CHAPTER 15
Beyond Strict Father versus Aging Clock

Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein

For peoples, generally, their story of the universe and the human role in the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value.… The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation.¹

Thomas Berry

Alienated from life and lacking a story appropriate to our time and understanding, we contemporary humans are condemned to seek meaning where it is not to be found. We pursue money as a measure of our worth, go shopping to distract us from our loneliness, dominate and destroy to affirm our existence, and turn for moral guidance to dogmas that affirm the disabilities of our alienation rather than challenge us to fulfill our potential.

The last century was a time of extraordinary advance in human understanding regarding the origins of the universe, the evolution of life, and the developmental path of the human individual. For the most part both science and religion remain wedded to stories of older origin that incorporate nothing of this new knowledge. These outdated stories impair our vision of the possibilities of our higher nature, our connection to life, and our place in Creation.

GRAND CONFRONTATION

The long-standing conflict in the West between science and religion pits the religion of the strict father against the science of a mechanistic world likened to an aging clock. This contest has raged in the West since the beginning of the scientific revolution.

Religion of the Strict Father

By the time of the early scientific revolution in the sixteenth century, prevailing Christian theology had fallen into a distrust of the human intellect and its ability to perceive truth from observations of the material world. Indeed, excessive concern with material phenomena was considered a sign of a neglected soul. Religious authorities maintained that divine revelation as enshrined in scripture and interpreted by themselves was the only valid source of truth and that the universe is governed by forces beyond human knowing. The prevailing Western worldview of that time, particularly as defined by the Catholic faith,

• viewed the human relation to God as one of a child to a father who demands strict loyalty and obedience;
• ascribed to God both human emotions and the power to create and destroy whole worlds by an arbitrary act of will;
• held humans to be both the purpose and center of God’s creation;
• venerated a pantheon of saints with powers to intervene in matters of the heart and flesh;
• attributed physical and mental afflictions to possession by malevolent spirits; and
• claimed for religious authorities the power to guarantee a place in heaven.

A dramatic shift in the dominant cultural perception began to take place around 1660, as the mechanistic worldview of the scientific revolution took hold in Europe. The shift from magic to mechanism was a bold step that opened the way to extraordinary advances in understanding and technology, much as the child’s awakening to physical mechanism is an important step on the path to a mature consciousness. Unfortunately, however, the scientific revolution brought not only a rejection of the magical fantasies of the lowest order of consciousness but also a denial of the spiritual foundation of reality and a deep alienation from life.

Science of the Aging Clock

In sharp contrast to the belief systems of most religions, the ideological frame of standard Western science steadfastly maintains that the physical world is the only reality and that the disciplined observation of 255physical phenomena is the only source of truth. That stance began with the theories of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) and the proofs of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) that the sun is the center of the solar system and Earth is but one of its several orbiting planets.

The conventional scientific wisdom of that day held that nature functions with the predictable precision of a mechanical clock and that its mechanisms are fully amenable to human understanding.² Unable to explain the origins of the complex machine postulated by their theories, the early philosophers of the scientific revolution conceded that territory to the theologians, suggesting that the universe was created and set in motion by a master clock maker who then left it to wind down as the embodied energy potential of its wound-up spring was depleted.

The contrast between the doctrines of science and the prevailing doctrines of the Christian churches of that day could scarcely have been more stark. Religious doctrine maintained that the material realm is an illusion, even the work of the devil to distract and deceive, and only the spirit realm is real. Scientific doctrine maintained that only the material is real. Religious doctrine proclaimed that humans are the center of God’s attention and the purpose of his creation. Scientific doctrine placed humans at the periphery of a vast, godless universe devoid of purpose or meaning.

Rather than recognize material mechanism as but one of reality’s dimensions, the science fundamentalism replaced the self-limiting dogma of the religious establishment with a self-limiting dogma of its own— denying the very existence of whatever it could not measure and explain in terms of replicable mathematical relationships. It thus proclaimed life an accidental outcome of material complexity and came to treat it as a mere collection of chemicals and genetic codes subject to physical manipulation for human convenience. Science fundamentalism not only denied the higher orders of human consciousness, it declared all consciousness, spirit, and intention to be mere illusions, essentially stripping away any apparent foundation for personal moral responsibility.

Culture of Alienation

The rigid dogma of science fundamentalism was useful in imposing on science an uncompromising intellectual discipline that has led to enormous advances in human knowledge and technology. Unfortunately, the premise that only what can be observed is real came to be 256treated as proven fact rather than a useful basis for conducting science. It shaped the worldview of modern culture—thus perpetuating the alienation from life that is a primary driver of the addictions of Empire. Any competing view is dismissed by science fundamentalism as mere unproven religious belief. Such a stance neglects the reality that by its dogmatic rejection of intelligence and consciousness, science fundamentalism itself crosses the line that separates scientific inquiry from the propagation of unverifiable religious dogma.

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) set forth perhaps the clearest exposition of the philosophy to which the scientific revolution gave rise. Taking material mechanism to its logical extreme, Hobbes postulated that there is no meaning to existence and therefore no objective standard against which to distinguish between good and evil. According to Hobbes the only rational course is for each individual to pursue that which brings pleasure and avoid that which brings pain—essentially the simple motivational profile of the consciousness of very young children.

From this premise Hobbes concluded that, given the natural right and inclination of each person to pursue immediate impulsive pleasures, order requires a strong state headed by an absolute ruler and law giver who has a free hand to determine what constitutes the public good and to impose order unhindered by any covenant with the people. In a stroke, Hobbes thus turned the scientific denial of that which makes us human into a rationale for an economics of greed and materialism and a politics of totalitarian rule.

The Evolution Wars

The long-standing tension between science and religion has again come to the fore in the United States in a struggle between creationists and evolutionists over what public schools will teach their students regarding the origins of the human species. At one extreme are scientific true believers like British biologist Richard Dawkins, who insist that life has evolved through a purely mechanistic process of chance mutation and natural selection and that this is settled fact not subject to challenge by rational minds. At the other extreme are the religious true believers like evangelical theologian Albert Mohler, who considers it settled fact that God created the cosmos, Earth, and all of Earth’s living beings in six days in a series of discrete events that culminated in the creation of man in God’s own image. By the reckoning of the Albert Mohlers, belief in 257God and belief in evolution are mutually exclusive.³

A considerable number of scientists and theologians hold positions all along the continuum between these extremes. One increasingly popular school of thought that draws support from some members of both the scientific and faith communities is the theory of intelligent design, which maintains that life’s complexity bears the mark of an intelligent designer. Some among this group believe that the fossil record can be explained by the theory that God intervened periodically to create new species over time. Others believe that God set creation in motion to play out through mutation and natural selection like a computer program.⁴

The public debate on evolution continues to be conducted entirely within the basic frame of pre-twentieth-century stories. The assumption is that, if intelligence was in any way involved in creation, it must reside in an external God who exists apart from his creation and functions in the manner of a magician waving a wand or an engineer constructing a machine from mechanical parts—another variation of the imperial meaning story.

There is no consideration of the possibility that creation may be the manifestation of a creative intelligent consciousness intrinsic to all being, and most particularly to all life. Such an idea is integral to the experience and teachings of religious mystics, but it is alien to conventional science and treated as heresy by many Western religious leaders. The significance of whether we think of God as extrinsic or intrinsic to Creation was brought home to me in 1999, when I had occasion to meet religious scholar Marcus Borg at a conference sponsored by the Washington Association of Churches at which we were both speaking.

TELL ME YOUR IMAGE OF GOD

In his presentation, Borg challenged us with the assertion, “Tell me your image of God and I’ll tell you your politics.”

Serving Different Masters

Borg elaborates that the Christian Bible describes God in terms of two quite different clusters of metaphors that evoke different images and suggest quite different relationships between humans and the sacred. These metaphors spring from contrasting voices within the biblical tradition and reflect sharply different worldviews.⁵ One affirms the dominator 258relations of Empire and the other the partnership relations of Earth Community.

The first cluster uses the familiar anthropomorphic metaphors of king, lord, and father, which evoke an image of a distant male authority figure with a physical human form to whom humans are presumed to owe unquestioning loyalty and strict obedience akin to that of a child to a traditional father, or a subject to a king. Borg calls it the monarchical model of God.⁶

The most common modern understanding of God, both in the church and in the broader culture, centers on the monarchical model. By this understanding God is a supernatural being who resides in a distant place, created the world a long time ago, and established natural laws to order his creation. The main disputes center on whether God chooses from time to time to intervene in the affairs of his creation. In this conception, humans are not only the centerpiece of creation but also the realization of its purpose.

The second cluster includes both non-anthropomorphic metaphors—such as wind, breath, fire, light, wisdom, and rock—and more anthropomorphic metaphors—such as sage, lover, and mother—that evoke images of an immanent caring, unifying spiritual presence, an image generally consistent with the worldview of the Spiritual Consciousness, the highest order of human consciousness described in chapter 2. Borg calls it the spirit model. The Christian spiritual teacher Matthew Fox documents in One River, Many Wells that the religious mystics of virtually all the world’s spiritual traditions describe God with images evocative of the spirit model.⁷

In contrast to the monarchical model, the spirit model suggests that our human relationship to God is one of an ungendered belonging and intimacy. Jesus—who taught a message of universal love, compassion, and preference for the poor — was a prophet of the spirit model and used metaphors and parables appropriate to the understanding of his audience—including the metaphor of a loving and compassionate father. The loving and compassionate father of whom he spoke presented, however, a stark contrast to the stern and wrathful imperial God of the Old Testament.⁸

The God of Empire

According to Borg, the earliest layers of the gospel tradition do not suggest that Jesus thought of himself as the Messiah or Son of God in some 259special sense. “His message was theocentric, not christocentric—centered in God, not centered in messianic proclamation about himself.”⁹

The idea of Jesus as the messianic Christ and founder of an imperial church was a reconstruction that did not come to fruition until nearly three centuries after his crucifixion, when the emperor Constantine embraced Christianity and made it the official religion of the Roman Empire.¹⁰ Christianity has served Empire ever since, lending moral legitimacy to unconscionable violence and oppression in the name of the man whose life was devoted to teaching love and compassion.

The Roman Church eventually superseded Rome’s secular empire to function as an imperial power in its own right, even fielding its own armies in the Holy Crusades against Islam. Christianity subsequently aligned with the imperial conquests of the Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese kings in the lands of Africa, Asia, and the Americas and the claim of the colonizers that their goal was to civilize and Christianize the native peoples.

The monarchical model of God establishes associations with the familiar characteristics of human fathers and kings, who are commonly jealous of their authority, demand obedience to their word, extract harsh punishment from those who displease them, and lavish rewards on their favored children and subjects. Because the monarchical God is presumed to be all-powerful and all-knowing, the idea follows quite naturally that the rich and powerful enjoy God’s favor and are therefore entitled to rule earthly affairs as his representatives—the explicit underlying premise of Calvinism. It sets the pattern for what is sometimes referred to as the great chain of being, in which those closest to God rule over those less favored: God over the secular king, the secular king over men, men over women, and humans over nature. It also follows from the perspective of the believer that those who worship a different god are enemies of the true God and must be destroyed or forced to submit to the true God’s dominion.

Monarchical/imperial, as contrasted to prophetic/spiritual, Christianity affirms a hierarchy of domination and sends a pointed message: accept your earthly circumstance because whatever it may be, it is the will of God. Redemption for the faithful and obedient comes in the afterlife. Disobey or challenge in the name of justice those who speak for God, and you shall surely burn forever in the torment of hell.

The assertion that salvation is individual and based on faith rather than works keeps society fractured and absolves the individual from 260responsibility for acting to create a more just and peaceful world. The focus on the hereafter and the premise that God resides in a far place contribute to an alienation from the experience of living in a creative relationship to community and nature. This alienation has become so stressful that many Christian fundamentalists turn to a longing for the Rapture.

Waiting for the Rapture

The Left Behind series of novels written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins presents a portrayal of the Rapture as understood by many of its believers. By mid-2004 total sales of the books in this twelve-book series exceeded 65 million copies and generated more than $650 million in sales, making it one of the most successful publishing projects of all time.¹¹ The fictional account of Christ’s final return to Earth in the last book of the series, Glorious Appearing: The End Days, gives this chilling account of how the Prince of Peace is expected to dispense with nonbelievers in the end time.

Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.… [The surviving Christians find they must drive their cars with care to avoid] hitting splayed and filleted bodies of men and women and horses.… [T]he riders not thrown leaped from their horses and tried to control them with the reins, but even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated.¹²

More stunning than the book’s narrative is the comment by an adoring reader reviewer posted on the Amazon Web site. “Book #12 grabbed my heart like none of the others… LaHaye’s and Jenkins’… message of God’s love and redemption will speak to any reader who wants to open their heart and mind to him.” Another reader called it “a glorious ending.”

At a dinner party I attended while writing this book, I chanced to sit next to the host, a man of fundamentalist Christian conviction with a respected and well-paid professional job; a spacious, elegant home in a beautiful countryside setting; and a beautiful, loving family blessed with 261an abundance of musical talent. In the course of our dinner conversation, he spoke of the Rapture, expressed his belief that it would happen soon, and shared his sense of joy at the prospect of leaving this world to be in an eternal relationship with God. I left the conversation with deep sense of sadness at the tragedy of a thoughtful man so focused on the afterlife that he seemed unable to appreciate the great blessing of the life he had in hand.

Many millions of people, desperate for relief from the alienation of modern life, are attracted to the Rapture’s promise of eternal bliss and Christ’s retribution against those they believe to be their enemies. Like the science stories of a mechanistic world, the stories of the God of Empire are the creations of prophets possessed of an Imperial Consciousness, who would draw our attention away from the profound reality that we are integrally united with the whole of Creation—not just some small fragment of it—by an unbreakable spiritual bond.

The alienation from which we seek relief is a consequence of the fabricated cultural beliefs of Empire that distract us from our place in Creation and rob us of the birthright of our humanity. Finding the meaning that is inherent in our very existence is a matter of awakening from the collective cultural trance of Empire and embracing life itself as a spiritual practice.

The God of Earth Community

Marcus Borg, Matthew Fox, Jim Wallis, Walter Wink, and other contemporary religious scholars describe the historical Jesus as a person for whom the Spirit is an experiential reality, a teacher of wisdom who used parables and aphorisms to communicate subversive wisdom. They characterize him as a social prophet who challenged the elites’ power by disputing the conventional wisdom and as the founder of a Jewish renewal devoted to breaking down the chauvinistic social barriers that supported the imperial structures of his day.¹³ He dedicated his life to changing the prevailing stories.

Down through the ages there have been persons in most every culture who have regularly had vivid subjective experiences of ecstasy and deep sacred knowing in which the ego gives way to an experience of the spiritual energy and intelligence integral to all being. In addition to Jesus, some of the most influential mystics within the Christian tradition 262include Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), Francis of Assisi (1181–1226), Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), and Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260–1327).¹⁴

The spirit model suggests a living cosmos that continues to grow and evolve as the eternal Spirit continuously manifests itself by vibrating Creation into existence in a manner suggestive of the ways in which quantum physics describes material reality.¹⁵ By the understanding of this model, God, the Spirit of Creation, the ground of being, is manifest in every person, creature, rock, particle, and thought—in all that is. Therefore, we are quite literally living in relationship with the Spirit we call God in every aspect of every minute of our lives, for we have no existence apart from this relationship. We have only the choice to be true to the relationship or to betray it.

This spiritual reality is exclusive neither to a particular tribe nor to a place apart. It is here and everywhere, now and forever. Different traditions use different metaphors and know it by different names—Yahweh, Brahma, Atman, Allah, the Tao, Great Spirit, God — but all speak to the same Spirit.¹⁶

By the reckoning of the spirit model, a sin is committed when in an act of infidelity we metaphorically forsake the Spirit for other lovers — for example, money or violence. Sin is defined not as a transgression of some set of laws, but rather as a betrayal of the Spirit. The Spirit has no need to judge. The punishment for infidelity is the self-inflicted pain of alienation that is a direct and inevitable consequence of the faithless act itself. By this reckoning any institution or doctrine—political, economic, scientific, or religious—that promotes greed and violence or otherwise systematically counsels and rewards our dalliances with other lovers promotes idolatry and manifests evil.

I once heard a woman on a call-in talk show observe that she considered her time on Earth as nothing more than a brief layover in a cheap hotel. What irony that a person who considers herself a believer can proudly dismiss the whole of God’s glorious Creation as so much cheap trash unworthy of her tender sensibilities.

The monarchical model affirms and legitimates the dominator relations of Empire. The spirit model subverts them, calling us to walk away from our bondage to Empire and redirect our life energy to cultivating the partnership relations of Earth Community in loving service to the work of Creation. Fox speaks of “Creation Spirituality,” which is an engaged spirituality, the spirituality of mature and responsible adulthood essential to the full realization of our humanity. 263

It is our responsibility to contribute to bringing forth human cultures and institutions that support all of Creation’s children in fully realizing their potentials. Those who wait for a distant God to intervene miss the point. We are not here to obey a God jealous of his authority, but to engage with Creation as partners in a grand adventure. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

SCIENCE OF A LIVING COSMOS

Newtonian science postulated a cosmos composed solely of matter that is running down to an entropic heat death. Contemporary science describes a far more complicated cosmos that exploded into being as diffuse energy particles and that has been evolving upward toward ever greater levels of complexity, potential, and possibility.

The solid matter once embraced as the only reality is now understood by physics to be mostly empty space given form by the relationships among minuscule energy particles that appear seemingly from nowhere, exist in a constant state of flux, and then disappear. Yet the consistency of the relationships among passing particles maintain the form of the apparent object through which they traverse. Paired electrons influence each other across vast distances with no evident mechanism of communication. Whole stars and star systems disappear into black holes as others are born. The processes at work appear to go far beyond any simple notion of material mechanism.

The cutting edge of biology describes living organisms as systems of self-directing cells. These cells engage in constant intercommunication and a reconstitution of their material structures yet are able to maintain a seamless continuity of form and function as they grow and reproduce in ways that are at once predestined and exquisitely adaptive and purposeful. The genetic structures presumed to contain the information codes that determine the reproduction and function of living organisms faithfully reproduce down through endless generations, yet are also engaged in a continuing process of self-repair and revision.

Peptides and other biochemical substances that store our memories and regulate our emotions mediate complex bidirectional links between our conscious and unconscious minds and the physical function of our bodies.¹⁷ Here also such processes are not magic, but they involve something far more mysterious than pure physical mechanism—and 264that something will surely remain beyond the comprehension of science until scientists admit to the possibility that conscious intelligence has a role not only in the human mind but as well in every aspect of Creation.

The science of mechanism had its place in the study of the physical manifestations of matter. The cutting edge of scientific inquiry has now produced evidence of a reality best explained by the presence of a creative intelligence far more magnificent and mysterious than the descriptions offered by ancient sacred texts written in a time of more limited human understanding of Creation’s workings. I find the theory of an integral sacred intelligence to be far more consistent than the established scientific theory of pure chance and mechanism with both the data of science and my own experience. But I can no more prove that an integral intelligence is involved than science can prove that it is not. The more thoughtful scientists recognize that some aspects of reality lie beyond the ability of science to prove or disprove, a truth I learned from Willis Harman, a Stanford University electrical engineering professor of impeccable scientific credentials, who was for many years my mentor.

As an institution, however, standard science continues to deny the deeper implications of its own evidence. It clings to the dogma of an earlier day, when it was quite properly seeking to distance itself from the superstitions of a corrupt religious establishment. Now, failing to distinguish between the facts of scientific observation and the assumptions on which its methods rest, standard science continues to falter in its quest for a unifying theory. This failure may well be the consequence of a self-imposed dogma that denies the existence of the underlying spiritual intelligence that religious mystics through the ages have recognized as the unifying essence of Creation. Science and religion each stand to benefit from a collaboration in search of a grand synthesis.

STEP TO MATURITY

The historic battle between science and religion for cultural hegemony has left us with an untenable choice between a scientific story that denies spirit, intention, meaning, and consciousness and a religious story that denies reason and the evidence of our senses. We have paid a terrible price for this self-imposed myopia. A more accurate and holistic vision of Creation is at hand. Religious sages have been describing it for millennia. Scientists on the cutting edge of their disciplines have been 265staring it in the face for nearly a century, and a few have recognized its deep significance.

Human survival is now in question because our most powerful institutions have elevated assumptions and theories to the status of proven fact, thus turning them into self-limiting dogmas radically out of step with the most advanced human understanding. As we have seen in earlier chapters, the mind of the mature elder is open to all the many ways of knowing—including sacred texts, indigenous knowledge, history, and modern science—and is fully at home with both the material and the spiritual dimensions of reality. It is time to acknowledge that wisdom and set ourselves the goal of cultivating the potentials of the mature human consciousness.

Scientists need only accept—as many do—that there are truths beyond the reach of the conventional instruments and methods of scientific inquiry that may be acknowledged without diminishing the tremendous value of those instruments and methods. Religious scholars need only return to the core of the teachings of Jesus and other Spirit persons of the world’s great religious traditions and acknowledge the many ways in which Creation reveals itself to our species—as many individual theologians do. Scientists and religious scholars and mystics can then work cooperatively to deepen human understanding of the relationship between matter and spirit—as growing numbers are.

The liberation of science and religion would open the way to a profound cultural turning from which economic and political turnings will quite naturally follow. As we humans come to embrace the truth that we are all creatures of the one living, immanent Spirit, competition for dominator power of one over another becomes an anachronism. Gratuitous violence becomes sacrilege. The pursuit of money beyond reasonable need becomes idolatry. Chauvinist exceptionalism becomes a mark of emotional immaturity. A turning from an imperial economics of individual greed and excess to a mature economics of sharing and balance becomes nearly inevitable, as does a turning from an imperial politics focused on competing interests to a mature politics of mutual interests.

The living culture of Earth Community will call us to choose fewer toys, less war, less isolation, and less coercion in return for more fulfilling relationships and the realization of that which makes us human. The living economies and politics that follow from a living culture will be more democratic, ethical, and fulfilling; will secure our children’s future; and will honor our responsibility to Creation. 266

Religion and science are two contending sources of the creation stories by which we humans define ourselves, our moral codes, and the meaning of our existence. Since the beginning of the scientific revolution, religion and science have been engaged in a competition to be the exclusive purveyors and interpreters of the reigning creation story of modern life. Each of these establishments has allowed the more dogmatic extremists within its ranks to define its story in terms that emphasize the contrast between its own position and that of the contending party.

In keeping with the win-lose dynamic of Empire, the struggle for power between the two competing establishments has trumped the search for truth. This leaves the rest of us to choose between two partial stories or to live in divided allegiance between them. To guide our steps on the pathway back to life, we need a shared creation story for our time that honors the whole of the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the species.

Fortunately, there are individuals of significant standing within each of these establishments who are able to look beyond the dogma in search of a deeper convergence. Reaching out across institutional lines, they are joining forces to challenge the partial stories of their respective traditions and to construct and communicate a more complete and factually grounded contemporary story that draws on the accumulated knowledge and experience of the species.