September 2024

The Christian’s purpose is “conscious evolution”?     Huh?

You have probably given some thought about what it means to be a Christian, and the concept of conscious evolution probably never occurred to you.  Allow me to explain, and in explaining you might be surprised that I am going to first talk briefly about geology.

Geologists have divided earth’s 4.5-billion-year history into time periods called epochs. The most recent epoch has been called the Holocene.  It follows the Pleistocene epoch which spanned from 2.58 million-years-ago to 11,700 years ago and was the earth’s last ice age.  The Holocene began when the climate warmed and ice sheets melted. It was the beginning of the Neolithic revolution in which our hunter-gatherer ancestors settled and took up agriculture and domestication of animals.  Civilizations developed.  Knowledge evolved. Technologies were invented. Prior to the Holocene, humans were just another species of animal.  During the Holocene, humans took over control of the planet. 

This is reflected in the book of Genesis:

And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

This revolutionary shift occurred only in the last ten thousand years, which is only .0003% of the time that there has been life on this planet!

Many scholars now believe that we have entered into a new geological epoch which is being called the Anthropocene. Historian David Christian writes:

In the twentieth century, we humans began to transform our surroundings, our societies, and even ourselves.  Without really intending to, we have introduced changes so rapid and so massive that our species has become the equivalent of a new geological force.  That is why many scholars have begun to argue that planet Earth has entered a new geological age, the Anthropocene epoch, or the “era of humans.”  This is the first time in the four-billion-year history of the biosphere that a single biological species has become the dominant force for change.

Major emergent events in homo sapiens’ evolution from being just another animal species to becoming the dominant species on the planet include the incredible growth of the hominin brain beginning about three million years ago, the development of symbolic language about 160 thousand years ago, the invention of the printing press allowing for widespread assimilation of ideas and information, and the industrial revolution when human productivity increased tremendously due to the energy obtained from coal, steam engines and mechanization. A second industrial revolution occurred a century later with petroleum replacing coal, and then a third industrial revolution came about with the harnessing of nuclear energy. 

Fareed Zakaria in his recent book Age of Revolutions writes about three other highly significant human revolutions:

• Digital Revolution: “Technology in prior revolutions changed the physical world; the digital revolution would change the mental world, expanding information, knowledge, analytic capacity and with it our definition of what is means to be human.”
• Artificial Intelligence: “A new revolution is on the horizon- when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and forces us to reassess our own place.”
• Biotechnology Revolution: “For more than three billion years, evolution was steered only by the forces of natural selection, which led some mutations to survive and others to die out.  But today, humans are taking control of nature.”

Homo sapiens have gained incredible powers. My fear, however, is that humanity’s emotional, moral, and spiritual development have not evolved sufficiently to be able to wisely control these powers. While we now have the capacity to boost the evolution of humanity and the biosphere, we also have the power and capacity to destroy it all. Will we solve the climate crisis?  Will we eliminate poverty? Will we defeat racism, misogyny, homophobia, and all the other isms? Will we end war and violence? Will we create a world where people have the freedoms to live out their dreams? Or will greed, lust for power and hatred continue to rule the day?

The Hebrew prophets envisioned a future in which hatred, violence, and greed would be no more, and that peace and brotherly love would reign.  The prophet Isaiah reportedly said:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift sword against nation and they will no longer study warfare. (Isaiah 2:4)

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat…They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:6-9)

The Hebrews believed that a messiah would come to establish this new Godly age. While I believe that such an age will likely eventually come, I do not believe that there will be a savior or messiah that will bring it about.  I believe that it is we who need to bring this dream to fruition.  The Hebrew prophets inform us about what’s required to bring about paradise: to love God and to love others.

Some thought Jesus was the promised messiah, but Jesus’ message was about worshiping God, not about worshiping himself.  Jesus taught that the kingdom of God had already begun;

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

The kingdom of God is not only among us, but within us.  In the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, Jesus was quoted to say:

“If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you.  If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you.  But the kingdom is within you, and it is outside you.  When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are the children of the living Father.  But if you will not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and it is you who are the poverty.”

The apostle Paul adds:

For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17)

How do we attain this heavenly future prophesied by the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, and others?  First of all, I think we need to stop looking for a messiah to make this happen for us. For most of the history of humanity we have put our trust and hopes in charismatic political and religious leaders who more often than not are motivated by their own cravings for power and money and not for promoting the common good.

What is required is the further evolution of humanity, and for humanity to evolve, various individuals need to evolve first.  As more and more individuals evolve, cultures evolve, and as cultures evolve, humanity evolves.

What does it take for people to evolve to a higher level of consciousness? Knowledge for one thing. For me it was important to critically examine the beliefs in which I was indoctrinated in my early life. I had to deconstruct my previous worldview and then construct a new worldview which was informed by ongoing education in various disciplines.  Of particular importance for me was to learn about the history of the development of the Biblical canon and the study of big history, which involves learning about the integrated history of the cosmos in its entirety.

When growing up I was taught to believe that the most important task of life was to have a personal conversion experience. I later came to believe that conversion is a process and not an event. Even later I came to believe that personal conversions are not what is most important, as I came to disbelieve that God would ultimately judge us with resulting rewards or punishments. What I have come to believe to be of most importance is the evolution of all humanity, of the whole world, and indeed eventually the whole cosmos. The kingdom of God.

Humanity has achieved great powers which have given us great abilities to affect our world. Now what is needed is the wisdom to use these powers for the good. All of the problems of humanity are solvable if we can evolve to the point of recognizing that it is our selfishness, egocentricity, and cravings for power and money that are restricting humanity’s progress.

To put it succinctly, humans can now participate in cosmic evolution, and this is accomplished with love.

Christian, David (2018). Origin Story: A Big History of Everything.  New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Zakaria, Fareed (2024). Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Dr. Craig Vander Maas is a neuropsychologist whose research and writing interests are the intersection of religion, science and politics.  More information on the topics of this article can be found in his recently published book Beyond Religion: Finding Meaning in Evolution.