How can religion’s ‘morality’ be reinterpreted as a set of tools to help us move forward?
Today’s Post
Last week we saw two examples from Teilhard’s essay, “The Phenomenon of Spirituality”, in which he saw the need for the continuing evolution of religion’s concept of morality if it is to emerge as an ‘evolutionary tool’.
This week, we will see three more examples .
Rethinking Morality as a Tool for Human Evolution
The Morality of Balance (appropriate to a static universe) vs the Morality of Movement (appropriate to an evolving universe)
“The morality of balance is replaced by the morality of movement.… (As an example) The morality of money based on exchange and fairness vs the goodness of riches only if they work for the benefit of the spirit.(advance human evolution)”
A secular example of such a shift in perspective can be seen in the examples of human evolution in human affairs today, as enumerated by Johan Norberg in his book, “Progress”. One of the facets that Norberg identifies is a distinct correlation between the rise of human welfare in developing countries and their increase of GNP. This is a concrete example of Teilhard’s insight into the potential of secular wealth to improve human welfare as a metric of human evolution. Norberg echoes Teilhard’s belief that ‘the morality of money’ can evolve from seeing donated money as a measure of morality (charity) to understanding the application of personal freedom and improved relationships as necessary for a society to increase its wealth (GNP) and as a result, increase the welfare of its citizens.
As a direct corollary of this insight, Teilhard reinforces his assertion that morality must evolve from proscription to prescription if it is to fulfill its potential in fostering our personal evolution towards more completeness (autonomy and personness). Effectively he sees the need to move
“Individual morality (from) preventing him from doing harm (to) working with the forces of growth to free his autonomy and personality (personness) to the uttermost.”
In Teilhard’s new insight, morality must now be recognized as a tool for increasing personal freedom and enhancing relationships, not as a hedge against evil to ensure our salvation.
Religion, Morality and Complexification
“By definition, his religion, if true, can have no other effect than to perfect the humanity in him.”
Here Teilhard is delving into the most fundamental role of religion. As technology certainly can be seen to improve human welfare, it has no expertise at improving the unique human characteristics of personal freedom and personal relationships which are necessary to insure the innovation and invention necessary for our continued evolution. He goes on to say,
“At the first stage, Christianity may well have seemed to exclude the humanitarian aspirations of the modern world. At the second stage its duty was to correct, assimilate and preserve them.”
The most appropriate role for religion Is as a tool for management of the noosphere. The deepest claim to authenticity for a religion is to be recognized as a tool for the evolutionary advancement of the human person, and through him the advancement of humanity.
Morality As A Basis For Dealing With The Noosphere
“So long as our conceptions of the universe remained static, the basis of duty remained extremely obscure. To account for this mysterious law (love) which weighs fundamentally on our liberty, man had recourse to all sorts of explanations, from that of an explicit command issued from outside to that of an irrational but categorical instinct.”
Here Teilhard is succinctly stating one of his basic tenets of the understanding of human evolution: Once put in an evolutionary context, all concepts which are pertinent to the continuation of human existence begin to present themselves as aspects of the single, unified and coherent thing that they truly are.
The Evolutionary Tool Set
In the same way that government must establish and safeguard the building blocks of society, such as Jefferson’s assertion of the person as the basis for society…
… in the same way that medicine must understand physiology to diagnose illness to be able to prescribe treatment…
… in the same way that technology must understand metal structure to build a bridge…
… religion must recognize its role as a tool for understanding the noosphere to be able to assist us in living life in such a way that we maximize our potential for being fully and authentically human.
The Next Post
In the past two weeks, we have looked at Teilhard’s insights into religion’s concept of morality to see how it can serve as a tool for continuing our evolution as humans.
Next week we will begin to look at how human history following “The Enlightenment” shows the potential for science and religion to begin to converge as ‘evolutionary tools’.