The
fundamental character of biological life evolving is predation and
consumption. Human reason rises above mere matter. Reason allows
human beings to act cooperatively though evolution itself has no
morality. It is immoral. Completely.
Human
social reason invented the concept of morality. Morality has no place
in evolution. Hence evolution is a bad model for moral and social
theory much less practice.
A
purely material universe evolves. It changes form. It alters its mass
and quantum composition in accord with pre-existing boundary
conditions and dynamic thermal inertia. Not before material
configuration developed in such a way and so far as to permit the
rise of human reason could any kind of moral theory appear. And
reason is not of evolution nor embedded in it. Reason is a
fundamental phase change entirely different than the insensate,
material existence of a Universe such as that humanity appears to
co-exist within.
One
may of course stipulate that God pre-existed the material Universe
and is absolutely moral; perfectly so. Humanity today alternatively,
having discovered evolutionary structures and something of the nature
of the material Universe often prefers to regard itself as the
highest possible appearance of being so far in the Universe as a kind
of personification of the Hegelian world-spirit. Be that as it may.
Reason
is a break and phase change from matter. It cannot look to matter and
energy as moral guides. Some contemporary theorist look to evolution
as a justification for moral abnegation and license. If evolution has
generated thousands of varieties of insects it goes or if some
mammals exist that are bisexual, then it must be OK. for humans to be
so too. In the absence of a presiding moral authority such as God,
who is believed to have been eclipsed in veracity by the human
discovery of evolutionary mechanisms at play in the universe,
evolution itself must be the natural model for human social order.
Reason is not so good in the paradigm as nature. The natural order of
evolving species generates excellent moral models for human reason to
abstract from and mimic.
If
nature has no natural boundaries than neither must humanity. If a
black widow sider eats her male mate, then it would be wrong to judge
a female human that does so too.
If
a super-computer generates life designs for genomes in every possible
configuration for every computationally possible ecosystem on any
plant, around any star or within any particle field it would be wrong
to prevent the actualization of them. Morality is a matter of
success; to fail is wrong, even if the failure allows one’s corpse
to be consumed by the dominant successful political powers of the
day.
It
is ironic that humanity living before the first idea of God appeared
along the evolutionary ascent of man had a state that modern, godless
man seeks to devolve to dressed in hyper-advanced technology (though
it was less than a century ago that most humanity hadn’t
electrification and couldn’t ignite a fire with a zip-lock baggie
and urine)). Before the rise of the concept of God appeared; probably
at the start an idea of a single God, humanity had no moral
guidelines except for those of pure force and personal then perhaps
group advantage. In time the idea of many gods would arise because
different people had different ideas and names about God. As groups
banded together many Gods would cohere. Coincidentally society
developed more social and legal structure and the idea of morality
together with the idea of gods being responsible for everything. Some
of those gods were more powerful than others,perhaps in relation to
the realms becoming economically important to the people using them
such as Neptune and the Sea, or Valhalla for Vikings traveling
abroad-sometimes far south.
Many
pagan deities and demi-urges followed the development of
civilization. With comparison of different laws and religions, of
different priesthoods and different worship practices perhaps the
most primitive beginning of social sciences arose. In time Moses, the
great moral authority appeared to resurrect the primordial idea of
one true god to mankind. In the beginning of human intellectual and
social ascent. Within the cell of basic mind, mankind needed to reach
out in though within an elemental existentialism to think about
something more powerful than himself existing as a creator and ruler
of everything. Differentiating that capacity into many forms and
persons was probably only a much later secondary intellectual
development. The book of Jeremiah affirms that in the beginning
everyone knew who he was and later forgot with the rise of false
consciousness (another existential idea).
Jesus
Christ appeared to transform the paradigm for the religion and
worship of the One True God. Rather than admonishing everyone to
perfectly obey strict and technical behavioral laws and practices, He
asked only that people accept Him as their personal Savior and
atonement for the sins they do and for their original sin and
inability to either atone for it or live a perfect life and abstain
from committing any other son themselves. Even today, and even among
many Christians, people forget the true salvific work of Christ and
believe in a blame compared to social perfection sort of religious
criterion akin to that of the Pharisees of Jesus’ first century
A.D. appearance on Earth. Seeking to free themselves from shame and
blame for given sins and sinful behavior the lost overlook Jesus
Christ’s work in taking care of that problem Himself.
Christians
should no longer want to sin once they are saved. They would seek to
make a doctrinal evolution such that sin is o.k. and ignore Bible
truth. In the contemporary American era that evolved through various
stages of mass popular Christianity to a present over-willingness to
conform itself to popular evolutionary-inspired political and moral
beliefs, the formerly Christian Churches that became reprobate
gradually accepted the idea that evolution at least makes no moral
demands as it has no moral content, and that the truth of evolution
theory negates the truth of the Bible, the existence of God and the
salvific work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe the Lord Jesus is
a person of the one ttrue God. He appeared in history when the
evolution of ancient kingdoms had run their course, when pagan
deities were pervasive, and civilization was ready to advance and
update the pagan and uncivilized world. The strict religious method
given unto the Jews that required following external technical
observances that catalyzed the cohesion of developing government as
well as moral and legal codes was unsuitable for bringing a
transcending, universal restoration of faith in One true God. The new
covenant in the Lord Jesus Christ brought that Universal and
transcending presence of God to all of mankind that received the
call.
I
want to point out in this essay the problem moderns have in looking
toward evolution as a moral inspiration and guide for social morality
much less social structure; Humanity has with its thought and reason
risen beyond the natural criterion of evolution, though they are for
the time-being biological tied to it and fated to live within it.
Reason
may generate certain demographic, boundary criteria as moral
guidelines, and to use those boundary conditions with a mathematical
and algebraic social equivalence. Each human life would be regarded
as of equal value; 1 = 1. Yet such a basic moral premise is entirely
made gratuitously within an evolutionary criterion. For in nature the
only measure of success and truth are historical observations
describing what occurred.
There
is nothing wrong for the evolutionary immoral criterion to act
entirely in personal self-interest to the detriment of everyone else;
the sole valid nominal moral judgment would be on the success or
failure of an act. Act-based egoism could not differentiate between
an evil act of killing one individual and killing a billion or a
planetful of life. In evolution immorality there are no moral guides.
Pragmatic judgments for self-interest must therein be extrapolated to
included a utilitarian criterion for the greatest and most beneficial
acts for the most people. Yet that too is a phenomenal and
effervescent sort of moral judgment for evolution that has no
necessary biological or empirical value. Neither may one use it as a
way to predict and judge the value of a particular present world-line
of actions for the future such that it would benefit and individual
or a group or civilization more than others nor create a preferred
direction in directed evolution to produce an ‘optimal’ outcome.
Any sort of outcome would be as good as any other in directed
evolution.
There is no escaping the fact that
human reason is requisite for creating social morality. Evolution is
in fact a non sequitur; human scientific and technical knowledge may
overcome the criterion of selective material evolutionary change one
day to produce a Utopia or dystopia. In the meantime encouraging
humanity to refrain from creating dystopia for the masses or
individuals is needed for the survival f mankind. I believe that in
time, when the age of the gentiles if fulfilled, the church of Jesus
Christ will encompass most of humanity and they shall be ready for a
return to the absolute moral authority and author of reality. That
destiny may be upon Earth or in a meta-urth paradigm greater than
presently with the capacity of human imagination.
