Sandals at the Gate

Fourteen billion years ago, more or less, the Universe came into being in a tremendous explosion of creative force. Into nothingness, that may have been very large or very small... since there was as yet no such thing as time or space... a great explosion of cosmic force accelerated outward, expanding into reality in the blink of an eye or less into the massive thing we call the Universe.

Out of this roiling and churning, forces beyond our understanding coalesced into vast systems that created galaxies made up of gasses. Chaos settled into order and the complex forces of gravity and entropy began to work to create matter. Stars were born and died in great bursts called super novas that tossed vast quantities of carbon matter into space that settled into planets.

Again... the system began to create order out of chaos, always moving and shifting until these forces shaped into patterns. On our planet, at least, and probably many others, these chaotic forces led to the emergence of atmospheres, and water, and ultimately life. Simple life to be sure, which over time grew increasingly complex until multi-celled creature emerged, and a complex biosphere emerged, and intelligence emerged, and human societies emerged, and culture, and stories, and the search for meaning.

If one takes a moment to stand back and look objectively at the emergence of this vast reality called the Universe and Everything, the ultimate Reality, one can see an incomprehensible process of creative emergence leading to increasing complexity which has so far culminated in intelligent life capable of self-reflection and awareness.

We are not separate from the Universe... we have emerged from it. We are a part of it, utterly and completely, and we are a manifestation of its process of creating complexity and order out of chaos.

From the sub-atomic level to the vast reaches of space, we have become aware of the grouping of things into order producing clusters that are self-perpetuating. Galaxies do it... and so do cells. Protons and electrons do it, quarks do it, and so do solar systems. And so do people, and our ideas from musical systems to social systems to moral systems.

And eventually, everything ungroups... from stars that go supernova destroying the gravity center that holds a solar system together, to plants and animals and people that die and decay into dust and are then recycled back into the biosphere, to ideas and social systems and moral systems that fall apart when new ideas come along that challenge old assumptions and accepted knowledge.

In this third part of this article, I will explore the implied ethics that arise from an understanding of the great cosmic reality of the Universe as an ever evolving process of creative emergence. I suggest that an awareness and appreciation of the Reality of this process is imperative as a starting point for a moral system capable of addressing the great crisis of morality that has beset us in our current time.

Starting Points for Evolutionary Ethics

There are, as in any moral system, a set of underlying statements upon which such a system is built. The problem with current moral systems is that not all of those underlying statements are accepted by all people as factual. In fact, they cannot be considered as such. Religious tenets are things which by their very nature can never be proven or dis-proven. They are not facts. This does not mean that they are not true or that they cannot be believed. It simply means that the specifics of the private revelation of religious truths cannot be objectively known.

The specific tenets of proven scientific fact, however, can be neither believed nor disbelieved. Contrary to scientific theory... which we are not addressing here... scientific facts simply are. We know that DNA exists, we have seen it... and we know increasingly more about how it determines biology. We know that dinosaurs lived and approximately when, and we know that species on this planet evolved from other species on this planet. And we know that ideas have evolved in human culture and society, effectively supplanting former ideas and that this process will never stop. As in the time of Galileo, there may have been those who simply refused to accept that the earth moved around the Sun, but the force of supporting evidence over time has prevailed.

So what can we discern from the facts of evolution that can act as starting points for a discussion of a new moral vision?

1 - There is nothing in the Universe... in all of Reality... that did not originate in the first moment of that cosmic explosion of emergent creativity. Every atom, every subatomic particle, every element, every cell in every thing - living or not, animate or inanimate - comes from the same originating source.

2 - Everything groups. Every instance of the creative process evolves into a self-sustaining, interdependent part of the whole Reality, grouping with other instances of creative emergence to form systems.

3 - Everything ungroups. Eventually, these systems either destroy themselves or are destroyed making space for other creative emergences. This is equally true for galaxies as it is for human societies.

4 - The entire process of creative emergence moves toward increasing complexity.

5 - Diversity emerges as an expression of creative Reality. So does intelligence. In fact, it is appropriate to say that the whole process accelerates toward them. They are the natural culmination of emergent complexity.

6 - Intelligence, as a part of emergent creativity, has culminated on this planet in a species capable of making meaning of itself and of the Reality within which it has evolved. The human species is, in short, the Universe's acquired ability to be self-reflective and meaning making.
 
7 - The emergence of creative Reality is not finished.

So what do we do once we have set out the fundamentals of an evolutionary moral vision? Necessarily, we need to begin to determine what the implications of such a cosmic process are for our species in particular. We need to humanize the ethical vision and see what the imperatives are. We need to make meaning... something that we are uniquely capable of and qualified to do.

Making Meaning of Things

Making meaning requires interpretation. And it requires language. The complexity of human language as significant of meaning cannot be underestimated. We human beings speak about the factual using one kind of language because the conveyance of information is different from the conveyance of meaning. When it comes to meaning making, we use a different kind of language altogether. We use something called metaphor. The language of religious vision relies a great deal on metaphor, because religion... after all... is a meaning making endeavor.

When it comes, however, to articulating a moral vision based on fact-based science, we for the time being will attempt to minimize the use of metaphor as much as possible. I will save the real use of metaphor for the final part of this paper which will deal with the integration of science and my particular religious tradition. 

So what can we extrapolate as a moral vision based on the starting points listed above? Where do the facts of evolution as an emergent creative process lead us?

The first is the interrelation of all things - and not merely the fact that all human beings are interrelated - but that we and the very planet we inhabit are one and the same on a fundamental subatomic level. We are all made from the same stuff, emerged from the same process, and utterly and completely interdependent. We have the same story in deep time in spite of the divergence of cultures and societies during our evolutionary processes. And we share this with absolutely everything that is, everything known and unknown in the Universe. This is not mythology, this is Reality. To harm one thing is to harm everything. To help one thing is to help everything.

We have the good fortune of being a part of a vastly complex system that has grouped for the purpose of creative emergence. As a species, we have plugged right in. We have created language, music, art, philosophy and meaning and we have created technologies capable of radically shaping and altering not only the future of this planetary system, but the shape and future of our own evolution into new species capable of marvels as yet unknown. And while most things in this ultimate Reality group without the benefit of sentience, we are capable of choosing where and how to group in order to advance the emergent creative process. Consciousness now allows the Universe, in its self-reflexive incarnation as the human species, to CHOOSE how to adapt in order to advance the emergent complexity of the evolutionary process. Some evolutionary psychologists refer to this as "conscious evolution."

While we can choose to group, we can also choose to ungroup, consciously aware that we are not beyond complete destruction in order to make space for a new creative emergence. This destruction is a necessary component of the evolutionary process and we are not divorced from it or independent of it. We are equally capable of destroying ourselves or being destroyed as any star system. Yet, while we have no control over whether we are destroyed by an outside force such as a comet crashing into the planet and demolishing everything... there are choices within our purview. From the disappearance of the Maya to the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire... we know that even human societies that ungroup will either disappear entirely or fold back into the evolutionary process to emerge with greater depth and complexity elsewhere. We can choose not to ungroup, knowing that entropy leads to the collapse of systems and their death.

Complexity will naturally arise from the system. Fighting against it, ignoring it, fostering hostility towards it will not prevent complexity from arising. It is what the entirety of Reality does. Emergent complexity is the very reason we are here in the first place. Therefore, should we not understand and embrace that change is expected and normal and, hence, be willing to do what components of other systems do in nature... adapt? Without emergent complexity we would still be banging sticks on rocks to make music rather than enjoying the benefits of Mozart. Without emergent complexity we would still be communicating in grunts rather than the hundreds of existing languages.. .spoken and unspoken... that make up the human vocabulary.

Diversity is a tremendous boon to complex systems. Without it, systems would die entirely for having no adaptive components that could survive a single threat to that system's existence. Without diversity, systems would stagnate. Is it any wonder that the Universe strives for it in order to advance the creative emergence of the new? Therefore, diversity must be celebrated and enjoyed as a life-giving, necessary, and saving part of the whole of Reality... without which we would surely perish.

The term "intelligent design" is one that wildly misses the mark, for it assumes that there is some agent outside of the generative and creative process of Reality that not only brought it into being but, like a maestro, conducts the orchestra of the Universe on a cosmic scale. Instead, evolution shows us that intelligence is WITHIN and emergent from the process. The creativity of cosmic evolution HAS intelligence because we (and other intelligent life arisen in other places of the Universe) are a part of the process of emergent creativity. And, if that intelligence is in us, then it is within the entirety of creative Reality because the human species cannot be seen as separate from the rest. Intelligence is our greatest asset in that it can be applied to the complexity of the system from which we have emerged and can be used to guide the choices we make. The solution to our pressing problems is, in fact, the deep application of our intellect.. rather than the exaltation of stupidity disguised as simplicity that our current American culture tends to promote. Human intellect can be leveraged to solve our most pressing social and environment issues rather than being used to demonize scientific discoveries that interfere with religious convictions no matter how deeply held. And while human intelligence is not the only characteristic trait that we can use - for example our meaning making, our faith, hope, and trust, our creativity and ingenuity - without our intelligence we are surely doomed.

Finally, the story is not over. Once human beings arrived on the scene in this particular location of the whole of Reality, the movement of evolutionary creative emergence did not stop. It continues elsewhere and it continues here. We are not finished yet and neither is this planet, among many, finished with the possibilities of life seeking and finding ways to express itself. Why do we always seem surprised to find new species of plant or animal that we didn't know were there? And why do we continue to believe that we human beings are the last stop on the evolutionary journey towards complexity and intelligence? And why do we continue to treat the delicate environment of this particular biosphere as though it is not integrally related to our health and well-being?

In the fourth and final part of this essay, I will explore the ways in which the private revelation of my own religious tradition can find itself deeply and even more fully expressed when viewed through the lens of this evolutionary ethic. I will ultimately answer the question posed by so many... "how can you be a Christian and believe in evolution?" To that I answer... "IT IS EASY!" I will also answer the unexpected assumption of a close colleague who somehow got the impression that the view I have been discussing here was somehow different from his own requiring God to be at the heart of creation; or that somehow my view of the real world as discussed in these pages was divorced from the presence of God. And to him I say: "My brother... we are talking about exactly the same thing!"

I give this by way of warning that I am about to take a theological turn which for some of you might be entirely unnecessary to what I've discussed so far. For those of you for whom this is a stopping point, thanks for staying along for the ride. I hope that these initial steps toward an evolutionary moral story provide you with a framework to approach the world in a new and life-affirming way. For those of you who wish to come along for the last leg:

Stay tuned for Part IV.


Br. Karekin is a social critic and political activist located in San Francisco and is also the Minister Provincial for Province 8 of the brotherhood of saint gregory. He provides Spiritual Direction for members of the local community, working particularly with members of the transgendered community. He works as Parish Administrator at trinity episcopal church an historic parish in San Francisco. He is also actively involved in the progressive Christian movement aimed at social change.

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