Creation and Evolution

This question addresses a topic on which I can't claim any real knowledge and which I have, therefore, so far avoided.  But it is an important topic because it concerns a fundamental truth which has been the object of attack by, I would speculate, forces antagonistic to humanity's spiritual growth over the last century or so. And if I can't claim any definitive knowledge (anymore than anyone living in this world can), I can still have an intuitive stab at what might be the case given what I am quite certain of, which is the reality of the spiritual world.

Q. In your book you make some brief remarks about evolution. Would you be able to elaborate on those a bit? For instance, what would be the Masters' position on the evolution/intelligent design question? Creation or evolution, which is it?

A.  This is a question that can be something of a litmus test for spiritually interested people in that it examines their response to the wisdom of this world plus their ability to remain connected to higher truths when these are not conventionally accepted: indeed, when they are actively rejected by most people. (Naturally I am talking about a sensible response. A retreat into literalism is not that.) Often each side in this debate totally dismisses the position of the other but, for my part, I don't regard evolution and creation to be inherently incompatible though obviously, in that case, neither can be taken in the exclusive way their materialist and fundamentalist religious proponents would take them.

But first of all I must make clear that I can't speak for the Masters as they did not talk about this subject other than to state in passing that the body was designed for beings of a lesser evolution …. and was more suited to their needs.  So the words evolution and design are mentioned though evolution is used here to mean spiritual unfoldment rather than in its scientific sense. But it's clear that what is being said is that the human body was intended as a vehicle for a specific purpose which is the growth or expansion of consciousness, and that therefore it hasn't just come about by accident. However I think that's the only sure conclusion we can draw from this brief reference.

Therefore we are on our own, and the way I approach this matter is through a combination of intuition and ordinary thinking, the one supporting the other. However, for me, intuition always takes precedence even if I have to make sure that what I am calling intuition really is that and not just some personal preference dressed up in fancy clothes. I have to say that this is not too difficult if one is able to look at one's thought patterns objectively though that, admittedly, is not always easy! Be that as it may, the point is that human ways of thinking can never know truth by themselves which is why it is a waste of time arguing with an atheist or someone whose approach to reality is based on a strictly mental approach. (Theoretically based, I should say, as often what is claimed to be purely rational is just a rationalisation of an emotional prejudice, but that's another matter). Truth, meaning that which is, is just not accessible to the mind but it can be known intuitively. A perfect example of this is the recent almost universal acceptance of same-sex marriage which to the ordinary mind, reared on (or indoctrinated by) the prevailing belief system of humanism, just seems the natural outcome of the application of fairness and equality, but to the spiritual intuition is seen to be an ontological contradiction in terms if not absurdity, quite contrary to reality which is based on the creative union of complementary opposites. Truth is higher than fairness or equality which doesn't mean that these are to be ignored but that they must be seen in the context of the overall scheme of things, and viewed in tandem with other equally real, or maybe more fundamental, principles. They are not the sole determinants in any particular matter. All that just to say that my main inspiration in working out the evolution/creation question is intuition, though that is checked and balanced by head thinking.

I believe we must start from the position that there has obviously been some sort of evolutionary process at work over the ages. The findings of science leave little room for doubt on that score. From there, though, to conclude that this is just driven by random mutation and survival of the fittest is going way too far and suggests that the wish is father to the thought, which is not to say that these play no part in the process, particularly in the non-human kingdoms. Only that they are not the primary mechanism. Even if we set intuition aside common sense and reason should tell us that natural selection, alone and unaided, simply cannot account for the world and everything in it however long one allows it, and that means that evolution is not blind. It has a purpose and it has a goal. As for mankind, we are not just intelligent apes but a creation that was deliberately brought about to reconcile and integrate the two opposites in the universe of spirit and matter or consciousness and the phenomenal world, the world within and the world out there. Breath and dust as one might say. An animal lives exclusively in its natural environment. It cannot separate itself from that, but our glory (and the source of our short term misery and suffering) is that we live in two worlds. Even though we are part of nature we have an inner life and through that can eventually unite spirit and matter in full consciousness and, in the process of doing so, become fully conscious participants in a creation which is differentiated but one. All this is not the product of a directionless evolution, but an evolutionary process helps to bring it about.

What this means is that I see evolution as a blend of intelligence, purpose and will on the one hand - there is a plan and there is a goal - and what we may call chance on the other as the laws of nature work out in the ways currently envisaged by scientists. That is to say, overall there is direction by a Divine Intelligence but within that there is a good deal of flexibility and room for variation in line with the accepted principles of contemporary evolutionary understanding. Consequently I see the human form as brought to its current state (doubtless from pre-existing material) as a specific vehicle for spiritual beings to gain the experience needed for the growth of their consciousness. It has not come about purely by chance. I see no contradiction between the idea that the forms we use have their prototype on an archetypal level and that they come into being on this physical level through a mixture of natural process and spiritual direction. I also see men and women as descended spiritual beings in human form rather than having ascended up through the animal kingdom – even though the forms they use may have done just that. And I draw a clear distinction between animal and human consciousness, regarding the former as life working its way up through matter alone while the latter is the union of matter and spirit and possesses the divine spark. Of course, all is spirit in the ultimate sense but there is spirit as pure consciousness and spirit as energy substance. Uniting the two, which is what we are for, takes life, always whole and perfect, to higher and higher states of wholeness and perfection. Greater consciousness, love and creativity.

So evolution as we understand it today is a half truth. As an explanation of how life forms change and develop, it has much to recommend it. As an explanation of life itself, of consciousness and of the origin of human beings it is completely wrong if not downright deluded.

Thus we can say that evolution is a good explanation for the profusion and variety of animal forms to be found in nature but does not account for the basic template which exists as something like a Platonic archetype and then manifests in the physical world according to various means, some of which are those described by modern science.  (This is actually hinted at in the Biblical account of creation in Genesis when it says "Let the earth bring forth living creatures" i.e. it is the earth or natural forces that do this not the Creator directly.)  Hence 
I regard evolution principally as an unfolding (which, after all, is what the word actually means) of an intrinsic and always present pattern just as the tree unfolds from the seed and in some way is already present in the seed
. This does not rule out the variations on a theme which would come about in the way we know, but these are the workings out in matter from a pre-existing divine template. They concern substance not essence, outer forms but not Form itself, the inner divine pattern.

To sum up in a sentence, natural selection clearly has a part in the evolutionary process but it is very much secondary to the unfolding from within of pre-existing spiritual pattern.

Despite its insights modern evolutionary theory is a classic circular argument in that it assumes a conclusion, materialism, in order to reach that conclusion. In fact, it has become little more than a creation myth for atheists, materialists and those who don't want to think too seriously about their origin. As seems to be increasingly the case nowadays in many branches of life, it takes an aspect of the truth and makes of it the whole truth. It elevates a part, relatively minor at that, to the whole, but the really interesting question is why does it do that? Why do human beings want to reject spiritual truth? 




The Liberating Force of Science

I don't particularly enjoy writing pieces like the last one since they focus on the negative and could be perceived as divisive. But sometimes they are necessary. We live in times of great spiritual ignorance and denial of the truth, and anyone who sees that has a responsibility to point it out even if they have to take a negative tone in doing so. However, as I have said before, I am not writing to attack or condemn anyone but to support those whose intuitions are crushed by the culture in which they happen to live. Increasingly, materialistic science assumes the status of orthodox dogma and dissenting voices are marginalised. I think of children growing up with little or no exposure to any kind of valid spiritual teaching and nothing to nourish their spiritual imaginations. Is it over-dramatic to think this a crime? Of course, some atheists claim it's a crime to teach young children about a spiritual world when there's no proof (to their way of thinking) that such a thing exists, but what if it does and access to it is withheld? What then? What if children are not even given the opportunity (through lack of information) to believe in a spiritual reality? Is this not a form of abuse? 

As a matter of fact I regard the very question "Do you believe in God (or a spiritual reality)?" to be a wrong one since it implies an unbiased choice can be made in this matter. Often the way a question is framed contains certain inbuilt assumptions and preconceptions which have an influence on the answer. As far as God is concerned it is not a question of belief. God is a fact so the question should not be "Do you believe in God" but "Do you see the reality of God?". The truth of God is stamped in every heart and either we acknowledge that or we don't. Doubt is permissible but to actively deny God is always a sign of egotism and pride.

Still, despite my polemic about modern science I would not want it to be thought that I have no appreciation for the revolution in thinking that it brought about. When the scientific method first arose it brought a fresh approach to the study of reality, which study is the reason for our existence on this Earth. Old ways had become stale, corrupted by superstitions and false beliefs, even if the truth was still there under several centuries' worth of man-made accretions. Ignorance abounded in many departments of life but it's hardly worth me saying that as it's so obvious. We needed science to clear away cobwebs and stimulate new ways of thinking, never mind the technological advancements which have liberated humanity in so many ways (even if they have enslaved us in others but I won't go into that in this piece having already written about it here and here). I would never dispute any of that. But the fact remains that science exceeded its brief. It may have corrected wrongs and imbalances of the past but it created new ones. It may have given us great power over nature but it robbed us of a spiritual home. It expanded certain horizons but it lost the centre. It opened the mind to new ways of thinking but ruthlessly closed off the old ones when we needed a balance between the two. The problem, then, is not science, but scientists not acknowledging the limitations of their science, and stepping beyond their legitimate boundaries.

Science, considered as the system of knowledge we have today, can be regarded as a step on the journey that leads humanity from the consciousness in which subject and object are not yet experienced separately, the so called participation consciousness, to one in which they are completely separate to one in which there is a fully conscious awareness of the unity of the one and the many with both given due recognition and reality. It was a necessary step in the separation of consciousness from its primeval state of being embedded in nature, begun long ago but only completed relatively recently, but it forgot the basic rule of the new which was enunciated by Jesus when he said "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them." The old ways should not have been rejected but assimilated and then integrated with the new. You might think it inevitable that for the new to be established properly the old must be discarded but it need not have been so. If science had not reduced the imagination to a purely subjective faculty, if it had respected the integrity of the whole human being, if it had not looked at nature from an almost completely quantitative point of view and if it had not pursued power and control to the degree that it did, then it might not have made the errors it has made.

So science was a liberating force in many respects, certainly to begin with, but the so called Enlightenment was not all one way. It also brought a darkening of consciousness, with the result that materialistic scientists are now the ones preventing proper progress. They are the modern day believers in a flat earth for the world they have created is a barren, two dimensional wasteland, stripped of meaning and without true hope. We may not see it that way because we are seduced by the technological appliances that science has provided us with, and lulled into a false sense of ease by the physical comfort its discoveries in the material world have given us. But these will ultimately prove to be without real substance. Scientists have forgotten that knowledge must always be subordinate to truth. They need to open their minds to the greater reality that lies beyond their instruments, equations and theories, and perceive the world as the expression of a Divine Intelligence. Only then can their science become a pure approach to the world and be what it should be which is a hymn of praise to the Creator.

Science means knowledge. That's all it means. It is, therefore, good. The pursuit of knowledge is a large part of what it is to be human. It is our destiny and duty to seek to know. But, as every spiritual aspirant understands, there is a knowledge of the head and a knowledge of the heart, and contemporary science focuses entirely on the former while ignoring the latter. The knowledge of the head is made of individual pieces connected together and built up gradually by purely rational means but the knowledge of the heart is direct perception. And, while the first means that the knower and his knowledge are always separate, in the knowledge of the heart they are one. The knower is his knowledge and vice versa. Our contemporary science needs to discover or rediscover this truth and realise that true knowledge, the knowledge of inner realities, can only come from the heart. That is not to dismiss outer knowledge but simply to point out that it is outer, and that the head can have knowledge but it can never know truth.

Thus we can say that science is a noble pursuit when practiced with the idea that behind physics there is metaphysics, but when practiced without that vision, or the clear understanding that the natural world is but the outward manifestation of a greater spiritual reality, it will not lead to the more abundant life but only death.

Let me leave the last word to the Masters. "Reason less and accept more.  It is not necessary to chase after the many mysteries of existence. Live simply in the heart and all mysteries will in time become known to you. Do not be as those who seek to penetrate to every corner of the universe but do not know themselves." This is advice scientists would do well to consider.

The Poverty of the Scientific Worldview

In the past I have sometimes been accused of being anti-science because I contest its materialistic bias and dispute its claims to be the surest road to knowledge. I have usually replied that I am not anti-science but against the belief science has that what it knows is all that can be known (either now or at some theoretical time in the future as its knowledge unfolds), and that its modes of operation are the best way to discern what is real. More recently, however, I have revised that opinion and I would now have to say that, yes, I am anti-science or at least what science has made of itself. I will tell you why.

If we take the birth of science in the modern sense as being in the 16th century (a somewhat arbitrary date but more or less accurate), we can see that, whatever the reasons for its initial awakening in the Western consciousness, it soon began to regard itself as the rival to religion rather than its companion and ally. The spiritual worldview founded on faith, which, properly understood, is the openness that encourages the development of intuition, was replaced by a strictly rational approach that rejected anything that could not be confirmed by the senses or proved by reason. I simplify to make a point but this is a broadly correct description of what took place during the course of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Scientists came to believe that mathematics could describe reality, failing to see that mathematics can only describe that limited aspect of reality which it describes, which aspect is but a minute fraction of the whole; one that leaves out whole swathes of reality including the essential part. This part is known through the imagination and intuition, confirmed by scripture and revelation and can be accessed by following the traditional spiritual path and disciplines. However, being beyond form and quantity, it falls outside investigation by a science which limits itself to the external world or that which is immediately apparent to the senses and the mind as normally conceived. Science simply denied what it could not investigate by its own methods, and rejected any other methods or means of approach to reality. It hobbled itself because of its lack of vision, but also because of the unadmitted though quite evident desire for power of its priesthood. In effect, science became the authoritarian church that, in part, it had originally come into being to contest. The religious worldview of the time needed to be balanced, that much is certain, but balance requires equilibrium and pretty soon the scales became weighted far too heavily on the side that favoured fact over meaning.

Now we have a situation in which the scientific worldview is the orthodox one, and heretics are either ridiculed (which admittedly is better than being burned) or dismissed as unintelligent. Even religious people (other than fundamentalists, of course), because they have grown up in a world in which we are all conditioned by the authorities to follow a certain way of thinking, give precedence to science in more and more areas. To the extent sometimes of allowing it to determine how much or how little space should be accorded to their religious beliefs. The undoubted achievements of science on the technological side and the fact that it has made our material lives considerably easier also influence us all to give it our intellectual allegiance when perhaps we should be more discerning.

For there is a problem. Notwithstanding its achievements in the material world and its exposure of much superstition and ignorance, modern science rests on a falsehood because it denies, or sees no reason to acknowledge, metaphysical reality. That is not, of course, the way it would look at itself but it is a truth known to anyone who, either intuitively or through faith, sees that the basis of life is spiritual. This has enormous consequences for how we understand and live in the world, but it also means that science doesn't even understand its own field of operation, the material plane. Why? Because without metaphysical knowledge you cannot even comprehend the natural world properly as you will see what you expect to see according to your pre-existing assumptions which in the case of modern science are entirely materialistic.

This why I maintain that the greatest calamity to befall the human race over the last several centuries is the adoption of the scientific/materialistic/atheistic worldview. I say this because it has resulted in a catastrophic separation of Man from his true being. It has cut us adrift from spiritual reality and led us into an unrecognised hubris, the hubris of a creature that denies its Creator. Now, it is true that the great majority of people are passive victims of this mindset, it being the accepted orthodoxy of the day and therefore hard to resist. But there are some who are active promulgators of this false doctrine and they, whether they know it or not, are doing the devil's work. Very possibly because they share his main vice and besetting sin which is intellectual pride.

For there are some atheists who are so not for supposed rational reasons (mistaken but honest) but because they do not want to live in a universe in which there is a God. One in which they will have to acknowledge a Creator. And these people use science to bolster their prejudice not for a disinterested view of the matter. And they can do this because science is not disinterested, not disinterested enough anyway, as it wants to extend the field in which it has power and authority as far as possible, squeezing out any rival it may have in terms of knowledge. Since religion and metaphysics claim an authority beyond the realm open to science they must be dismissed, preferably as archaic relics from humanity's childhood.

There are, of course, plenty of scientists dedicated to the pursuit of truth as they see it, but they are fatally handicapped by the basic materialistic premise of science as it is understood today as well as their over-reliance on the human intellect. This is why I maintain that the dogmas of science (and it certainly has them) corrupt the mind. For science is concerned only with outer things, but outer things are transient and ultimately unreal except considered as the expression of inner spiritual archetypes which are the only true reality. Consequently scientists will never get to grips with the true nature of things until they abandon their prejudices and preconceptions and humble themselves before the divine.

None of the points I raise here mean that I don't recognise that in the greater scheme of things, and in the context of the times in which it arose, a materialistic science had a part to play. However we are currently trapped in a period of over-dominance by science, and its basic premise is a profound metaphysical error that needs correcting. The good that a purely earthbound science could do, it has done. The evil that it has brought about now needs to be addressed, and urgently. Humanity needs to move on into a future in which science will still play its part but only once it has been radically reformed and brought into line with spiritual wisdom. There is no doubt that it has helped correct previous errors and oversights, but it is now responsible for the greatest error of all which is the denial of spiritual truth. And that is why I am anti-science.

It may be thought that I have over-stated my case to make a point, and perhaps I have. But I see no reason to beat about the bush when the world situation is as far away from truth as it is today.

The Social Sphere 2

I received the following comment on the previous piece which gives me the chance to clarify any misconceptions that might have arisen as to its meaning and intent.

“That’s an interesting position but it basically seems to ignore or take for granted the contributions of those politically motivated groups and individuals who have fought for an increase in human rights over the years, and stood up against privilege and oppression. You would not presumably discount their efforts and, indeed, sacrifices?”

My reply was as follows.

I'm not saying that, given the present state of the world, politics are unnecessary. (I can envisage a time when they are no longer necessary but that would have to be a kind of Golden Age.) Of course, society must be organised along certain lines and there are, as I said, better and worse ways in which to do this, even if all today lack insight into the true nature of things. What I am saying is that for the spiritual person all political matters are, or should be, subsumed into spiritual understanding, and that to step down from that to politics is to go back into the duality of the worldly mind and identification with outer things which should always be seen in the light of inner realities and never in their own light. How many of the great spiritual figures of the past were politically involved in any way or advised their disciples to be? Their counsel was always to “Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all things shall be added to you.” In other words, put all your focus on God and everything else falls naturally into its proper place. If you have the kingdom of heaven, you have everything. If you don't have that then you have nothing at all. 

So I am not condemning political involvement per se but pointing out that there is a much higher approach to all problems, and that when you awaken to the reality of the spiritual world all matters to do with this world are put in a completely different perspective, and it is a mistake to go back to seeing them or trying to tackle them from the old vantage points. 

So my words were not addressed to everyone but only to those who are committed to the spiritual path, and take seriously the implications of the fact of God, and recognise that, ultimately, that is the only fact.

My correspondent replied.

"That may be but if spiritually aware people don't take to public or political life how will things ever improve?"

To which I answered.

That's a good point and I'm sure there are some people whose destiny it is to do that, though looking around it's hard to see anyone who might answer that description at the moment.  But I am referring to the spiritual aspirant who has no destiny of that kind which will always be the great majority of us. And I would add that even those who are so called are more likely to be people who may be spiritually sensitive but who are still rooted in this world and so are not yet completely dedicated to treading the spiritual path. Because they are still largely focused in the material world they can act as intermediaries between this world and the spiritual in a way that someone seeking greater spiritual polarisation could not do. 

Basically what I am saying is that spirituality and politics don't mix any more than God and Mammon do, and if you do try and serve two masters you will inevitably end up losing connection to the higher reality because you are being unfaithful to it. You are, in effect, denying its supreme truth. Real spirituality has to be an all or nothing affair in the sense that everything worldly must be completely subordinate to it.

The Social Sphere 1

In the UK there is a general election coming up in May which gives me the opportunity to discuss how a person who is serious about the spiritual path should approach the vexed question of politics. My answer to that is brief. As little as possible. 

That doesn't mean you cannot have opinions. Everyone does and it's almost impossible not to. But the serious spiritual aspirant should steer clear of political debate and remain aloof from political ideologies, all of which will drag him down into worldliness, attachment and confrontation.  It is inevitable that any undue focus on the material world will distract you from the spiritual. You might say that the two are one and indeed they are, but they are only so when viewed from the standpoint of the higher or that which transcends them both if you see them as opposites rather than higher and lower aspects of the one reality. In other words, the material is only one with the spiritual when approached from the perspective of the spiritual. If you interact with it on its own level or from its own position or by giving it any kind of priority or by seeing it in any other way than by the light of the spiritual then you have lost focus and moved out of the unity of the spiritual into the division of worldliness. You have succumbed to identification with form and outer things, and lost touch with the inner realities that lie behind them through which, and only through which, they are given meaning. 

Just as the world is not real in itself, but is real as the expression of God, so it is with the material which is without significance in and for itself but full of meaning, truth and beauty when recognised as God's creation.

I'm not saying that a person intent on pursuing the spiritual path should not vote. That's a personal decision, though I do believe that the more aware you are of eternal truths, the less you will be drawn to any kind of political ideology that is not rooted in those truths, and that means all of them (without exception) in these days when the world is seen as having no spiritual origin and no purpose beyond itself, and human beings are perceived solely in terms of their social and material needs and aims. There is no political philosophy (and you may well smile when I use that word in this context) that exists today that has any connection to spiritual truth (or truth tout court) because there is none that derives from a metaphysical basis. There is scarcely one that even acknowledges such a thing for you certainly cannot count contemporary Islamic systems which, if they do so at all, do so in word only while in reality representing complete perversions of proper spiritual understanding. It is transparently evident that they have no link to metaphysical truth whatsoever, exemplifying, as they do, religion drained of all spiritual content.

A spiritually attuned person may well have political views. As I say, that's more or less inevitable until you have reached a high degree of purity and insight. Moreover, even with the woefully limited political ideologies that exist today, that does not mean that everything is equal. There are certainly better and worse options as to how society should be organised and run on offer. There are also forces at work consciously seeking to destabilise the spiritual integrity of the human being; inner forces working through outer mediums, individuals and organisations, usually unaware of the source of their inspiration, which are attempting to separate mankind more and more from its divine origin through various means including the deconstruction of the human form, the desecration of the human image and the dismantling in the mind of the true vision of the human archetype. These forces work through art, through social theory and also through politics, and their long term aims  should be recognised and resisted. This may well mean taking a stand that might be interpreted politically even if it is spiritually based.

So the spiritual person will have opinions as to how things should be in the social sphere. But these views are, or should be, always held in the light of a higher metaphysical reality which is at all times and in all circumstances known to be primary. Everything is seen in the context of spirituality by which I mean the reality of God, of the soul and of the world as the creation and expression of God. This, of course, puts contemporary notions of left and right in the position of near irrelevance even if both would have certain points in common, either economically or socially, with a proper spiritual understanding.

There are two basic facts which have to be taken into account in any kind of working out in the social or political sphere of spiritual principles, these being the only principles grounded in concrete truth rather than theory or idealism. They are the unity of mankind under God and the individuality of the evolving (as in unfolding) soul. If we take these as our guiding lights in showing how human beings should relate to each other we will not go far wrong. Overdue emphasis on either one will create imbalance and eventual tyranny, but taken together they will result in harmony and give the best framework in which all may flourish and grow.

As a matter of fact, the Masters in Towards The Mysteries give a teaching that ties in with this, and which, I believe, provides the key to all matters pertaining to politics as well as all economic and social questions. It is stunningly simple and quite obvious when you think about it. They said that the aspiring disciple should be individual but not individualistic.  A little reflection on what this means and its implications would surely resolve the conflict between left and right, satisfy both their concerns and temper both their excesses.

You cannot serve God and Mammon, and the Masters said something else in these books by Swami Omananda which is relevant to our subject, and which should deter anyone thinking that you can mix spirituality and politics. They said that politics are born in the cradle of corruption. These are strong words and they might be contested by those who believe that everything is political, and that politics, of some sort, is always necessary. That may be so from a purely worldly position but, as I hope to have made clear in this piece, political disputes become quite irrelevant when life is seen from a proper spiritual perspective. Problems and disagreements in the social sphere fall naturally into place when submitted to a higher standpoint. As for politics, however they start off, they always descend into the search for power, and power, as we know, always corrupts.

Morality, Humanist and Spiritual

I saw an article the other day which claimed that as intelligence had increased (which the article stated it had over the course of the 20th century, though based principally, it seems, on IQ tests which I thought had long been exposed as efficient at examining only one type of intelligence), so we had also become more moral. Setting aside whether intelligence has really increased or whether our brains and thought patterns have simply been educated into the modern technological way of thinking, good in some respects, poor in others, this assertion must surely depend on what kind of morality one espouses. For me and, I would have thought, for anyone acknowledging a spiritual reality, morality is first and foremost about loving truth and attempting to coordinate oneself to that. And this means knowing, to some degree at least, what truth is. Hence the humanist morality (the one referred to in the article), which is largely atheistic as it either denies or ignores the spiritual reality, is almost the least moral attitude one can take. This implies that much of the perceived improvement is merely a matter of greater conformity to the prejudices and ideologies of the day.

Every society or culture must have some kind of morality or else it will collapse. Its morality will be based on its formational mythology, and in the case of contemporary Western (and really nowadays global) culture that mythology is rooted in the ideals of the 18th century Enlightenment, on the one hand, and the theory of evolution on the other. Both of these, if they don't actually dismiss a Creator, certainly pave the way for that dismissal. So you could say that our modern morality is based entirely on the assumption that there is only humanity, and human obligations and duties and responsibilities are only to other humans. Of course, that's not completely true because many of the moral ideas that fed into and shaped this belief system were actually inherited from Christianity* (even if this is frequently unacknowledged today), but it is the way modern morality tends to perceive itself.

Now, this basing of morality, and how we approach life, ourselves and others, on a purely humanistic level may seem to have much to recommend it, but if it arises from an incorrect or even downright wrong view of the world, then it is insufficient, to say the least. It may even be, in some respects, immoral.

A proper morality has two strands, a vertical one and a horizontal one, and these are plainly identified by Jesus in his two commandments. To love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, and to love your neighbour as yourself. These sum up the essence of any morality based on truth, but here's the interesting point. It is no accident that the commandments were given in that order because if the second is to be in any sense real then it must grow out of the first. That is to say that the love of man, to be true, can only really derive from the love of God, and that is because what you are loving is not man in and for himself but God in man. For God is both the source of love and its end. There is no other. If He is not present then, whatever feeling you might think you have, it is not love, not in its true, spiritual sense. And love is spiritual in origin. Anything that is not spiritually derived is not love.

So you can only really love your neighbour if first you love God. Without that you can have good will or even empathy towards your neighbour but not love, and, in the long run, only love can overcome the ego and so bring about a morality that is true and innate rather than a mainly intellectual or ideologically derived thing which can, and will, crack under pressure.

What this means is that our modern morality, which only acknowledges the horizontal, cannot be properly effective even on that level. The first moral requirement is to love God. Everything else springs from that, from the vertical, and if that love is not present then any morality is flawed and ultimately, dare I say it, will prove useless. I am not disputing that the modern approach to morality has improved on the past in some respects. For one thing it has done so because the past failed to live up to its ideals. People can be worse than their beliefs and they can also be better than their beliefs (which is not to say that beliefs don't matter!). But there is also the fact that exclusive focus on the horizontal will necessarily bring advancements in that particular area.  However these improvements take on much less significance once you realise that this approach has lost sight of the essential for it is founded on a falsehood, namely the primacy of man.

In the past we have emphasised the vertical axis and neglected the horizontal. Now we have the opposite problem. What we need is an understanding that both are required for a correct approach to morality. But that does not mean that both are equal. The vertical must take priority, since it is the source of everything else, and the horizontal be seen to derive from that. It has no validity on its own. All it has, it has by virtue of its relationship to the vertical. If you approach it on its own level and see it in its own light, you do not see it properly and, in fact, seen only in that way it doesn’t even have any real existence. 

Some people think that vertical and horizontal axes can be seen as the motivating forces behind conservative and liberal ideologies, with each set of beliefs originating from a focus on one or the other axis. I agree there is a connection to be made, but there are too many other tributaries feeding these streams for this connection to be in any way exact. So while it may be true that, ultimately, the conservative looks to the vertical and the liberal to the horizontal, it is too simplistic to make a direct analogy between them.

I have said that a true morality must have a vertical and a horizontal component, and that the latter must derive from the former. The atheist may well dispute this and say he can have a perfectly good morality without bringing God into the equation. Perhaps that is so but without an absolute reference point what do we base our morality on? For when God is banished from reality there can be no morality resting on something true or real but only one that depends on opinion and preference.  If there is not something that stands above us and unites us by virtue of its transcendence and its absoluteness then there is no unchanging right or wrong. There is only custom, convention and what is deemed to suit a particular society at any given moment.  If we are just the product of a directionless, purposeless, meaningless evolution, as the atheist and materialist believe, then nothing really matters, nothing is true and nothing is better than anything else. A human being is not the crown of creation and the means through which incarnate life may transcend itself but just one material form among many. As for the individual human being, each one is isolated and locked in itself with no real connection to any other human being. Morality is just a theoretical thing with no relationship to any kind of universal truth because there is none.

In the end, however, one must say that moralities are in the eye of the beholder. They shift with perspective but spirituality is what truly matters and that never changes, assuming of course that it is based on the real and not just as subjective as man-made morality systems.


*We could even be said to be living off the moral capital in Christianity in many respects, and it will be interesting to see how much real morality survives as Christianity becomes more marginalised and less and less of a cultural influence on future generations.