics have experienced Godly Nondual Awareness. The goal of the Evolutionary Christian Church is not “merely” Nondual Awareness, glorious as that is, the goal is to biologically-spiritually attain Nonduality Itself, at the culmination of biological-spiritual evolution.

This path avoids the artificial split between matter (immanence) and spirit (transcendence) because the Janus-face of Immanence-Transcendence must together evolve all the way to Nondual Godhood.

This way avoids the tragic religious demeaning of the material world and evolution.

Christianity Plus Classicism

Understanding The Superman

Theological materialism and the Evolutionary Christian Church found its way through the long history of duality between Christianity, which gives God ultimate power, and Classicism, which gives man ultimate power, not by demeaning the superman and extolling the man who “sticks to God,” but by affirming the idea that moving toward the superman is evolving toward God.

The reverse also follows that we do not demean the principle of sticking to God by extolling the classical superman without God. And this is not suggested as merely a practical solution to an old duality, it derives from a higher conviction and definition of the goal of evolution remaining beyond the human and beyond the superman, with Godhood at the Zenith of Evolution.

The Realization Of Evolution

The impulse of evolution is not only toward greater depth and expanding consciousness, which we call involutionary, great as that is, the central impulse of evolution is to evolve materially-supermaterially to Godhood, which we call evolutionary.

The great sages were mainly concerned with involutionary God-Realization. We are concerned with the realization-of-evolution, although included is involutionary God-Realization.

Traditional Christanity is our involutionary way, being from the West, material-supermaterial evolution is our evolutionary way. Both combine in leading us to Godhood.

With this religious insight we upgrade and make real Ken Wilber’s phrase: “Transcend-yet-include.”

The Balance

In the Revealed Religions the balance between exoteric material evolution and esoteric spiritual involution is weighted heavily on the side of esoteric involution. In the Evolutionary Christian Church the balance is weighted more evenly, but it seems that the esoteric difficulties may be reversed.

The balance indicates that the God within and the God beyond are the same God, yet the open-ended upper half of the cross---X---suggests evolution leads toward the zenith of Godhood.  

Another Dimension Of Holy Silence

TheTheoevolutionary Church does not split a Gordian Knot regarding the spiritual state of Holy Silence (Christianity), Nirvana (Hinduism and Buddhism), and fana (Sufism ), rather, we bring or see another dimension, from a different vantage point.

The spiritual state of Holy Silence in the Revealed Religions is seen as a direct uniting with the Divinity, the finite is reintegrated with the Infinite, everything pertaining to the creature is seen as detached, and this is seen as the highest spiritual goal of man.

This spiritual condition is defined in theTheoevolutionary Church as the Sacred Inward State, the God seen and known inwardly is a version of the same God as the God evolved to. The True Reintegration of the finite with the Infinite takes place in reality only after great cosmic periods of bio-spiritual evolution.

For us this does not diminish the Involutionary Devotions of the Church to the spiritual goal of Holy Silence, this helps us understand Great Evolutionary Godhood; we are seeing the next dimension of this spiritual state in a new religious theology.

The Future Mutation

God-consciousness in the present human being, which is uncommon, is a glorious yet virtual glimpse--or a future-mutation–of the biological evolution to God. It is not meant as a final destination in Itself, it is a glimpse, however glorious, of how it will be to actually reach God through evolution.

The apparent necessity in most religions of blocking the senses of biology to experience God-consciousness is paradoxically a way to find the primary purpose of biology and evolution, which is the bio-spiritual evolution to God. Blocking biology in meditation in order to experience a glimpse of God should not be confounded--as it often is--with blocking the evolution of biology to God.

One might close one eye to better see a star or a planet in the sky but this does not mean that the eyes are useless in traveling to the star.

Spiritually Animating Materialism

Human nature indeed seeks survival and reproductive success, but human
nature also primarily seeks higher evolution to Godhood, which we
believe may one day be understood scientifically, as it is now
understood religiously. The Evolutionary Christian Church animates
materialistically explained human nature with the religiously explained
Soul, Spirit and Evolution.

ECC also affirms the Conservative view of culture, where biological drives are best fulfilled in conservative societies, which are built upon the foundation of sociobiologically explained human nature and religion, with a deeper and longer term goal than merely successful survival, which is Godhood.

The New Vision

Does the science of evolution encroach upon the Primordial Tradition which we find in all revealed religions?

The present level of decadence is such that first we must reaffirm the Word of Primordial Tradition, in whatever religious form. For us this is Jesus Christ as revealed in the Traditional Church.

Following the reaffirmation of God in the world, then can come the affirmation of the Evolution to Godhood, the same God seen in the Primordial Tradition.

This is the new vision of the Theoevolutionary Church which in this way does not encroach on Primordial Tradition.

The past meets the future, science meets religion, biology meets spirituality in the Theoevolutionary Church.

Rigid Ritualism Or Living Symbolism?

When a ritual has lost its symbolism, its living symbolism---i.e. contact with God or the numinous---recovery sometimes takes the form of a rigid ritualism, where the rites have become almost meaningless yet preserved, the symbol has become a mere sign, exhausted of living symbolism. One hopes this was not the case in the recent reaffirmation of the Traditional Mass and that this was done to restore the living symbols.

Carl Jung, who is insightful regarding the use of symbols, pointed out that a symbol only lives when it is the highest expression of something divined but not yet known, this is how a symbol advances and creates life. The Theoevolutionary Church, with its evolutionary yet ancient symbol of St. Andrew’s cross, has brought back a powerful living symbolism.

Let us learn to contact the God within, as affirmed by Jesus Christ, and then let us join together and evolve toward higher man and higher consciousness, and ultimately to Godhood.

Imperfection

Eastern esotericism says that the image of God cannot be that which it represents and that the world is imperfect for this reason since the world is only the image of God.

The Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) says that the world is imperfect not because it is the mere image of God but because it is unevolved. The world is essentially related to God via the Spirit, we have God within us.

We are imperfect until we evolve to Godhood. Does ECC therefore see man and nature as more Godly than the East? In any case, man has a long way to evolve.

Reaching Up And Reaching Down

Biology reaches up toward evolving to God, religion reaches down and up toward contact with God and the soul within; biology and religion are complementary in the Evolutionary Christian Church.

On the psychological level this is like dreams reaching up toward the conscious mind from the unconscious, and like meditation reaching from the conscious down to the unconscious. They are complementary.

This helps balance the conflicts that arise between the within and without, biology and cosmology, religion and science. In the same way conflicts subside in human psychology when the unconscious and conscious mind are better integrated. Totality this way arrives. Evolution is the key.

Integrating The Exoteric And Esoteric

The suggested “split” between the exoteric and esoteric, or the religious and metaphysical, is better understood in the Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) than in the typical Traditionalist perspective.

Typically the exoteric affirms morality and action, the esoteric contemplation and symbolism, and limits are usually placed on the exoteric, related to action and morality. The typical esoteric reintegrates himself into the Divinity, the Absolute, but stops there in the glory of Oneness, united with the Divine Essence. This is not considered completeness in ECC, however glorious it may be.

In ECC, uniting with the Divine Essence in this world and in this body is considered a uniting but it is not the end goal of religion. We must evolve, with exoteric action and morality, all the way to the God, the same God whom the typical "esoteric" virtually unites with in his intellection.

To be fair to the esoteric Traditionalists, they tend to speak of the exoteric as another dimension and not something directly inferior. Yet the condition of superiority and hierarchy are there in the initiation process, and the exoteric is considered a lesser knowledge.

Far more evolution of the body-and-soul is required to actually reach the Reality of Godhood. We prefer to think of a union of the exoteric and esoteric perspectives, as pilot and navigator, on the path to Godhood. Let us join the exoteric and esoteric and evolve to the Supreme Reality of God.

Continuing The Conservative Synthesis

Theological materialism and the Theoevolutionary Church continues the Western synthesis of Greek-Christian civilization. Both the Greek and Christian world views have been expanded in modern times by the theory of evolution. Evolution need not be considered new revelation or new science strictly speaking, it is an expansion on past revelation (Christian) and past science (Greek.)

The addition brought by theological materialism includes the evolution of life all the way to Godhood, which expands on the traditional knowledge of God, understood through the experience of the soul within, and also expands the natural science of evolution, from the simple to the complex, to include evolution all the way to Godhood.

Keeping The Husk With The Kernal

One of the reasons we have tried to keep various spiritual insights of the Church is our belief in the general practicality of Conservatism. The spirit beneath the form, as Frithjof Schuon pointed out, has a tendency to breach its formal limitations. (Schuon, however, would not have affirmed our view of evolution.) One could consider every new religious adaptation as an esoterism adapted to a preceding exoteric religious form. Meister Echart said, “If you must have the kernal, you must break the husk.” But we are not breaking the husk, we are enlarging the husk.

Religions tend to decline to the point where they outlive their usefulness and they survive as forms without much substance. The religious form tends to be made for a time and place and a human collectivity. In the West, Catholicism remains the best preserved.

Knowledge of Evolution has taken form in the Theoeolutionary Church, the form being adapted, supposedly, by the "spirit." This evolutionary knowledge is being kept, at least by us, within the structure of the Traditional Church. What is this knowledge? The God we have seen within, in our traditional religion, must be naturally and materially evolved to, from the material to the supermaterial, all the way to Godhood.

Who can affirm this?

What Is Culture?

"What is culture? The word itself comes from “cultus” or cult and has intrinsic religious dimensions. Culture, strictly speaking, refers to all the aspects of daily life that bear the imprint of society’s religious center: tools, architecture, clothing, as well as art, literature, and music. From this perspective, culture refers to the sanctification of daily life.”

Arthur Verluis
The American Conservative
June 4, 2007

So, what we have now is anticulture.

The Natural Reason To Affirm the Theoevolutionary Church Over Scientific Beyondism

Animals didn’t evolve new genes to control the growth of hands and feet, our amphibian ancestors adapted the genes that their ancestors used to develop fins, i.e., the Hox family of control genes in land animals.

The Theoevolutionary Church adapts Evolution to traditional Christinaity rather than attempting to create a new scientific religion, such as Beyondism..

We are also in this way affirming the natural, Conservative, way of change. Culture follows biology in this way of adapting. Which religion will be quicker for the people to accept? Beyondism does good science, but which best holds on to past traditions?

Inward and Outward Evolution

Our spirituality contains both organic instinct and religious reality. Evolutionary goals dwell within the Spirit-Will Spirit has great knowledge of God, who lives beyond the Soul and the Spirit. This dynamic works upon the psyche of man.

The indwelling Will to God, in a sense, negotiates with the outward world of natural selection in our evolution to God. The direction of the path of evolution depends upon outward conditions as well as the inward Will to God.

We are only recently beginning to see how we might consciously effect formerly unconscious evolution. This is not a negative development for religion, it is a positive development in our understanding of the path to God.

The point here is that we do not think of religion as being “reduced” to organic instinct; which religionist's claim is done in psychology (e.g. Jungian). The Spirit dwells within organic life yet also connects in its will to Godhood with outward Godhood, in both its Immanence and Transcendence.

The other extreme of seeing little or no connection between spirituality and the material world, which some Traditionalists fall prey to, creates a split consciousness, which can also be resolved in the theology of the Theoevolutionary Church. (See an excellent essay related to this: “Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality,” by Robert M. Doran, S.J.)

The “Self” of Jung is not called the self in Christian Tradition, the “still point” is the region where knowledge of God dwells within our being within the Soul. Here we can know the Spirit, at the zenith of the Soul which has been given to us.

But this “still point” of the Soul is within the mind, and here the Jungians and Christians take sides, Jungians with nature, Christians with spirit.

The Theoevolutionary Church resolves and integrates nature and religion in declaring that both organic instinct and spirituality dwells in the activating Spirit.

Where the religionists tend to think that spirit and matter, good and evil, can be resolved only by faith in the incomprehensibility of God, the Theoevolutionary Church declares that spirit and matter are finally resolved when we evolve to Godhood.

The Still Point

Along with the established Christian symbol, the “Still Point” represents the point where the human Spirit and Holy Spirit of God meet, within man, and then expand out to God beyond man, beyond the Self.

This is thus not a closed mandala, which Jungians tend to prefer; we are not limited to the Self but to the outer dimensions of God.

Traditionalists do not, or can not, or will not reconcile or integrate good and evil, only the gift of God can help them to accept the incomprehensible, or can reconcile these dimensions. To them only conversion can reconcile good and evil, not evolution.

It is not faith alone, or conversion alone, or grace alone, that can reconcile "good and evil," or spirit and matter, important as they are, it is the evolution of the material to the spiritual, to Godhood, which will finally reconcile good and evil, spirit and matter.

Forms Of Reconciliation

The Theophysiology of the Theoevolutionary Church

Carl Jung wanted to reconcile “good” and “evil” in the same manner that one reconciles other opposites within the psyche, e.g. ego-unconscious, masculine-feminine, ego-self. That is, Jung located this reconciliation exclusively within the psyche.

Religious Jungians tend to consider the “opposites” of “spirit” and “matter” rather than “good” and “evil,” and they want to “resolve” this by being transformed by “God’s grace” in such a way that we choose the good rather than the evil, and also by transcending the Self.

The Theoevolutionary Church reconciles good and evil, spirit and matter, with the dynamic of evolution, which can transform matter into spirit, and defines the Soul within as that element of God and the activating Spirit which helps us see and define the God whom the Spirit seeks, by way of evolution of the body along with the Soul to Godhood.

“Good” is, among other things, this affirmation of evolution and life to Godhood; “evil” is, among other things, the denial and death of life and evolution. Matter is not “evil,” as the Gnostics would seem to have it, matter is the stuff out of which evolution takes place. Evil is the obstruction of matter in its potential evolution to Godhood.

Various sages and prophets have examined the depths within man and identified the Spirit or Soul within, with God. The Theoevolutionary Church adds or includes the dynamic of evolution along with the wisdom of the ancients concerning the soul, the body, and religion, thus various forms of deep reconciliation can take place.

The Theoevolutionary Church resolves into a deeper center for the psyche, and a totality, in the activating Spirit and in the God we evolve to, with a wholeness deeper than the psyche alone, and with a broader view of God’s purpose and grace.

Science and Traditionalism

The Theoevolutionary Church brings back the material world which had been undervalued or even exiled, e.g. Gnosticism, Traditionalism, and we join the material to the spiritual by way of evolution of the material to God, the same God we see and know inwardly in traditional religions.

This determines a wholeness that has been lacking in the split between religion and science. It will require courage on both sides to understand and include evolution and religion together as a religious whole---both have been at war with one another.

If the Traditionalists are against science and technology because it is abused and exploited by the modern world, yet if they approve of the creative spirit of innovation, as long as it maintains its spiritual and territorial quality, then they can harmonize with the Theoevolutionary Church, which views science and technology as helping us evolve to Godhood. We therefore approve of parts of the Enlightenment in this innovative spiritual sense, which Traditionalists do not do.

from “The Essence of Archaism" by Guillaume Faye

... as the philosopher Raymond Ruyer, detested by the left-bank
intelligentsia, foretold in his two important works, /Les nuisances
idéologiques/ and /Les cents prochains siècles/, once the historical
digression of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has finally closed,
with egalitarianism's hallucinations having descended into catastrophe,
humanity will return to archaic values, that is, quite simply, to
biological and human (anthropological) values: distinctive sexual roles;
the transmission of ethnic and popular traditions; spirituality and
sacerdotal organization; visible and supervisory social hierarchies; the
worship of ancestors; initiatory rites and tests; the reconstruction of
organic communities that extend from the individual family unit to the
overarching national community of the people; the deindividualization of
marriage to involve the community as much as the couple; the end of the
confusion of eroticism and conjugality; the prestige of the warrior
caste; social inequality, not implicit, which is unjust and frustrating,
as in today's egalitarian utopias, but explicit and ideologically
justifiable; a proportioned balance of duties and rights; a rigorous
justice whose dictates are applied strictly to acts and not to
individual men, which will encourage a sense of responsibility in the
latter; a definition of the people and of any constituted social body as
a diachronic community of shared destiny, not as a synchronic mass of
individual atoms, etc....

Obviously, contemporary ideology, hegemonic today but not for much
longer, regards these values as diabolical, much as a mad paranoiac
might see the features of a demon in the psychiatrist trying to cure
him. In reality, they are the values of justice. True to human nature
from time immemorial, these archaic values reject the Enlightenment
error of the emancipation of the individual, which has only ended in the
isolation of this individual and in social barbarism. These archaic
values are /just/, in the Ancient Greek sense of the term, because they
take man for what he is, a /zoon politicon/ ("a social and organic
animal integrated into a communatarian city-state"), and not for what he
is not, an isolated and asexual atom fitted out with universal but
imprescriptible pseudo-rights.

In practical terms, archaism's anti-individualist values permit
self-realization, active solidarity and social peace, unlike
egalitarianism's pseudo-emancipating individualism, which ends in the
law of the jungle.

See full essay here: The Essence of Archaism by Guillaume Faye

Reconciliation Of Opposites

A central goal of the Evolutionary Christian Church is the reconciliation of the so-called opposites of the immanent understanding of God (eg. Carl Jung) with the transcendent understanding of God (the Traditional Church.) Science and religion can join in this reconciliation.

Our quest is to recover the God within, i.e. the Soul (called the Self in psychology) and reconcile the Soul with the God without, the God of the Spirit i.e. the God of the kosmos, who we can bio-spiritually evolve to. We also seek to establish a connection between our individual ego and the Soul, defining the Soul within as the secondary center of our being, and the God without as the primary center of our being.

This can define a wholeness worthy of our past and future.

A Western Way To Save The West

In a desperate attempt to try to save the West from global imperialism, some on the far right, and in the New Right, have jumped too quickly to affirm the way of Islam—some have even converted. (see "The Reds, The Browns and the Greens or The Convergence of Totalitarianisms” by Alexandre del Valle.) One can understand how the Right could become impatient with the slow ways of Christianity and Conservatism, which have barely even recognized dynamic evolution.

The Theoevolutionary Church seeks to save the West by applying both Western religion and Western science. How much better it is not to abandon ones history and ones people when the going gets very rough. The Theoevolutionary Church holds that we must evolve to the God we know from our Traditional religion, and we do so by means of such things as selection, divergence, and local variety. And this is guided by light federalism, protected by nationalism, and counseled in all things by the Traditional Church.

In any case all the revealed religions, including Islam, connect in the same Involutionary Inward Path to the God Within. This is a strong basis for ecumenism. Then, all can join the Evolutionary Outward Path to Godhood in the Theoevolutionary Church.

Economic Nationalism

In our reflections on the European New Right, Localism, etc., it should again be mentioned that Nationalism defends our internal freedom to be localists, and does not contradict the light Federalism and States Rights of our Founding Fathers. Under Economic Nationalism we can even be Libertarian. Our defense and security should be second to none. Only Nationalism can protect us against large states and powerful alliances.

Ideologists in the European New Right have been virtually forced to think of joining with Russia to protect themselves, even though they share our Western heritage. American imperialism, which economic nationalism opposes, has made enemies of our friends in Europe and in Russia, and we should be friends, since the Western world is under-breeding and the South and East are expanding.

The Theoevolutionary Church and Archeo-Futurism

Guillaume Faye has reached deep into the world, and we can affirm much of what he has seen.

In his long essay, “L’archeofuturisme,” Faye, a leader in the old French New Right, now advocates a return to archaic values while upholding future technology. Faye expects global catastrophe and he wants to meet the great catastrophe with a combination of new science and ancient traditional solutions. The past and the future can harmonize in a new European Order of the North (Eurosiberia), with many sovereignties. Without such a foundation we will be overrun by the South and East.

The Theoevolutionary Church has seen the same global catastrophe and our solution contains a similar harmony of the past and future. We prefer the term Evolution to “Futurism,” and Catholicism to the “Archaic.”

The Theoevolutionary Church seeks to synthesize Traditionalism---which contains essential insights of the Traditional religion, with Evolution---which contains essential insights of the sciences. Traditional Catholicism teaches us how we may see and know God, and how to live in the world---including the slowly channeled additions of the Theoevolutionary Church. Evolution, understood bio-spiritually, teaches us how we may evolve to God. This is how we would reconcile the opposites of the material and spiritual, the immanent and transcendent, traditional and modern, archaic and future.

Conservatives believe that there exists a legitimate presumption in favor of things long established. Centuries of accumulated wisdom make the Traditional Church like a Golden Age that still exists.

David Livingston reminded us (Chronicles) that the thousands of little localities, which the New Right prefers, were seen from around 1100 to 1500 in the Christian Commonwealth. There was no central authority, although the Christian civilization was vast. There were thousands of divided sovereignties, secular authorities were independent of one another. There was no such thing as the State in Christendom. And in the center of Europe was the light federalism of the Holy Roman Empire.

We need not embrace historical determinism, the West is dying, yet even individual action can profoundly alter the drift of the times. Think of one brave little French girl, Joan of Arc, who changed the world.

Psychological Wholeness Requires Transcendence

Hypothesis on Jung

I don’t think I have a problem seeing Carl Jung’s “Self” as both immanent and transcendent (we would say Spirit here). Psychologically it is immanent, religiously it is the Soul and transcendent. Jung strongly implied that only immanence exists.

If Jung cannot reconcile the immanent and transcendent, then he cannot claim wholeness. Wholeness is not whole within an immanent Self, it is not enough to reconcile opposites within the immanent domain, the transcendent must also be reconciled to achieve the true wholeness.

Religion does this, psychology does not seem to do this. Yet I see no reason not to use both in achieving psychic and religious health.

I think Jung was at least disingenuous–perhaps understandably–in not stating clearly that he thought the immanent Self was alone God, although he may have had personal difficulties in completely believing this himself; if the God Self is transcendent, one would in fact feel doubt.

The Theoevolutionary Church (TC) achieves wholeness in reconciling material evolution with spiritual Godhood, in the evolution of the material to the spiritual, thus defining the Soul and Spirit within as both immanent and transcendent.

Wholeness in TC can also reconcile Pagan with Christian symbols, e.g. as biospiritual evolution involves diversity and variety in competition. The problem of abusing collective archetypical symbols, which Jung feared, is lessened when evolution is understood in all its diversity as the way to attain the transcendent Godhood, which one can immanently discern, religiously and psychically within, as the Self, or Soul. When evolution is considered, the “Other” can be defined at least as competitor, if not as “evil,” without being considered psychologically unhealthy.

Defining Jesus as historically the “Christ” sent to teach us the Doctrines of the Church, allows us to see God within, and, with the Social Doctrines (including the channeled additions of TC) allows us to evolve successfully to God (Ordered Evolution). This is sociobiologically and psychologically healthy, allowing the collective (Church, State, People) the social bonding necessary for both psychological and spiritual success.

The Sacred Continuum

Religious thinkers believe that God exists outside of the psyche, outside the unconscious mind, whereas most psychologists say God is in the unconscious only, or they say we can, in any case, only experience God in our psyches, wherever God might come from. I see a continuum here, with the psychologist examining how we might experience God psychologically, leading up to the religionists, who examine God beyond the senses, beyond the unconscious mind. Biology and Sociobiology lie further back on the continuum, before psychology. And the artist exists almost like a brother to the religionists and the psychologists, exploring the same areas, or in the best art, in affirming the sacred. This continuum suggests something like the “total art work” hypothesized by Richard Wagner. The Evolutionary Christian Church contains the sacred continuum, from the simple to the complex to Godhood.

Energy for renewal

History moves and new facts arise. After the Reformation the Church seemed to lack the energy to define traditional social ethics in a new way, and this helped secular capitalism take over. Calvin’s spiritual individualism had softened society for economic individualism. Now the Church is dragging behind the secular world in relating to evolution, which allows the secular world to define evolution.

Evolution is a central dynamic of nature, and therefore of Godhood, and it needs to be channeled into traditional Christian ethics. With energy for renewal, evolution is attached to evolution in the Theoevolutionary Church. We can see God in the traditional way, and we can evolve to Godhhood, guided by the Church, in the natural evolutionary way.

Jung And The Traditionalists

Carl Jung did not deny an Absolute God, he said he knew that God exists but he denied our ability to fathom this God outside of our individual psyches, which is more the position of Western science.

This position put him on the outs with Traditionalists like Ananda Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon and others who know that we can see the Absolute with the mystic Intellect.

The Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) affirms both perspectives, more or less: 1. We can know the Absolute by way of knowing the Soul within, given religious discipline. 2. We affirm evolution, the jewel of science, in the conception of bio-spiritual evolution to Godhood .

ECC harmonizes science and religion, the spiritual and the material, the micro-soul and spirit within and the macro-evolution to God.

Future and Past Utopias

While examining various “utopias” in the latest issue of “What Is Enlightenment,” it seemed to me that evolution better fits the linear future, with its “world to come,” future heaven, the arrival of the Messiah, the golden world arrived at last, etc. Conservatism, which allows for slow change channeled into Tradition, also fits well from this perspective.

Traditionalism, on the other hand, fits better with past Golden Ages, Paradise, and utopias of the Hindus and Greeks, which look less positively upon evolution and change, often with outright rejection of evolution.

Nihilists and many anarchists in modern times often think in terms of dystopias, the future as living hell. Without grounding in religion, dystopias tend to develop in the mind.

Teilhard de Chardin’s “Noosphere” seems to depend too much on inherent goodness evolving to bring us all together with involution, whereas evolution, in its creativity, works through divergence and competition, as well as with Chardin’s integration.

The Theoevolutionary Church affirms the world to come, the arrival of heaven, and the Messiah, or Godhood, with bio-spiritual evolution toward Godhood working in concert with the Traditional Church and its sacred inward methods of seeing and knowing God.

Resolving Dualities

The problem of dualities, i.e. religion/science, sacred/profane, archaic/modern, mythological/historical, poetic/scientific, biological/spiritual, as examined heroically by, among others, Guenon and Jung, usually ends with one side wanting to recuperate only the former, Tradition, and the other the latter, Science. Can the two ever meet?

The two meet in bringing biological evolution into the spiritual. Traditional religion is devoted to where it applies best, seeing and knowing God, morality, social philosophy, etc., and science is applied to evolution, biology, even string theory, etc. The two are combined in the Evolutionary Christian Church, adding to Tradition the evolutionary element concerned with higher intelligence and higher consciousness. Thus, you have the evolution of the biological all the way to the spiritual, ultimately to God, guided by traditional religion. The dualities are this way reconciled.

On Bigness

Imperialism, Big Business Globalism, and Big Government, break down into smaller nations, states and localities, as Bigness has always done throughout history. Localism, variety and divergence are natural and harmonious with human nature. The question is what will be the extent of the damage done by the latest attempts at Bigness?

When Bigness fails, force is often used, yet even force can’t stop the devolution into smaller units. Big Business tactics of offering money, pleasure, power, the good consumer life are more manipulative. China is now trying these things with its population. Will Western Civilization be mortally wounded? Will the globe be polluted beyond repair? Will Western people survive, since we are not replacing ourselves?

Religion has always been the foundation of Civilization. The Theoevolutionary Church will support the redeeming of life, the renewal of localism, bonded by the Church. Without religion pernicious Bigness will rise again.

Selling The Collective Unconscious

The liberal wing of Jungian spiritualists tend to want to use the Collective Unconscious–which all people share–as a basis for understanding peace and equality between all races and cultures. This is naive, and perhaps manipulative.

Archetypes in the Collective Unconscious, such as the Royal, Warrior, Magician and Lover, (as defined by Neo-Jungian Robert Moore) were obviously useful in human survival and reproduction, which is why they have been inherited. We should not overlook this inherited purpose. These Archetypes came by way of natural selection and competition in evolution and to define them as promoting peace between all people is deceiving.

When Evolution is seen as the deepest activating force in the cosmos, and in ourselves–which is the position of the Theoevolutionary Church–then competition and natural selection look healthier. Jungians tend to neglect, or de-emphasize, the very creator of the Collective Unconscious, which is evolution. Perhaps evolution should be given its own central Archetype?

Competition, Variety, Diversity, and Localism harmonize with our evolutionary nature, and these are reflected in the Conservative doctrines of the Theoevolutionary Church. As we have said elsewhere, to love ones neighbor is not literally to love the whole world, which would be contrary to human nature, it is to love one's kin, one's group. This definition harmonizes with the definition of love of God: evolution takes place best in diverse, separate groups, thus in loving one's group and loving ones neighbor we love God, and we love God by evolving to God. We love the world in the sense that we affirm the right of every group to love its own neighbor, its own group, then all groups may love God by evolving to God.

Objection To Anarchism And Revolution

R. H. Tawney said the remedy for bad laws is good law, not lawlessness. Like the revolutionary, the anarchist hungers for a society in which order and fraternity reign without the “tedious, stale, forbidding ways of custom, law and statute.” (Luther) The revolutionary thinks order and fraternity naturally well up in their native purity from the heart.

“The task is not to destroy but to revitalize the existing social order, which though vitiated, still has valuable resources which would be criminal to destroy or neglect.” (Jean Ousett)

Counter-revolution does the opposite of revolution. It renews social bonds instead of breaking them, it co-ordinates the classes rather than to disorganize or antagonize them.

Human institutions are often a tragic parody of our hopes and ideals; some men hate men for this weakness, and cry revolution, others know that man will never be perfect and work with the imperfect social institutions built by man.

Objection To Dualism

Traditional Christians can rightly object to the dualism between the spiritual and material that Luther inadvertently introduced, thereby causing the divorce of spiritual restraint from secular activities, which helped transfer the maintenance of Christian morality to the state. This made men unable to climb upward plane by plane, men had to choose between the spiritual and the material. As R. H. Tawney put it, monasticism was secularized.

In the same way, in separating evolution from the Church and the spiritual, the Church must not make the mistake Luther made in the Reformation, this puts evolution in the hands of secularists and science alone and removes it from Christian morality.

The Theoevolutionary Church places evolution in the hierarchy of planes that reach to Godhood. Higher consciousness and higher intelligence are religious goals, they reflect the nature of Godhood and they are evolved from the simple to the complex in an ascending plane.

Economics Influenced by Religion

In an imperfect world with imperfect people, who do you want to attempt to control your inevitable, economic activity, secular lawyers, or religion? The Church made this noble attempt in the Middle-Ages, without perfect success, of course, but they at least didn’t give up and redefine greed as “free enterprise,” and avarice as “economics,” to use the terms R. H. Tawney used. The Church insisted that economics was the servant not the master of civilization, which it eventually became.

Economics should once again be influenced by religion, in a system strong enough to stand against criminal unscrupulousness but elastic enough to admit legitimate transactions, admitting the imperfection of man, unlike communists and capitalists who believe that perfection is possible.

Should usury once again be prohibited? It should be policed at least by a religious ethos.

The Philosophical Base

We apply the deeper understanding of human nature coming in from the fields of sociobiology to the philosophical basis of the natural law, as defined by Aquinas in the "Summa Theol.." That is, “every law framed by man bears the character of law exactly to that extent to which it is derived from the law of nature. But if on any point it is in conflict with the law of nature, it at once ceases to be a law; it is a mere perversion of law.”

The Evolutionary Christian Church affirms natural law, which for us includes material, biological, evolution advancing all the way to supermaterial Godhood. Evolution is derived from nature, and we believe our religious laws should not be in conflict with the laws of nature. Perversions of religion and natural law should be adjusted, and we have adjusted them.

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.

Catholic Social And Economic Doctrine And Evolution

Place the biospirtual evolution to God in the capable hands of traditional Christian social and economic doctrine, rather than only radical eugenic programs.

The distribution of private property as widely as possible, a just use of capital, variety, and light federalism, provide a better environment for survival and reproduction success, and evolution, than any other doctrine yet presented, and these traditional doctrines have the practical advantage of being traditional and conservative, not radical, channeling the new into the old, not destroying all that has gone before.

Caring for the poor, as we are rightly asked to do, never did mean Communism or the devolution of the Church. Those living in the world, the healthy, the intelligent, share of themselves and their goods when their own possessions are in excess of their own present and future needs. A church without possessions could not feed the poor. Those living in religious communities, who have no possessions, communally share.

The position of  the Theoevolutionary Church is that we can survive and reproduce and evolve to Godhood best with the traditional social and economic doctrines of the traditional Church, enlarged with knowledge of Cattell's Beyondism.

Reattaching the Gordian Knot

Whether evolution moves from the simple to the complex, or back again from the complex to the simple in natural selection, it is the “striving” that seems to remain constant. You may say that it is only the genes that are striving, or you may say that the human being is striving, but it is still striving.

To claim that the striving is pointless or blind or directionless, as many physical materialists do, is as unscientific as saying that the striving has a direction or purpose, as many theologians say. Neither are empirically proven.

It is at the juncture of “striving” that the Gordian Knot between science and religion, matter and spirit can be reattached. Matter in evolution and spirit in theology are both striving for immortality, matter calls it biological or genetic immortality, religion calls it spiritual or the soul’s immortality.

And immortality, whether biological or spiritual, is Godhood. Thus religion and science can be joined, thanks to the striving of life.

(For excellent thinking somewhat related to this, see John Haught’s “Deeper Than Darwin” John Haught

Addition Not Deletion

Evolution is an addition to, not a deletion of Church Tradition, and it does not affect the validity of the church, in my opinion.

I affirm the traditional conservative principle that new additions must be channeled into tradition and custom, and must not destroy tradition and custom.

The symbol of  the Theoevolutionary Church suggests, among other things, the synthesis of evolution and tradition.

The common people, the laity, never desire change, they prefer stability in religious concerns, but this is not why one holds to tradition. The traditional church reveals much of the nature of the God we hope to evolve to. These revelations are almost as important as evolving to God. The traditional church also presents the virtues and morals that make living and evolving possible in this world and the next.

Parts And The Whole

The fall of man was not described best
by Rousseau, it was Aristotle
who understood we can be happy
living in the lap of civilization,
the fall of man was about fleeing
from what we are, and the scars of
trying to change remain; we are the same,
the liberators did not see us
as ecologically whole, they used
seductive arts to sell us only parts.

Change And Custom In The Theoevolutionary Church

The Theoevolutionary Church (TC) does not merely make an obligatory bow to custom and tradition, it fully affirms Conservatism.TC needs to be channeled into custom and tradition. (For an excellent debate on change versus custom, see The American Conservative, “On The Next Conservatism.” Feb 12 2007) amconmag.com

Evolution as a subject within the Church has not so much “evolved,” our understanding has become clearer. Evolution to God has always been here, we have not seen it clearly. The challenge is to include change in Conservatism, to channel change into the current of custom, as Burke put it.

This understanding will only gradually arrive. We see and experience God or the Spirit Within with revealed religion, we bio-spiritually evolve to God with our knowledge of science and religion.

What We Know And Do Not Know

How God came to have permanent existence, and why the cosmos is set up to allow evolution within it, is not known. The Great Religions say that God has always been the ground of Being and Becoming.

We may not know why or how God exists until we attain Godhood, or until we are far more intelligent and have far higher consciousness than we do now.

We have the concepts that God exists permanently, and natural selection in evolution seeks permanence, eternal representation.  Religion has examined Godhood by examining the soul within, among other things, and science has examined evolution. The Evolutionary Christian Church combines these findings with the evolution of life to Godhood.

James N. Gardner’s "Biocosm" hypothesis

The Biocosm hypothesis from 2003 is an interesting take on the cosmos, although, of course, James N. Gardner is not an Evolutionary Catholic.

Looking Backward and Forward In Religion and Evolution

Religion looks back to the beginning where it finds God, and examines God by way of the Spirit and Soul within us, which is intimately related to God. Biological evolution, defined in the Theoevolutionary Church (TC), looks forward to God at the end of evolution, whom we evolve to if we are successful in evolution. Both religion and evolution define the same God, but traditional religion has centered on the God seen inwardly whereas we center on Godhood reached outwardly through evolution.  This is the Twofold Path.

Religion is almost deductive, first seeing God and then showing God in particulars. Evolution is almost inductive, evolving particulars to a universal God. We can also say that God is reached by involution in religion, and by evolution in biological religion.

Seeing or knowing God in Traditional religion, difficult as this is, is not nearly as difficult as materially-supermaterially evolving to Godhood. But both ways can help each other. Religion helps us better understand the God we are evolving to, and evolution helps us actually reach the God we see in religion.

Traditional Christianity, with its most ancient rites and long tradition is the Western way to see God, to reach God, and it also provides the best conservative environment for evolving successfully to Godhood. The Theoevolutionary Church emphasizes higher intelligence and higher consciousness in evolution, without deemphasizing the traditional virtues and morals of Christianity.

The New Remnant

Nock and Eliot achieved a first base
and not the summit, another lamp was lit
near the peak by E. O. Wilson where
the ancient rivers meet, at the well of
Mimir; now we will have a religion
that includes science, an alliance of
two ages; the stage is set, the new remnant
must live with slow change and a small range of
influence, ride Evola’s tiger until
the Evolutionary Christian Church
becomes the deeper myth.

Response To Naysayers

Traditional religion has been steadily losing to science and evolution. It seems to me that an attempt to reconcile these antagonists deserves consideration. The Evolutionary Christian Church attempts to keep Tradition intact while adding bio-spiritual evolution, thereby reconciling implacable foes. If religion and science cannot be reconciled Traditional religion will eventually become virtually extinct, the barbarians will further advance, and Western Civilization will lose at least half its history and soul. Losing half your history and soul is not good for successful survival and reproduction, which everyone is concerned with.

I say to Traditional Religion, the New Right, Science and to orthodox Racialists: life is not perfect ideology, let’s try to reconcile these antagonism or we soon may all sink.

The Theoevolutionary Church Is Not A Hybrid

Both religion and evolution can be described as seeking immortality. Religion has seen and experienced deep glimpses of that immortality which it defines as God or Heaven. Science has not seen or experienced this immortality but continues to seek to define it with mathematical equations or physical models, which are its form of seeing and experiencing. Religion has defined values and morals, which it says lead to God or immortality, and science/evolution (e.g. sociobiology) has affirmed these very same religious values and morals as tending to lead to successful survival and reproduction.

The Theoevolutionary Church is a combination of religion and evolution/science, but not a “hybrid,” since both positions are trying to see, experience and define the same depth, or truth, or immortality. Christianty provides the religion and values and the deeper sense of God and immortality; science provides the abstract and technical definitions of the nature of life in evolution, although science has yet to affirm the “goal” of the genes seeking immortality as Godhood, but it has acknowledged that the selfish genes seek immortality.

No controversial or volatile new application of eugenics is called for since Christianity provides the values and morals for successful survival and reproduction, and for evolution. For example, Cattell's Beyondism can work in harmony with Catholic social philosophy. Conservative stability offers the best overall opportunity for successful survival and reproduction. The only “innovation”–aside from the overall synthesis of Christianity and evolution–is to emphasize that along with concern for the weak, we value higher intelligence and higher consciousness, remembering that God is the highest intelligence and highest consciousness. We are trying to evolve to Godhood, which is an extremely difficult thing to accomplish. Valuing higher intelligence and higher consciousness is more fully valuing the glory of God’s creation.

Religion is not “merely” the way to “experience” God, difficult as that is to do, the Theoevolutionary Church says that to fully experience God we must evolve to Godhood, to become God through evolution. Just as we have been taught that both the body and soul will be resurrected and that we are a soul and body combined, so also we become God as a synthesis of both matter and spirit. That is, reaching God does not mean "merely" experiencing God or seeing God spiritually within human bodies, it means evolving our soul and spirit within our bodies to Godhood, far beyond humanhood. This contradicts the Gnostic/Platonic perspective which tends to devalue the material world.

Religion can offer both “The Virtual Way” to see and experience God within and “The Real Way” to evolve to God through the application of its values and morals. Science can offer to define both the Virtual Way and the Real Way in scientific terms, and perhaps eventually in religious terms.

No Reason To Change The Mass But Need To Add A New Mass

The canon of the traditional Catholic Mass, according to Coomaraswamy and many others, consists of parts instituted by Christ Himself, and a few sacred prayers added by the Apostles under Divine inspiration. The resulting traditional Mass really is the “Holy of Holies.” God is reached in this Mass more deeply and truly than He is reached in any other Christian institution. And in deeply and truly reaching God we can begin to better know whom we are evolving to, which is the "innovation" in direction I condone. Tradition and evolution flow together in the Twofold Path. However, a new Mass of Joy for the Evolutionary Outward Path is needed.

Soft Eugenics?

Q. You say “evolve.” How do you propose to do that in the Christian Church?

A. Tell the people to have large families, breed, and appreciate more the intelligent, and higher consciousness among you, even as you appreciate the meek.

Q. That is all?

A. In a world gone mad, with lost morals and values, those who follow this advice will evolve successfully.

Q. No eugenics?

A. Appreciate more the intelligent, and higher consciousness among you, even as you appreciate the meek. Godhood is the highest intelligence and has the highest consciousness: emulate Godhood.

Q. But the world is over populated.

A. If you take care of the land, and the people on the land, and follow political structures relating to subsidiarity, federalism, and small is beautiful, over- population will take care of itself. This is an affirmation of family life, first and foremost. Be fruitful and multiply, the Bible said.

Technological Advancement And the Theoevolutionary Church

As the 21st century develops, George Dvorsky has come up with his must-know terms in science, technology and philosophy for the “expert generalist,” so that we may understand the Big Picture past, present and future.

As I examined the list: Sentient Developments, I was struck with how much an overall religious worldview will be needed to synthesize these new developments, assuming we can survive to experience these advances. Christianity, and more specifically, the Theoevolutionary Church, will need to provide a healthy structure for these developments.

Technological development will create radical social disruptions beginning around the mid-point of the 21st century. Most of the creaters and engineers will expect or even demand total freedom to develop what they please without moral restrictions. It will be the task of religion to apply the traditional seven Christian virtues, the ten commandments, the eight Beatitudes and the six precepts of the Traditional Church to these technological developments, while at the same time the Theoevolutionary Church may welcome technologies that help us evolve to Godhood.

The list of terms includes:
Accelerating change, the Anthropic Principle, artificial General Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Bayesian Rationality, Cosmological Eschatology, Engineered Negligible Senescence, Existential Risks, Extended Identity, The Fermi Paradox, Friendly AI, Human Enhancement, Human Exceptionalism, Information Theoretic Death, Mass Automation, Memetic Engineering, Mind Transfer, Molecular Assembler, Neurodiversity, Neural Interface Device, Noosphere, Open Source, Participatory Panopticon, Political Globalization, Post-Scarcity Economy, Quantum Computation, Radical Luddism, Remedial Ecology, Simulation Argument, Soft Paternalism, and Technological Singularity.

Mr. Dvorsky gives no suggestion, of course, for the Theoevolutionary Church which should be the paternal and ethical foundation for dealing with these coming technological advances. It seems to me that God is the “postbiological superintelligence” they are attempting to invent. It is another virtual God, whereas the real God must be not merely simulated, however impressive the simulation; we must join God, become God, evolve to God, not merely simulate God. This suggests that extending personhood artificially outside the human sphere is not the central direction that evolution must go, it is the human being who can be extended through evolution. The Darwinian process continues, even as we may learn to manipulate it. Let us be directed by the humane considerations of the church.

We would not approve of radical Luddism, the dangers of modern technology are only dangerous when they are unhinged from traditional religious morality. The “libertarian paternalism” we would approve of would be directed by the subsidiarity and federalism of the Traditional Church, upgraded by the Theoevolutionary Church.

Traditional religious sages have been experiencing God by way of soul-recognition for many centuries, now computers may be seeking the same experience. Both are more or less virtual experiences. God is real, not virtual.

Technology can move in the direction of bio-spiritual evolution to Godhood, applying the traditional social teachings of the church, which supplies the best environment for living and evolving in the world. We evolve in the direction of God, who was seen by Christ and other great religious sages, long before modern technology.

These complicated issues will need to be further examined.

Involution and Evolution

Involution: Harkening back, archeological-like, and mystically, to where it all began, where God was first seen, and examining the soul within as an aspect of God, and seeing the spirit-will as the the impulse of evolution. This is more or less the method of tradition and the revealed religions.

Evolution: The movement toward actually becoming or joining with Godhood. The very same God examined inwardly by involutionists and by the revealed religion, but a Godhood whom we evolve to, if we are successful, at the culmination of evolution.

Stuck With Conservatism

Apparently I am stuck with developing revolutionary religious ideas while affirming Conservatism. The term “revolutionary conservative” makes little sense to me—“evolutionary conservatism” is only slightly better. Conservatism is Conservatism. I am not a revolutionary. One doesn’t tear down existing institutions. Conservatism provides the healthy and moral way to change; 99 of 100 new mutations don’t survive. I accept this, although it often puts me out in the hinterland.

If Conservatives Prevail In The Church

Are there two Catholic Churches, pre and post Vatican II? If the radicals on both ends have their way there will be a split, another reformation, two Catholic Churches.

If conservatives prevail, the modernists and traditionalists will be joined together. Conservatives, e.g. Edmund Burke, taught us that history and real tradition don’t yield to idealistic, universalist schemes or dreams on either side.

Conservatives understand that history must be acknowledged, slow change is realistic, natural; perfection is not possible, until we attain Godhood; and evolution makes this possible.

Vatican II nudged the church from a radical traditional to a conservative position, and I, for one, think that is good.

On Accepting Changes In The Church

The social bonding of the Church is one of its most vital offerings, perhaps its most important offering; the science of sociobiology has brilliantly affirmed this as well. In light of this, how must one think of the changes of Vatican II, e.g. changes in the Mass (Recently changed back to the Traditional Mass) which traditionalists defined as virtually a change to the Protestant mass?

I think it would have been better had the Protestants changed to the Catholic Mass, since the latter is an older, deeper, and more authentic way to reach God the God Within. The general problem, however, is the fading interest in Christianity in the world, which Vatican II was essentially trying to deal with by moving toward connection between all Christians in the world.

The Theoevolutionary Church will require a few more rather large changes in the future, or at least changes in emphasis, which should not be thought of as evil. Conservatism supports traditions, but not to the point of ignoring the reality of change in nature and change in the kosmos, where God created the laws of evolution, which affirm the reality of change.

Science has damaged Christianity, but Christian's who cannot accept the truths of science have also damaged Christianity. Science can bring a deeper understanding of Christianity, but this deeper understanding requires at least a change in Christian emphasis. Traditionalists who refuse any kind of change refuse the changes that God affirms in an evolutionary kosmos, and this cannot be virtuous, especially if refusing change leads to destroying all traditions, and in destroying traditions the people of the West are destroyed.

Two choices facing Vatican II were: (1) If we do not change we will decline and perhaps fall, and (2) if we change we will decline and perhaps fall. The Church was declining before VII, perhaps because it rejected much of modern knowledge, and it has declined since VII because it accepted much of modern knowledge.

This can be resolved by affirming Evolution as both a scientific and religious principle. We evolve materially and spiritually to Godhood. We accept the spirit of VII as eventually moving toward refining and synthesizing the evolutionary goal of Godhood. But traditionalists can certainly retain Church traditions all the way back to Christ, and affirm the same God we affirm, Who is also Him whom we must evolve to.

Conservative Change over Radical Change

All conservatives of whatever leaning seem to see the present and coming crisis in the West, it is the methods we advocate for trying to solve the crisis that separate us.

Critics on the Right of Conservatism (e.g. evolutionary) tend to emphasize the evolutionary over the conservative, which seems to lead to more radical political schemes (although it need not do so). But Conservatism involves not merely economic or social philosophy, it also involves conservative political methods.

Being prudent should be vital, as Russell Kirk always talked about, taking into account the reality of change, preferring conservative change rather than radical change, even when radical change is desperately needed, because radical methods almost never succeed.

I emphasize conservative change over radical change. I affirm the Theoevolutionary Church for conservative reasons over radical Modernism and Traditionalism which are equally radical. Successful survival and reproduction help determine the method, along with the overarching long-term spiritual goals in our evolution toward Godhood.

Reconciling Traditionalists With Evolutionists

The relatively new “evolutionary integralists,” e.g. Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen, have apparently blacklisted the Traditionalist School of Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, Mircea Eliade, etc., and not for the politically incorrect tendencies of Traditionalists, but for their rejection of evolution and science. I can agree with rejecting those who reject evolution, to a point, but the Traditionalist School (and Perennial Wisdom) deserve better than blacklisting. (Christians against evolution get the same New Age disdain)

The Traditionalist School is a great resurrection of Traditional religion, which I define as the micro-traditional way to discover God in ourselves and in our history and traditions. Living in the West, Traditional Christianity is the conservative way to approach God in the micro-traditional way. The Theoevolutionary Church is the combined macro-evolutionary/micro-traditional way, which I have been defining in this blog.

The Traditionalists and Evolutionists can be reconciled when both approaches are seen as legitimate. Micro-traditionalists and macro-evolutionists approach God running back to back, on the same continuum, and not running perpendicular (at right angles) to one another, as Robert Godwin has suggested regarding scientific and spiritual things. Godhood is seen virtually, in micro-traditional religion, and actually reached through evolution, in macro-evolutionary religion.

Enlightenment and Evolution

One problem with the new “evolutionary spirituality” proposed by Andrew Cohen, Ken Wilber and Robert W. Godwin, is that is maintains outmoded, one-world ideology, seeing future evolution in large-scale empires, which they would call world “cooperatives.” Yes, individuals learn to cooperate in groups, but real evolution breaks down in large scale empires, as the old Roman, Soviet and American Empires have shown.

When examining actual evolution, “small is beautiful.” Small-scale societies assure variety, which is vital in evolution. Christendom is not governed with one-size-fits-all, contrary to liberal opinion; subsidiarity and federalism affirm variety. Conservatives and liberals are biased toward one another, which hurts both their attempts to find workable social programs. Conservatives should claim ecology and evolution, liberals should claim small states rights and religion.

“Enlightenment” has two unequal definitions, one virtual, the other actual. Revealed religions have defined the virtual experience of enlightenment, glorious as this was; bio-spiritual evolution defines actual enlightenment, which can be achieved only at the majestic culmination of evolution.

What I Affirm

For the historical, traditionally-understood God, I affirm Traditional Christianity, and the Involutionary Inward Path, for the same, evolving, but futuristically-understood God, I affirm the Evolutionary Outward Path.

I affirm two ways to understand Godhood: Traditionalist, looking back to God, and Futurist, looking forward toward evolution to Godhood; the micro–back, the macro-forward, affirming the same God, although the Theoevolutionary Church (TC) says that Godhood must be evolved to.

I affirm the conservative social philosophy which harmonizes with subsidiarity, agrarianism (including serious ecological concerns), separatism and a strictly interpreted “federalism” of the American variety, i.e. strong states rights, and above all local rights.

“Small is beautiful” is affirmed for conservative and sociobiological reasons, e.g. Beyondism; evolution seems to work best within the biological variety of a natural, conservatism. This can harmonize science and religion.

The Traditional Church is affirmed, for spiritual, conservative, and sociobiological reasons, with the important and vital addition of evolution, and with the "expanded" definition of Godhood defined as that which must be evolved to, a Godhood which was virtually, and blissfully “seen” or “experienced” inwardly by the great religious founders and sages. We see now that we evolve to Godhood.

From Paul VI

“Modern man, will he not gradually come to the point where he will discover as a result of scientific progress, the laws and hidden realities behind the mute face of matter and give ear to the marvelous voice of the spirit that vibrates in it?...”
Milan, 1956

“The order to which Christianity tends is not static, but an order in continual evolution towards a high form...”
Dialogues, Reflections on God and Man

“Mankind is undergoing profound changes and searching for guiding principles and new forces which will show it the way in the world of the future.”
Speech in Bombay 1964

Change In The Theoevolutionary Church

Nothing practical changes when evolution is brought into Catholicism or other religions. The change is in the consciousness of Godhood as that which must be bio-spiritually evolved to. Prudent Conservatism remains the preferred political method, along with federalism or subsidiarity. Traditional Catholicism remains a healthy religious base and structure. Aspects of Vatican Two are affirmed, which can help end the tragic feud between traditionalists and modernists.

A great advantage in the Theoevolutionary Church, with its evolutionary consciousness of Godhood, comes from rejoining religion and science, which have been tearing apart the Western world. Another advantage comes in joining insights from other religions, e.g. Eastern religions, which could lesson tensions and advance wisdom.

Resolving Definitions of the Soul

The Theoevolutionary Church seeks to resolve the differences in defining the Spirit, between Christians, Platonist, Gnostics, Eastern Religions and Darwinists.

The Bible talks of the union of body and spirit, immortality requires the “resurrection” of the body to sustain the spirit. Yet to Platonists the spirit must be immaterial and separate from the body.

Platonists need not denigrate the material world, and empiricists need not denigrate the ideal world. The Theoevolutionary Church can resolve the differences.

Darwin did not tell the deepest truth about our purpose, he did not take evolution as far as it goes.  And Aristotelians and Thomists, who believe that the spirit is an action that cannot be explained by material survival drives, can perhaps, rest easier. In the sacred material evolution of life to Godhood, evolution eventually brings us into the higher realms, and evolution continues, all the way to Godhood, for those who are successful.  Wide is the gate and narrow the way.

Evolution and Conservatism

The science of evolution can save the Church from much of the modernism it absorbed since Vatican Two. For example, the communist views on man were decadent, even as the new attitude toward science was healthy.

Evolution brings federalism and subsidiarity back, indeed, evolution affirms conservatism, if an unbiased reading of sociobiology is applied. Sociobiology affirms the preference for group and ethnic selection and this moves the Church back to a healthier traditional position of federalism and subsidiarity, as well as ethnostates. 

Sacred Evolution And The Church

All the things that have been said about attaining happiness, and ultimately attaining God, by St. Thomas, St. Augustine, and others, including the great sages of Eastern Religions, can be applied to the sacred evolution to Godhood. It is not only the inward vision of the Divine Essence we seek, it is actually evolving materially-supermaterially to Godhood. Godhood is attained through sacred evolution, evolving within nature, and evolving through higher stages until Godhood is supremely attained.

The vision of Divine Essence which the great sages saw was a virtual inward vision of Godhood, but Godhood Itself must be evolved to in the cosmos. Christianity believes---unlike the other revealed religions---that Jesus Christ was also God Himself.

Our view of the sacred evolution to Godhood can be confirmed within the structures of the laws of nature. The Spirit-Will-To-Godhood within Primal Matter activates natural law and evolution. The terrible long-term antagonism between religion and science can this way be synchronized.

Having great respect for the philosophy of conservatism, I have no wish to harm the great traditions of the great religions. I seek to add the Outward Path to Godhood to the Inward Path to the Father Within.

Blending science with religion

As unacceptable as it is to Traditional Catholics, the following guide from Vatican Two (The Church In The Modern World) may be the only way to save the Church in the modern world.

“Let them (the faithful) blend modern science and its theories and the understanding of most recent discoveries with Christian morality and doctrine.”

For example, we would say, to deny the theory of evolution is absurd and to continue to do so will mean the virtual end of religion, which would then end the spiritual truths that religion can teach science.

However, to quote Vatican One... “let there be growth...and all possible progress in understanding...but only within proper limits, that is, in the same doctrine, in the same meaning, and in the same purport.”

From a talk on evolution and religion by Father Coyne

Here is an excellent look at evolution and religion, which begins: “The following is the text of the talk to be delivered by Vatican Observatory Director Jesuit Father George V. Coyne, “Science Does Not Need God, or Does It? A Catholic Scientist Looks at Evolution,” at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 31:

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=18504

And here is an interview with Father Coyne from the Counterbalance Foundation:

A href="http://www.meta-library.net/transcript/coyne-frame.html

The Holy Office On the Writings of Father Teilhard de Chardin

“On June 30, 1962, the Holy Office issued a monitum (warning) regarding the writings of Father Teilhard de Chardin. In 1981 the Holy See reiterated this warning against rumors that it no longer applied. Following is the text of both the monitum and the 1981 statement:”

http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=3160

Ramakrishna on truth

"It is said that truthfulness alone constitutes
the spiritual discipline of the Kaliyuga.
If a man clings tenaciously to truth
he ultimately realizes God."

Ramakrishna

Conservatism and Change

I see Conservatism as the middle way between the reactionary and the progressive. Conservatism is not against change, including changes that can help us better understand supernatural knowledge. But Conservatism does insist on taking its slow time in deciding on changes, always keeping in mind practical and even sometimes illogical human life and living.

Beyondism

“Beyondism” is an interesting attempt to create religion from science. I have few problems with Beyondism until it denies the spiritual realm and the cultural developments that come from revealed religion. Religious thinkers have studied the spiritual realm longer than Western science has studied the material realm. I think it may be possible to apply evolutionary thinking to the spiritual realm, even when one affirms Traditional Roman Catholicism. In any case, Raymond Cattell's “A Concise Beyondist Catechism:” is very far sighted and much of it will be applied to the Evolutionary Christian Church. http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/beyond01.html

On questioning

Some men who question doctrine may be heretical, others may not be. "Material" heresy--a matter about which religion has been mistaken--is not the same as "formal" heresy. And men have been lost to the church in this creative mix. It is not heretical to attempt to explain and define doctrine by bringing in other truths. This is not merely innovation. Aquinas applied Aristotle and other nonchurchmen to deepen the understanding of doctrine.

I agree that Tradition does not change, it is either accepted or rejected, but it is not rejecting Tradition to creatively question it. In any case, the Magisterium will always correct us. Perhaps one should not question with the world watching; then again, why not? Many people today are simply bored with religion.

Can There Be Truth Outside of Catholicism?

Here is part of a letter Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy wrote to the Le Floch Report regarding the presence of Truth outside of Catholicism.

There have always been Catholics who can recognize the presence of Truth outside of Catholicism.

...“Consider the words of St. Iranaeus: “There is only one unique and the same God the Father, and his Word has been present to humanity from all time, although by diverse dispositions and manifold operations he has from the beginning been saving those who are saved, that is, those who love God and follow his word, each in his own age.” (Against Heresies, IV, 28, 2) And again: “Christ did not only come for those who, since the time of the Emperor Tiberius have believed in him, nor has the Father exercised his providence only in favor of people now living, but in favor of all without exception, from the beginning, who have feared God and loved him and practiced justice and kindness towards their neighbors and desired to see Christ and hear his voice, in accordance with their abilities and the age in which they were living.” [ibid, IV, 22,2 (SC bis, p. 688.,)

“Christ is the first-born of God, his Logos, in whom all people share. That is what we have learned and what we bear witness to. All who have lived in accordance with the logos are Christians, even if they have been reckoned atheists, as among the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus and the like. ” Justin Martyr, Apology I, 46 (PG 6, 397)

St Allbert the Great; “Examining the teachings of pagan philosophers in the light of sound reason, he demonstrated clearly that they were in fundamental accord with the tenets of the faith.” From the second Nocturn of St. Albert the Great, Nov. 15. )(Breviary Pius X). One could provide many similar quotations from the saints.

St Thomas Aquinas held with St Ambrose that all Truth, no matter where it was found had the Holy Spirit for its author, and further that extrinsic proofs could be used in support of the Catholic Faith. Indeed his Summa is full of quotes from extrinsic sources.”...

For the complete letter see:
http://leflochreport.com/site/index.php?Dr.-Rama-Coomaraswamy

The Sermon on the Mount according to Vedanta

Here is a section of a book review by Paul Rooke on "The Sermon on the Mount according to Vedanta" by Swami Prabhavananda, Vedanta Press, Hollywood, CA, 1992; 110 pages, ISBN 08874810507

Swami Prabhavananda lived in the United States from 1923 until his death in 1976, and acquired a deep understanding of both the Bible and the western approach to religion. He had the highest respect for Jesus as a spiritual teacher and often used his words to elaborate and exemplify the themes he was explaining. This short book, originally published in 1964, is a thorough analysis of several chapters from Matthew from a principally Hindu viewpoint, with frequent references to Buddhism. Lucid and inspiring, it provides many valuable insights for daily living and the spiritual quest, as well as understanding of key issues in comparative religious studies.

..."The central theme of the Sermon on the Mount is that the whole purpose of one's life is to seek perfection and realize God. But what is perfection? Christ taught that it is union with the Father and must be sought within. It can never be found in the external world of things, for as Jesus proclaimed, "The Kingdom of God is within you." The author compares this idea with that of sat-chit-ananda (immortal life-infinite knowledge-eternal love and bliss) as expressed in the Vedas. Developing the theme of sin and maya (illusion) in Christianity and the Vedas, Prabhavananda advises that an obsession with worldly things masks the perception of our fundamental element, the unifying essence within us all. All religions have as their ultimate objective a union with the Absolute, however this may be described. This goal has been called samadhi (Hinduism), nirvana (Buddhism), and mystical union (Christianity), and all faiths emphasize the need to be purposive about realizing it. The four main paths in the Vedanta are karma yoga (selfless work); jnana yoga (discrimination between the ephemeral and the eternal); bhakti yoga (devotion to God, the path followed by the majority of religious believers); and raja yoga (meditation on the supreme reality). This last path may be said to include the other three, and ``a balanced spiritual life demands a harmonious combination of all four yogas, [although] one or another usually predominates, depending on the temperament of the aspirant.'' Christ's teachings can easily be assimilated into these four paths, with devotion emphasized most strongly."

Here is the URL. http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/christ/xt-prook.htm

Comment on the above statement: Swami Prabhavananda is speaking of what is defined as the Involutionary Inward Path in the Evolutionary Christian Church, which is shared by all the revealed religions. Our mission is to include the other half of religion, the Evolutionary Outward Path, which is the path of material-spiritual evolution to the God first seen in the Inward Path.

Politics in its place

Claes G. Ryn said it well, (August 28, 2006,The American Conservative) Conservatism has been too enthralled by politics..."To recover, American conservatism would have to reorder its priorities and most especially put politics in its place. America’s crisis is at bottom moral-spiritual and cultural. Though a new alliance of homeless political groups is desirable, a realignment would be unavailing in the long run unless the old obsession with politics were also broken. The issues most needing attention will make the eyes of political junkies glaze over."

Read the full articule: http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_08_28/article19.html

Slow Ways

Why do men remain radical for so long?
The mystic songs of religion and
intuition seem to drive them
away. Science, which is here to stay,
has often been a school for
radicals--think of Bentham and
Marx--with Sabbaticals of PhD’s
replacing convocations of
bishops. The slow ways of tradition
are as hard to precisely define
as the Gothic line. Have our
universities created a better
world than our churches? Slowness
is key. Bend the twig of tradition
and you avoid decay and rot. Cut
the tree down and even the benefits
of science fall to the ground.

Rumi poem

Evolution is the prime process visible in the universe, says Raymond Cattell, and other scientists. But according to Jelauddin Rumi, and other mystics, “everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.” Here is the poem:

“Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.
The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same.
Every wonderful sight will vanish, every sweet word will fade,
But do not be disheartened,
The source they come from is eternal, growing,
Branching out, giving new life and new joy.
Why do you weep?
The source is within you
And this whole world is springing up from it.”

Jelauddin Rumi

Guenon quote

The following quote is from the English translation of René Guénon's most important book "La Crise du Monde Moderne,"(1927) although he may have lost faith in this position in his later life.

"...We think that if a Western tradition could be rebuilt it would be bound to take on a religious form in the strictest sense of this word, and that this form could only be Christian; for on the one hand the other possible forms have been too long foreign to the Western mentality, and on the other it is only in Christianity - and we can say still more definitely in Catholicism - that such remnants of a traditional spirit as still exist in the West are to be found. Every 'traditionalist' venture that ignores this fact is without foundation and therefore inevitably doomed to failure; it is self-evident that one can build only upon something that has a real existence, and that where there is lack of continuity, any reconstruction must be artificial and cannot endure."

Religion and Science...Science Is Great But...

If “truth” remains a central goal, could we see the tracks of science and religion converge? Would this hybrid contain more of religion, and less of science, or the other way around?

Perhaps the real model is this: science following religion in all its forms and gradually "proving" the ethical truths of religion using scientific methods, e.g. traditional conservative values affirmed by sociobiology. And this would continue as science “proves” many more of the truths of religion.

If this is the case, then scientists, and others, who claim that religion is backward may see that religion has been far ahead of science, and this would define religion as superior to science in knowing the truth. But perhaps “superior-inferior” is a less accurate description than, say, the analogy of object and mechanic: religion is the model, which science attempts to examine in detail.

Science Is Great But...

Science Is Great But we
has been late to use it as a tool,
yet we would be fools to make
our rules conform to stillborn
equations from a germ free lab,
Sad and violent history attests
to the best plans of man overrun
by nonmathematical forces.

Traditional Flow

Youth attends the rose, age the soil,
and in this roiling strain the world
goes on. Are new songs truer
than the old? Is boldness
more valuable than golden age?
Even the sages disagree,
and we are often left between
the cleft of rock and sea. Ideas
weave their way into the mix
and try to fix everything
with tidy simplification,
while the ones who know go
with the traditional flow.