Reflections On Theological Materialism PDF

A rough idea of the structure of the Theoovolutionary Church (TC), which can be modified around the edges as reality discovers

Central Director: serves ten years.

Ministers: Twelve who work with and choose Central Director, who can be removed with 3/4 vote to remove.

International Director

National Directors

Regional Directors

State Directors

City Directors

Local Directors (of local churches)

Church Members

  Works hierarchically up to the Central Director, with each group answering to the group above it.

Eventually Churches, Research Institutes, Schools, etc. can be built incorporating more or less these three EC symbols:

If theological materialism and the TC Church must have symbols then the circle stands for the Primordial Material, from which life springs, for all creation. The X or joined triangles is the Spirit-Will-Within the Primordial Material which activates material life, but the X symbol also relates to the Twofold Path, the symbolic Involutionary and real Evolutionary Path to Godhood. From the circle and cross evolves life all the way to Godhood, which is an ongoing evolution. Evolution is represented by the triangle pyramid, and Godhood is represented by the square. The variety of Gods is represented by the eight outside corners of the square and circle. All of the symbol sections are twelve which is the number of completion, which forms a whole, a harmonious unit, and corresponds to plenitude, the completion and integrality of religion, philosophy, science, cosmos....

Civilizing The Beast: Toward a new Mass of the Twofold Path

Civilizing The Beast: Toward a new Mass of the Twofold Path: If I say that theological materialism and the Twofold Path re-brand religion, to use the modern term, does that transformation retai...

The Inward Path of spiritualism is essentially the same wherever it originated and needs transforming not rejection

Which came first the Hindu Chakra Correspondence Chart or the Kabbalistic Tree of Life? The Tree of life may have come to the Jewish people via the Ancient Egyptians, but they might have gotten it via the Indian Vedas or pre-Vedas and the Chakras, which arrived at the beginning of the Egyptian dynasties as a result of invasions from Eurasia. That at least is the hypothesis.

The point here is that like all Traditionalism this is only defining the Inward Path of spiritualism which is essentially the same wherever it originated. That is, it is abstract definitions of physical experiences as a result of ascetic discipline of the body to experience what was defined as the God or Father Within, which were not considered a material or physical experience but in reality are a material and physical experience, and not immaterial.

This insight may at first seem to reject Traditionalism but it does not have to if it sees these ascetic experiences as preliminary, or as the first human inner experiences and definitions (only) of God that then lead to seeing the real Godhood which is reached through material and supermaterial evolution. This explains the origin of the Twofold Path of theological materialism and the coming Evolutionary Church....Long-lasting civilizations need to be grounded in religion but seem doomed without this  supermaterial transformation.

Introduction: Theological Materialism and Philosophical Naturalism Basics

Theological materialism is more or less placed in the worldview of “philosophical naturalism,” with the difference being that philosophical naturalism is generally irreligious, and theological materialism is religious in seeing Godhood as the goal of evolution, first mirrored in the Father-Within of traditional religion.

In a sense it is true that all science is explained by physics and philosophical naturalism, but unsaid of course by scientists is that God or Godhood can also be defined by physics and philosophical naturalism. Causality is part of science, but causality is also part of religion, in that physical events have prior causes that can be explained by the same thing in religion or science. An organism obeys the laws of physics. Life, consciousnesses, motivations, etc. can be explained both scientifically and religiously as caused by the same activation by the material/supermaterial Spirit-Will-To-Godhood within life. Science needs to discover this sacred activation and then religion can join science or science can join religion.

Like philosophical naturalism, theological materialism holds that there is nothing but natural elements, including consciousness and the mind, but unlike philosophical naturalism, theological materialism holds that the activating Spirit-Will and Godhood consist of a supermaterialism not yet defined by the natural sciences.

This means that nature encompasses the activity of the Spirit-Will and Godhood, as well as everything that exists in space and time, and all of this consists of natural elements, including ideas and mathematics---and they all operate by the laws of physics, discovered and yet to be discovered. Godhood is itself in nature, at the zenith of nature. Godhood is therefore not immaterial but is supermaterial.

This transformation comes not as some modern physicists have attempted to save religion by turning the quantum world into the spiritual world, but by the opposite, by seeing the spiritual world as the supermaterial world. One day a new theory will reveal the deeper material reality behind the subatomic world. Quantum mechanics is a form of materialism yet to be defined. Some form of matter is all, even beneath energy and the quantum world. Perhaps this relationship of small to big can be better explained as some electric force working within materialism.

The Revealed Religions center on an Inward God not an Outward God. The Inward God is the mirror image of the Outward God (opposite Plato) which can exist as a supreme supermaterial living object, evolved to in nature. Both Paths are contained within the Twofold Path of the Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC). The Spirit-Will and Godhood are not immaterial entities, as they are in Aristotle, Aquinas and even Darwin.

Some may be surprised to find that this worldview does not disqualify theological materialism and the ECC as being naturalistic. Theological materialism affirms religion as well as science. The philosophy of naturalism is necessary for both religion and science, even if science has yet to accept the supermaterialism of the Spirit-Will and Godhood.

Human nature has the capacity to perceive some of reality but we will need to evolve much higher to perceive all of reality. Mental properties are derived from non-mental properties, which evolved into mental properties. We will need to evolve higher intelligence and higher consciousness to perceive more of reality.

The cosmos is arranged so as to be able to evolve Gods who must evolve in the natural world, beginning with Primal Matter, from inorganic and natural causes. But those natural causes include the activating Spirit-Will, which ever seeks eternal representation, or Godhood, with many starts and stops and backward goings along the way, shaped by outside selection and natural evolution.

Evolution is a natural fact but this does not preclude Gods in the universe or in a multiverse. Evolution by natural selection eventually creates Gods, Godhood emerges from evolution, activated by the Spirit-Within, yet shaped by outside selection and evolution.

Mind concepts exist as computational constructions in the brain and are not independent of the brain. The mind is the brain, as naturalism suggests, but the mind includes, at its zenith, the Soul and the Spirit-Will, but these are supermaterial and not immaterial. The Soul-Mind is where the mirror image of the outside God exists, and the Spirit-Will activates Soul, mind and body as its vehicle to evolve to Godhood. The Spirit-Will carries on through or within material reproduction, propagation, selection and outside evolution, potentially all the way to Godhood, which is its sacred goal of life.

Reason and empiricism are most useful in discovering truths about the world, but information from the Soul-Mind and Spirit-Will, and intellectual intuition, also can be added to the truths found through reason and empiricism. We can intellectually intuit the activating forces within the life we are living, and we do that the way the artist uses intuition as the medium of knowledge, or the way the religious seer uses intellectual intuition as the criterion for awareness of reality, goodness, truth and beauty. This is the way the activating Spirit-Will is seen or understood. After this aesthetic and religious intuitive medium we can apply the more humanly restricted forms of empirical knowledge.

The post-moderns have trapped themselves in Kant's blockade of human knowledge, which has caused them to embrace nihilism as truth. The intellectual intuition affirmed here allows us to break out of the Great Spiritual Blockade so that we may continue, consciously this time, evolving materially and supermaterially toward Godhood. This leads to the foundational values and morals of our lives... This helps explain the aesthetics of how we know.

Humans evolved as social animals, and culture and civilization were evolved as a means to enhance and advance humans. But beneath survival and reproduction is the religious goal of evolving to Godhood, therefore culture and civilization need to take religious values into account, especially the sacred goal of Godhood.

We do affirm the Age of Enlightenment because we affirm philosophical naturalism and materialism. But theological materialism sees the material world evolving to supermaterial Godhood, which most materialists would reject. Modern physics has found that matter is energy, but energy can be supermaterial, therefore materialism as a philosophy remains religiously valid.

The ECC (the Evolutionary Christian Church) which I have been planning seems to have one foot in “analytic philosophy” and the other in religion rather than in "Continental philosophy.” But these distinctions seem to be better understood as philosophy either affirming naturalism or not, as Brian Leiter pointed out.

Theological materialism is an expression of religion in a naturalistic structure, whereas, as Wiki suggests, Marxism is an expression of communist idealism within a naturalistic structure, and Randian Objectivism is an expression of capitalist idealism and individualism (contrary to group selection) in a naturalistic structure. Other naturalists are secular humanists and moral relativists.

We assume, with science, that new phenomenon discovered will obey the laws of physics, and we assume that Godhood has a natural explanation. Nevertheless, human knowledge is restricted to human capabilities, and as we evolve higher intelligence and higher consciousness we should discover new natural explanations beyond present human understanding. It will be difficult to “measure” the properties of Godhood until we have evolved to Godhood.

The abstractions of physics and religion only mirror real objects and cannot fully estimate the truth and experience of the object itself. Some religions and sciences consist solely of abstractions and definitions with no real objects involved, making an idol of abstractions.

When we see two objects with our senses we may not see all aspects of the objects because we are constrained by the abilities of our senses. We see the object different than a frog or an eagle, but we still see the object with our particular senses, as they do. Only later do humans compare, integrate or segregate what we have seen with conceptions and memories in our minds. But our mind's concepts go back to the original object we saw with our senses, or should. We too often escape in our minds and we think of the concepts in our minds as more real than the object we saw with our senses---intellectuals are prone to this. Intellectual's are best when grounded in the reality of real objects, and not merely in the conceptions in their minds.

The real object is more important than the definition of the object, and this realism actually reverses many religious and philosophical views of reality, which worship concepts and sacred words and consider concepts and words as real and real material objects as unreal. Spiritualism comes from considering material objects as unreal and unreal concepts as real. Materialism comes from considering real living objects as real. Supermaterialism, as seen in theological materialism, describes material evolution evolving to supermaterial Godhood. To attain Godhood we must evolve along with the laws of real nature. This can bring science and materialism legitimately back to religion. What has come before in religion and philosophy can be retained but considered incomplete glimpses-experiences of real Godhood.

The basic epistemology of theological materialism is the following:

A---The world of objects is actually out there and real.

B---Our minds developed physiologically to perceive the real world, instigated by the need to survive and reproduce successfully.

C---People, animals, different life forms, perceive the real world at different levels in their varied minds. Even hallucinations can be seen as another, incomplete, way of perceiving the world.

D---As we evolve higher consciousness and higher intelligence we perceive the real world better and better with more accuracy.

E---At the level of Godhood, which is reached through material and supermaterial evolution in the natural world, life will evolve the highest level of perceiving the real world, and the highest level of the truth.

F---This suggests that idealism not based in real material objects evolved to in the natural world, and relativistic postmodern mere definitions, need to change, or fade away.

Words and numbers operate as symbols. All of the world can be seen as symbols of words and numbers. There are things in the cosmos that we don't know yet and so we may not as yet have attached words or numbers to them. Like numbers, words have “hidden” meanings. But living things are not words or numbers, things are things, objects are objects only represented by words and numbers.

The problem is that we soon start to make sense of the world only through words and numbers, and this is where we can move away from life and reality. If we are not careful, because words and number can be seductive, words and number can seem better to us than living things, or things experienced. This understanding of the world only through words and numbers can be like a musical drug.

Words and numbers can symbolize things which do not exist or exist only in words and numbers in our minds. This can be a fun game and does little harm as long as it is known only as a game. Problems come when fantasy words and numbers are worshiped.

So as not to undervalue words and numbers, it it possible for us to think of things by way of words and numbers that are at first known only in words and numbers and later known as real actual things. Theoretical physics has occasionally done this, or in ancient times the Pythagorean numbers representing actual or projected musical harmonies in the world. The problem here is not that words and numbers can predict future real things, the problem comes in worshiping the words and numbers without the reality of the thing itself.

This is the state of much of religion and philosophy (especially the more esoteric versions) which often represent only words and numbers, however sacred, or worship things that are only fantasy words and numbers rather than real things. Life is undervalued this way.

When Godhood is understood as a living object, or objects, living and continually evolving in this world, and reached through material and supermaterial evolution, this allows us to become Gods through evolution, so then we cannot and will not worship words or numbers alone as God.

This evolutionary Godhood is at the present time thought and known mainly in words and numbers but later must be seen and experienced as the zenith of the evolution of real living things. The tragic mistake of worshiping only words or numbers that define Godhood will not be made in this philosophy of theological materialism, because real concrete life needs to be guided in this world as best we can, through science, religion, and culture in general, toward evolving to real Godhood.

The older traditional words and numbers alone defining God need not be rejected, they can be seen as numbers, words, and symbolic experiences within the Inward Path which now are known as real living objects that we evolve to become in the Outward Path. So conservatism in this transformation can prevail.

In theological materialism there is the real world of becoming and the same secondary world which attempts to define a world of non-becoming, or being, with principles, equations and sacred words. This secondary world of definitions is what has been called “being.” It has been wrongly considered (or trans-valued) as the real world, and the real world has been considered unreal. The principles defining life do not come first, actual forms of life come first. Principles, although important, are vastly secondary. We do not need to distinguish a world of being from a world of becoming.

There are not “two natures” of metaphysics, there is one physical order which includes the higher evolved super-physical order. The split between the material and the spiritual, between Samsara and nirvana, Heaven and earth, Yin and Yang, does not exist. The material in reality defines the spiritual. For example, the experience of nirvana of Buddha, and the experience of heaven or the Father Within of Christ, were just that, a peak experience in the physical mind (or the higher Mind-Soul) after much ascetic discipline in blocking or overcoming material desires. We can conservatively retain the preliminary Inward Path experience of the God Within, but it needs to be transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood.

The physical world and the world that defines the physical world are not opposing worlds, they are the same world. It is possible to have, or be, a material object without defining the object, or without finding a principle which defines the object, but defining the object can help to better understand the object, providing the definitions are mainly accurate or real. Godhood is not a principle. Godhood is a material object or objects at the supermaterial zenith of material evolution. And evolution continues endlessly with starts and stops along the way. There is no first beginning and no final ending, but this cannot yet be proved scientifically, religiously or philosophically any more than a final ending or first beginning can be proved. At this point in our evolution intellectual intuition lets us see that there is no ending and no beginning.

Priests, philosophers, intellectuals, and to a lesser degree scientists, have put up a Great Spiritual Blockade against evolving in the material world to supermaterial Godhood, which must be unblocked if we are ever to revive the Western (and Eastern) world, or if we are ever to reach Godhood.

The naturalist “hypothetico-deductive" method is an important way to find truths, but the religious Inward Path to the Soul and Spirit-Will and intellectual intuition are also ways to find truths. Both methods are applied in ECC. This presupposes that the mind can do more than process data.

Most likely there is other life in the cosmos, even if life is rare within the vastness of the cosmos. I assume that life in other worlds is activated by the same Spirit-Will to evolve to Godhood. Some life would be higher evolved toward Godhood than other life. Time and life need to be associated with nature and the cosmos, which is defined in billions of years.

Those who argue that evolved structures are too complex to have evolved will surely be skeptical of a higher evolved Godhood. But when the activation of the Spirit-Will, with the goal of Godhood, is taken into account, then a form of teleology and guided or activated evolution can be added to the shaping of evolution and natural selection, combining naturalism with design.

The Spirit-Will is almost immortal, I say “almost” because it is virtually a “self-moved mover.” Both the Spirit-Will and the Soul are material and require survival and reproduction to live on in succeeding generations.

If the activating Spirit-Will controls the material body well it may guide material life in evolving toward its destination of supermaterial Godhood, if not, both the Spirit-Will and the Soul may die. Life must interact with the natural forces of evolution, even with devolution and death, while it is seeking its sacred evolutionary goal. Our mission is to aid life in evolving toward Godhood.

The Soul is material, existing in the conscious mind, not unlike Plato's idea of the non-material Soul as the totality of the inner being. The Soul, or the highest consciousness, is applied in deeply apprehending religion or art. Unlike Plato's view, and the Hindu view, the Soul is not a non-material Idea or Form, it is the zenith of material consciousness, which can be applied to experiencing the God or Father Within, as well as the highest Beauty in religion and art, if the apprehender follows ascetic discipline, such as blocking material desires in the Inward Path. The Soul can apprehend the Spirit-Will at the zenith of the Soul, that is, at the zenith of human consciousness.

This seems to indicate that the activating Spirit-Will somehow has some sort of recollection or knowledge of Godhood. This is related to Beauty defined as the zenith of evolution, or Godhood---the Spirit-Will and the Soul see Beauty and Godhood as the highest consciousness.

Religion, philosophy, art, science, culture, politics, are superficial without including the sacred evolution of life toward Godhood.

In the Twofold Path, the Outward Path of the Spirit-Will is how life can reach its destination of supermaterial Godhood, which was first seen or experienced in the Inward Path, as the God or Father Within, at the highest consciousness of the Soul in traditional religions. Now this is transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution, as described in theological materialism.

Can the dynamics of evolution and natural selection be replicated in voluntarily improving the biological and intellectual standards of the human species (eugenics)? Not exactly, so far, but the dynamics of natural evolution could be followed generally, if we can more accurately define the dynamics.

The artificial intelligence pushed by the trans-humanists seems to be grounded in the belief that natural evolution is entirely random, accidental, for them the evolution of human beings has little or no real direction or purpose other than successful survival and reproduction, if they even admit that. Improving human beings biologically and intellectually is also deeply politically incorrect which blocks such talk and makes the advance of non-human intelligence easier to promote.

The key here for me is that while evolution can be random, it is not entirely random or accidental. Life has been evolving toward increasing consciousness, intelligence, beauty, complexity, and toward the social altruism of group-selection, or goodness, and even evolving toward power. Few people ask the question why are we driven toward success in survival and reproduction? (Francis Heylighen has been one of the few modern scientists to examine purpose in evolution.)

Just as the pleasure or happiness derived from eating food is driven by the deeper requirements of successful survival, the drive to survival and reproductive success is driven by the deeper need of evolving toward Godhood as the zenith of success and purpose in evolution (so contrary to many philosophers happiness is a secondary goal). Naturalism in evolution can therefore include the activation toward higher evolution.

Can perfection be reached? No, just as perfection in evolution is never final, at least not until Godhood is attained, and even then evolution continues endlessly with no ending and no beginning.

The evolution toward Godhood this way includes religion. We need more than science, we need a religious philosophy that sublimates science, as theological materialism does. Raymond Cattell made a brilliant attempt at including religion in science, but he rejected traditional religion, whereas theological materialism retains but transforms traditional religion in the Twofold Path. Teilhard de Chardin also tried to include evolution in religion but evolution for him moved toward a completely non-material God, which is the antithesis of material evolution. It seems to me that even wave/particle quantum change, which some have claimed to be spiritual, is like water changing to ice and then back again to water---it is somehow a material change, and not a non-material dynamic.

Life has been evolving outwardly toward the Godhood first seen inwardly, and our sacred mission is to help it along the way.

Biological, historical, and metaphysical law need not be antagonistic. Life can be defined not merely as living biology but as living biology evolving toward Godhood.

Political principles can be established that honor both religion and evolutionary standards. The particular or historical need not contrast with the metaphysical, both can be synthesized in theological materialism.

The metaphysical world is an approximation of the phenomenal world, not the other way around. The fatal argument for conservatism is to argue against evolutionary circumstances which in reality take us to real Godhood.

Humans find themselves with the establishments they have developed, but also, more fundamentally, from the execution of biological evolution, where the patterns of evolution seek survival and reproductive success in various cultures.

But far more than that, life seeks to evolve to Godhood, the God first seen or experienced and then symbolized in the Inward Paths of traditional religion, which can be retained but transformed.

It is from this deep conservative perspective that the ethnopluralism hypothesis grows, which can be conservatively accommodated by the constitutional principle of the separation of powers and states, where the primary unit of group-selection and all ethnic preferences can be harmonized, including both the laws of nature and religion in political philosophy.

Perhaps the war between Russell Kirk (paleoconservative), Leo Strauss (neoconservative), and Edward Wilson (sociobiologist) can end?

“Freedom” has been vital in the West but it has also been seriously misunderstood in regard to real human nature. The Enlightenment, which our Founders were fond of, concentrated on individual freedom or liberty. And the ancient Greeks, who our Founders were also fond of, sought to constrain vice and folly with virtues which were not always connected to real human nature.

The deepest and real constraints on human nature come from the “constraints” of biology. There is a strong biological component to basic human nature which is mainly denied in the modern world, but was also denied in the ancient world. Freedom without external constraints does not change the internal constraints of human nature and biology, even in the free West.

Real human nature is not evil. Human beings are “constrained” by a biologically determined human nature which includes being kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. These are traditional values. Modern liberalism has needed authoritarianism and coercion to implement the increasing number of “rights” which go against real human nature.

Freedom and virtue have to relate to the biological direction of evolving life, which becomes more of an affirmation than a free choice. Individuals are not really free to do anything they want, even before constraints are put on them by social institutions. Civilized laws need to harmonize with or affirm real human nature, not impede human nature---impeding human nature does not work well in any case.

Even rational judgment which the Greeks liked so much cannot really move beyond the constraints of human nature, although it has often been tried. The highest point of ourselves is not “reason” but is the material/supermaterial Spirit-Will within life, which activates life to evolve toward Godhood, and reason may or may not understand this teleological direction or end-goal.

It is through such sciences as sociobiology more than through moral reasoning that we can understand whatever freedom we actually have, which means an understanding of the choices we may have within the constraints of determinism. Freedom and virtue relate to understanding the choices we may have within the constraints of determinism. When we have “self control” what are we really controlling? We don't govern the passions so much as we affirm determined elements of human nature, which really can't be escaped, and why would we want to escape them?

Politics can pay attention not only to freedom within determinism but to the direction of freedom, which is also largely determined. This brings religion forward as a foundation for politics, because the end of politics is conditioned by the goals of evolving life, which is Godhood.

And this is how ethnopluralism enters the philosophy of theological materialism, as the best way to reach the goals of both politics and religion, while living in a crowded world of competing ethnic cultures, who are basically governed by a human nature designed for survival and reproductive success, but more deeply seeking success in evolving toward Godhood.

Leo Strauss and others were wrong to think that Christianity and philosophy are antagonist when both have the same Gnostic and abstract non-material view of truth and God. Both believed that the highest truth and God are fundamentally beyond the natural world, something better or higher than the sinful material world. That is, Plato and the religious philosophers agree that the non-material is superior to the material.

Theological Materialism does not make that tragic mistake. Truth and Godhood are seen as material and supermaterial. Material life evolves in the material world to Godhood. The real “sin,” or evolutionary mistake, is failing to evolve toward Godhood in the material world. The real, living, material object comes before the abstract, non-material, definition of the living object.

We can give credit to religion and philosophy for finding the God or Father Within, or truth, but this ascetic Inward Path was a symbolic experience needing to be reinterpreted and expanded to recognition of the Outward Path of material evolution to real supermaterial Godhood. This offers not only a settlement between religion and philosophy but a synthesis between science, religion and political philosophy.

Without a material biological foundation defining human nature in religion, philosophy and political culture, we have developed radical ideas about how free we actually are, which has led to hedonism and ultimately to nihilism. The highest virtues, values, and truths have been thought largely unconnected to biological life which led to unrealistic accounts of human freedom and goals.

It is biology that rightly defines human nature as universal. Human nature universally includes being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. We are only as free as human nature allows us to be free. Religion, philosophy and political culture have feared real human nature, and tried, unsuccessfully, to curb it.

Real altruism, concern and sacrifice for others, derives not from the idea that the individual is sovereign but from the success of group-selection. Within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. The pull of theses two things is central to the social success of human beings but also to the problems of human nature.

It is more difficult to attain the Christian and Greek ideas of freedom by way of morally curbing human nature than it is to affirm real human nature and real human passions, which naturally leads to group-selection, and altruism, not individual hedonism, mainly because the group has always been more successful than the individual alone. Ethnopluralism this way becomes the way to synthesize universal human nature and human culture.

Freedom not only needs a moral foundation, as the Greeks and Christians believed, freedom needs a biological foundation, which then can lead to a realistic religious and political foundation. This means not coercion into one authoritarian state but separate powers and states designed for distinct ethnic cultures, harmonizing not only with real universal human nature, but with the real evolution of material life to Godhood.

This new/old religious philosophy boldly says that Godhood manifests its qualities of beauty, truth and goodness not through an existing God beyond the material world, but as a Godhood which we evolve toward becoming in the material or supermaterial world. The old idea of God, which was seen or experienced inwardly by ascetics, is retained but transformed. This is how religion can be saved for the future---it has been dying at least since the Enlightenment.

The big change comes in uniting the old false divisions between the material and spiritual, which has existed since even before the Judaic-Christian tradition, for example, in ancient Asia, Scandinavia, and in native America. There has existed a Great Spiritual Blockade in religion, and in philosophy, against our evolution toward real Godhood in the material world. There is no dualism between the spiritual and material, there is only the material and supermaterial. This can actually unite science and religion.

Godhood is not the geometry of the Greeks or the metaphysical complications of the Middle Ages, which were locked in an inward God thought to not be of the natural world. Godhood is a living object, or objects---or can be---at the highest levels of material evolution.

This religious philosophy stays within nature and remains in nature when it defines Godhood as evolved to in the material/supermaterial world, it does not have to escape nature when defining Godhood or the highest truths. Whatever end-times eschatology there is remains within the possibilities of natural evolution.

This religious philosophy does not point toward a God independent from space or time, which is  thought  impossible, and does not consider the material world to be a limitation on attaining Godhood, other than the natural limitations of nature, or our own ignorance, which can be remedied by further evolution.

This religious philosophy is conservative not merely a radical change, it retains the old religion but transforms it.

Godhood is an “embodied act,” to use the term Mark Mitchell used to describe art, (Modern Age, Summer 2016). Godhood requires evolution in space and time. All is material or supermaterial. It has been a great mystically, theological, and philosophical mistake to think that Godhood is without material embodiment as a non-material spiritual idea.  

This is a view of God that even evolutionary theologians like Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo have missed. They see God, as usual, as a non-material, spiritual, un-embodied consciousness to which man's consciousness is supposed to evolve to and  “fuse" with, creating a sort of glorious, non-material, chimera. The “noosphere”is this sort of non-embodied consciousness.

Contrary to Teilhard and Aurobindo, and the whole history of the mystics, evolution does not evolve to a non-evolutionary world of non-material consciousness. A non-material spiritual God is no God at all, it is nothingness, it is death, which oddly is the way some mystics describe God.

Godhood does not 'transcend” the world any more than beauty transcends the world. Godhood and the highest beauty are realized at the zenith of this world's evolution.

Something does not come from nothing, and this knowledge contradicts the concept of the Logos which requires the belief that there is a beginning and an end, where God is found. But there is no beginning and no end, there is only ongoing evolution reaching toward higher levels of Godhood, with only occasional cosmic or local starts and stops. We don't meet with and fuse with a creator, we become Godhood.

We do not return to origins, which would mean a return to the primordial conditions at the lower points of evolution. Theologians and artists do not need to try to return to origins, they need to affirm the evolution to Godhood. This is the only permanent tradition.

“Freedom” can be seen as the freedom to enhance evolution. Freedom cannot be unhooked from materiality and evolution. Why would we want to do so? How could we hate what we are as material beings enough to make our highest ideal, our God, non-materially and reached by blocking all material desires? Godhood is not beyond the material world, Godhood is the supermaterial zenith of the material world.

In theological materialism when we can grasp the direction of evolution toward Godhood we can grasp what to do with our cultural, political, and religious lives, and perhaps actually save the world.

Kenneth Lloyd Anderson 2016