Not Wrong, Just More Complete

“When we upend things in physics these days, it's not necessarily that old things were wrong. It's just that underlying it is a more complete theory.”

Lisa Randall, Theoretical Physicist

Back To Hyperboria?

James Lovelock's scenario of our grim future on earth suggests that survivors will retreat to the northern latitudes of Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and the Arctic basin. The self-regulating system of the earth is out of whack and will make a jump to a hotter state, as it has in the past. Of the present 6.6 billion people only 500 million will survive.

Lovelock's book, “The Revenge Of Gaia,” predicts extreme weather by 2020, and by 2040 the Sahara will move into Europe, Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad, Atlanta will be a jungle, Phoenix will be uninhabitable, as will Beijing, which will try to move up to Siberia and thus clash with Russia, we will have severe epidemics after mass migrations.

Lovelock says we should use the term "sustainable retreat” rather than sustainable development. Remaining humans could go nuclear, desalinate the ocean, grow synthetic food, prepare for chaos, and engineer the climate. Smart cities will prepare by shoring up hospitals, securing dependable food and water. Dumb cities will be overrun and descend into chaos.

Soul Fallacies

The old terms Immanent and Transcendent remain better terms to describe the Soul and Spirit than such newer terms as “prerational” and “transrational” which Ken Wilber uses.

Immanence describes the Soul within the body, which can guide the Soul and body to Godhood. The Soul is not God, one does not “evolve” to the Soul, one “involves” to the Soul; one evolves to Godhood.

It has been politically incorrect, to say the least, to speak of future evolution, and this may have been an influence in the recent New Age confounding of evolution to God with involution to the Soul-Within. However, old masters also confounded these dynamics before evolution had been defined as we now define it.

Contact with the Soul-Within is dazzling, even life-changing, and such contact can lead to a Great Spiritual Blockade, but the Soul is to God as the spark is to the fire. We can contact the Soul-Within through involution for guidance in the bio-spiritual evolution to Godhood.

The Values of the Flesh

Bearing witness to the truth of the Christian God need not define the heroic ideal of Classicism as a far lesser value, contrary to St. Augustine. Can reason guide us further than Augustine thought it could?

Augustine asks how to satisfy the demands of human consciousness in their fullest measure. The “concupiscence of the flesh” cannot satisfy the ultimate demands of consciousness, he says, materialism is like “a runaway slave.” Theological materialism and the Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) suggests that this view wrongly puts matrimony on a less exalted plane than a chastity which triumphs over the lusts of the flesh.

Elements of God survive in the Spirit-Will, which activates bio-spiritual life to Godhood. Augustine did not have knowledge of the science of evolution (too Manichean?) Chastity remains an important virtue in the traditional, involuntary, meditations of the Church, but religiously directed evolution raises the value of marriage. Ambrose and St. Paul declared: “marry and weep,” but the ECC does not speak of marriage in this way. Profane Reproduction leads away from God, in that it moves against evolution, whereas Sacred Reproduction enhances our evolution to Godhood. This is not to say that discerning the path to higher consciousness, higher intelligence, and beauty in evolution is easy, both science and religion are required.

Two Enlightenments

There are two goals, two enlightenments, which have in history been virtually two ways of viewing the cosmos: the involutionary and the evolutionary. For most of the world's religions the involutionary has defined spiritual enlightenment. The evolutionary goal is the goal of evolution to Godhood, or ultimate evolution. The evolutionary goal brings biological-material-supermaterial evolution into traditional religion, which has been almost exclusively centered on involutionary enlightenment.

New Age thinkers speak about “wholeness” and integrating the “shadow,” but wholeness and integration will come only when ongoing and upgoing biological evolution is affirmed and included in traditional religion. This will not be easy, of course, since the subject of continuing human evolution remains profoundly politically incorrect. This period of change in history is perhaps as great a period of change as the times of St Augustine, and later St. Thomas Aquinas, in their transmuting of the classical world.

It is understandable that the bliss which comes (but rarely for the few) from involutionary enlightenment might blind adherents, or create what we have called “The Great Spiritual Blockade,” yet we need to move on to the Second Enlightenment or Ultimate Evolution , which is our biological-material-supermaterial evolution to Godhood.

A Christian Nod Back To Classicism

Early Christianity rejected the classical view of apotheosis with the great understanding that all of humanity can be deified by learning how to believe in Christ, whereas the classical view thought that only heroes and supermen could reach Godhood.

St. Athanasius, in the fourth century, said that we are rendered immortal by activating our latent spiritual powers through the indwelling Word, which we share with God. Eastern religions also contain this departure from Classicism.

The Evolutionary Christian Church, with a nod back to Classicism (and forward to modern science) defines the process of connecting with our spiritual inward nature as only half of the great task of attaining Godhood. The other half of our religion relates to the evolutionary outward path of material and supermaterial evolution all the way to Godhood.  This is the Twofold Path.

On Reconciling Religion And Science

The radical position taken by traditionalists on reconciling religion and science is basically to reject science. The radical position taken by science on reconciling religion and science is basically to reject religion. The position that the late Pope John Paul took on this was a Conservative one, although it followed Vatican Two, which traditionalists see as not conservative.

John Paul's position was put this way: “...there are two autonomous realms of knowledge. There is what reason can attain through the use of the scientific method; and there is that knowledge which has its source in revelation. Both science and faith have points of contact: they both illumine an aspect of reality. Science considers the world and the human person on the horizontal level, the level of physical/chemical processes and of quantifiable matter. Religious faith, on the other hand, considers the vertical level: the level of the human person's transcendent origin, dignity and destiny: the level of the human person in his or her relationship with God.”

The Evolutionary Christian Church accepts John Paul's position on this as the Conservative way to proceed, but we do not rest there. We move forward and seek to join religion and science and make them one, we prefer not to see them as a marriage of different things. Yet we think we should proceed on this conservatively, moving ever toward the future, when religion and science are finally seen as one, as we are seeking to see it.

ECC's Eco-Philosophy

Eco-philosophers (e.g. Worldchanging) seek evolution toward the sustainability of our material circumstances and social formations, and traditional spiritualists seek the interior, involutionary structures of consciousness. The Evolutionary Christian Church wants the Green vision of sustainability to include the future, sustainable, evolution of human life, all the way to Godhood.

A. Material-social sustainability
B. Involutionary spirituality
C. Sustainable, human, bio-spiritual evolution

The Problem Of Integral Psychology: Low Aim

Ken Wilber's levels of the “transformation of consciousness” are limited to involutionary levels of change. Evolutionary transformation requires far greater biological transformation and the addition of other advanced fields in genetic technology and political philosophy. As with most traditional religions, Wilber's religion is involutionary, when Godhood requires greater evolutionary as well as involutionary transformation.

Wilber's integral “ full spectrum” is not the full spectrum of evolution, it stops at anthropomorphic narcissism. Godhood is not reached by human consciousness, no matter how advanced. In this respect Wilber's “pre/trans fallacy,” where pre-rational and trans-rational consciousness are supposedly confused, is itself a confusing notion, in thinking that the two are distinctly different. Pre-rational or simple consciousness is only relatively less advanced than the trans-rational or more complex consciousness, both are on the path to the Absolute Consciousness of Godhood, following greater bio-spiritual evolution. Only God has God-consciousness, we have to evolve to Godhood to attain God-consciousness.

On Defining God

It is perhaps best, in attempting to define God, not to see or symbolize lesser Gods, penultimate Gods, those who might still be evolving.

It seems better to see God as consisting of more than one aspect, eg. as both creator and preserver. The Trinity (Absolute Truth, Absolute Being, Absolute Becoming) becomes the mature Western reflection.

God is the end of evolution, the Kosmic Summit. The beginning of evolution takes place after the Kosmic Center gives birth to the Kosmos via the Spirit..

We evolve to Godhood, with God's grace.

Surpassing The Involutionary Bliss

Using involutionary religious procedures, after great effort, consciousness “awakens” to the Soul. This has been defined as “complete integration,” manifest form is integrated with the unmanifested formless. This awakening of consciousness to the Soul is universally considered the end goal, the purpose of life, even the purpose of evolution. Alas, the bliss becomes too wonderful to surpass and what follows is The Great Spiritual Blockade.

This blissful awakening is “only” the involutionary goal of traditional religions, the evolutionary goal is necessarily blocked. Godhood cannot be fully reached using half the measures required. The bliss of experiencing the Soul within must be surpassed by the continuing path of the Spirit-Will through material-supermaterial evolution. The path of evolution has been working in the cosmos with only half the conscious help of the mystics on earth.

Building The Kingdom of God

The deficiency of Classicism, which culminated in the Roman Empire, was to think too much politically, the deficiency of Christianity was to think too much spiritually, which is why they both failed.

What was missing was the transmutation of the material to the spiritual by way of evolution, the spiritualizing of biology, uniting material science with religion. This, the Evolutionary Christian Church, seeks to do.

We offer a faith more adequate to human needs in the modern world. We look inward with involution to see and know God through the Soul-Within, we look outward to seek God through evolution of man to God.

How do we avoid the Pagan mistake of treating other men as means rather then ends when evolution beyond man to God is the way to Godhood? Christian mutual caring and fraternity affirm altruism, which also bonds people for successful survival and reproduction.

Political power, according to Catholic Social Philosophy, is justified when it is employed for the fulfillment of God's purposes—right doesn't depend on might, but right receives its mandate from divine authority. The Church claims the right to intervene in government to keep economic and political motives in line with spiritual and moral ends.

As some have said, all politics are local and tribal, therefore the Traditional (paleo) Conservative position harmonizes well with federalism, and the subsidiarity of the church. Small is not only beautiful, it allows for spiritual, moral, and biological advancement.

Transmutations

Charles Murray and others have written that the “transmutation of the classical intellectual foundation by Christianity” gave modern Europe its impetus and pushed Europe far ahead of all other cultures. And ethnic qualities also no doubt played a part.

The Evolutionary Christian Church offers the next transmutation of modern science by Christianity, i.e., evolutionary science, which will have a better chance of saving the West (and the East for that matter) than science alone, atheistic fascism, or various forms of globalism.

Fallacies Of Descent And Ascent

The elements of Ken Wilber’s so-called Pre-rational and Trans-rational fallacy, as well as rationality itself are contained within man and within the Soul of man; we do not see the need to separate the “pre” from the ‘trans.”

For example, the causal, subtle, psychic (Trans-rational), and the archaic, magic, mythic (Pre-rational), as well as the rational, and including the subconscious (pre), the self-conscious (rational), and the superconscious (trans), all are contained within man and within the Soul of man. All these qualities we define as Involutionary.


Carl Jung was given a bad rap by Wilber for elevating or defining the prerational as the transrational. It seems to us that Jung’s demarcation correctly relates to the Dual Aspect of the Soul and Spirit, which is seen also in the Immanence and Transcendence of the Soul and Spirit.

The problem seems to stem from two things. 1. The need to protect the concept of how high God could descend to “low” life in the face of the theory of evolution from the simple to the complex. 2. And from confounding Godhood as reachable by human beings, however superhuman they may be, when we are actually “only” reaching the Soul-Within man, or the Spirit in man, the Spirit originally coming from God at the beginning of evolution.

We do not wish to devalue the experience of God-Consciousness in humans, e.g. by referring to the bliss of It as “addiction,” because God-Enlightenment is too difficult to warrant such demeaning. But we do refer to It as The Great Spiritual Blockade, preventing us from evolution to God.

Biological life is not “low,” indeed, it is the vehicle required to evolve to Godhood, guided by the Soul-Within and activated by the Spirit. The Soul and Spirit Within are our vital contact with the Immanent and the Transcendent, which brings us in touch with the God we must evolve to.

Evolution will be better integrated into spirituality when we realize that the Soul-Within can give us a glorious glimpse of God, but this is not Itself Godhood, we must evolve biologically-spiritually to God.

Dreadful Choices

Will the God of Christianity be buried in the ruins of the Western Civilization we have failed to save?

According to Charles Cochrane---“Christianity And Classical Culture"---this kind of ruin happened to the ancient Gods of the Roman Empire---an empire we increasingly resemble---in the early 400's when the Emperor Theodosius officially legislated the Graeco-Roman Gods out of existence and declared Christianity the state religion. Victory was easy and swift.

One could say that the change was accomplished conservatively, since Constantine had initiated the change from paganism to Christianity a hundred years earlier.

But the Christian religion had been attached to the husk of the Roman Empire, a new people did not ride in and conquer, although they were threatening.

Keeping this history in mind we have been advocating the Theoevolutionary Church, a change or synthesis presented without trying to destroy the house we are living in. We would think this less difficult than promoting an entirely new religion, as happened in the late Roman Empire.

We maintain the character, tone and guiding belief of Western Civilization, and we gradually, conservatively, add evolutionary science, and elements of ancient Perennial wisdom, which Christianity has tragically failed to absorb.

The alternative seems to be the slow replacement or death of Christianity and our Civilization, which is being threatened on all sides, along with our people no longer caring to replace themselves. If that death happens, perhaps after the fall, small, stark, and not necessarily Christian ethnostates might rise, and the whole civilizing cycle would begin again.

Low Aim

Contacting the Soul-Within seems the sole aim of many religious sages, whether they define it this way or not, which they define as the movement from the lower to the higher. We describe this as “low aim” in the sense that contacting the Soul-Within is a Secondary Evolutionary Goal, and not the Primary Evolutionary Goal of the Theoevolutionary Church. The Primary Evolutionary Goal from the lower to higher is in the evolution of the Spirit and Body all the way to Godhood. When the Spirit attains Its Goal there will be no separation between Body and Spirit, together they will have evolved to Oneness, or Godhood.

Nietzsche spoke of courage being more important than intelligence in finding the truth, and we suspect that fear of the reality and the science of evolution has been the main obstacle to the blocking or denial of the religious acceptance of the primary evolution of the Body along with the Spirit to Godhood.

Moral Art, Moral Imagination

Art in general, not merely fashion or culture, should delight, provoke, surprise, but you can’t have great art without having moral art.

Does this involve some restriction or discrimination in what one creates? Yes, but no more restriction than human nature or nature itself.

Russell Kirk used Burke's term “moral imagination,” which is an apt phrase. You can’t have one without the other. Moral-only and you can have boring, didactic art, imagination-only or you can have wild chaos.

When we look at the history of art we find that the greatest art had moral imagination.

The God Within/Without

In the West, Jesus Christ taught the Involutionary Way to know God. Several Great Teachers in the East taught other versions of the Involutionary Way. The Traditionalists School of thought has generally called this the Perennial Philosophy.

The Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) defines the Involutionary Way as exoteric, and the Evolutionary Way of bio-spiritual evolution to God as esoteric, which seems reverse. Involution seeks the God-Within, Evolution seeks the God Within/Without.

Detractors have labeled ECC a new revelation, but we define ECC as using the language and knowledge of our time to reach the God of Tradition.

A Long Way To Glory

Plotinus thought that with humans evolution was half completed. Ancient and modern yogis, saints, sages and siddhas tend to believe that the ultimate aim of evolution is to awaken to God, which is really awakening only to the Soul. The great mystics arrived at this state. With due respect to the mystics, we are not anywhere near halfway to the gods, even the direct intuitive apprehension of Being is not nearly halfway to Godhood.

The apprehension of Being, related to the apprehension of the Soul-Within, is an involutionary attainment, blissful and seemingly complete, yet evolution must carry the Spirit-Will and Body far beyond the human state. The experience of the Soul, not God, seen through involution by the mystics must not become a Great Spiritual Blockade. In the face of our arrogance and anthropomorphism, we have a long way to evolve to God.

An Ignominious But Inevitable Retreat

Our time resembles the period when the Roman Emperor Jovian (c. 332 - February 17, 364) had to extricate the remains of the broken Roman army from Mesopotamia. Jovian had to accept an “ignominious but inevitable retreat.”

According to Charles Cochrane (“Christianity And Classical Culture”) from this moment on conditions within the empire approximated a permanent state of siege. Rome was now confronted not only with those who had for centuries troubled their northern borders, but by new and unknown assailants. Everything had to be subordinated to the paramount necessity of defense.

It seems that we too will soon have to essentially retreat to our borders and subordinate almost everything to the defense of the West. A further retreat and defense of states and regions within the federated nation also seems possible in the future. Let us face it, welcome to the future.