Sitting on a rock in a peaceful parrot forest in the summer solstice transports one into a state of grace. The birds and trees and soil and water and animals and insects do what they have done for millions of years. Everything alive is in a state of complex interaction, connected together in a symbiotic ecosystem, robust against shock, stable, durable and fecund. A constant cycle of nature in which things are begotten, born and die, and then decay to enable rebirth in barely changing repetitions creates a harmonious network. Bird song exists in a state of wild grace.

The evolution of life on earth has long periods of order and growth, interspersed with short periods of chaos and collapse. I wish to explore how natural order can be compared to the old theological idea of the state of grace, meaning a living connection to spiritual divinity, while natural disorder is like the state of corruption or fallen sin, where decay and decline outbalance the competing forces of order and growth.

Another way to compare grace and corruption against the model of the sacred natural grove is spatial. Old complex natural systems exhibit grace in their internal and external relationships, but as we move away from these oases of peace and biodiversity, we enter the world of corruption, where human artifice has constructed situations that are partially stable, fecund and durable, but also have a chaotic dimension of constant change and a reliance on false beliefs.

Sometimes, especially in situations of technological progress, the constant change in the human world will cause the appearance of improvement but conceal bigger destabilizing effects, so an imagined state of grace is actually a state of corruption.

The state of grace and the state of corruption are old central categories in theology. Grace is defined by connection to God while corruption is separation from God. A pathological effect of corruption, defined as sin, is its ability to confuse, so people will imagine they are living under grace when the emerging unseen natural forces are more like what the Bible calls wrath.

The evolutionary framework suggests that a state of grace delivers protection and insurance and strength and investment against shock, while a system in a state of corruption is exposed and vulnerable and depleted and weak. The adaptive purpose of life on earth is therefore to enter and sustain a state of grace, as an inherent genetic goal.

Reconstructing Biblical visions against scientific ecology could enable us to see a deeper meaning in some of the metaphysical language put into the mouth of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. When Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”, we can compare this mystery saying to modern scientific understanding. We see that the parrot forest, with its stable self-contained resilience, exhibits qualities that can be called meek. Its ability to inherit the earth depends though on the risk that human-induced change could destroy it. The blessing that Jesus invokes for the meek, and for the peacemakers, mourners, integral, pure, merciful and poor in spirit, means that human society must mimic nature, to obtain the natural blessing of God and define a path of wisdom to restore a state of grace for human culture.

The path from corruption to grace is narrow and steep and hard, while the road from grace to corruption can be wide and flat and easy. Grace must be identified as a practical goal, with a rigorous analysis of how different behavior traits support greater complexity and peace or worsening chaos and conflict. In a state of corruption, we hold deluded beliefs as true ideology, and constantly increase suffering instead of enhancing the innocent purity of grace.

Putting these concepts of grace and corruption into a logical scientific frame of orderly explanation can help to define the best purpose, meaning and direction for human life. For our planet earth, a state of grace can be imagined as a world of universal abundance and peace, a future golden age, while a state of corruption can be seen in war, death, famine and plague, as the metaphorical four horsemen of the apocalypse stalk the world. Building abundance requires competitive cooperation, defining grace as a way of describing the existential goal of creating a planetary niche that will enable sustained human flourishing.

loved that opening bit Robert

Sitting on a rock in a peaceful parrot forest in the summer solstice transports one into a state of grace. The birds and trees and soil and water and animals and insects do what they have done for millions of years. Everything alive is in a state of complex interaction, connected together in a symbiotic ecosystem, robust against shock, stable, durable and fecund. A constant cycle of nature in which things are begotten, born and die, and then decay to enable rebirth in barely changing repetitions creates a harmonious network. Bird song exists in a state of wild grace.

i've been watching two species of spider getting on with it in my back yard... incredible.

one has a web that has withstood outrageous winds and the other makes spiderman look a little boring

In a state of corruption, we hold deluded beliefs as true ideology, and constantly increase suffering instead of enhancing the innocent purity of grace.

i have a feeling the universe has a way of shrugging off species too stupid to groove to the music.

i mean if we don't win against the corporate vampires and the whole planet turns into a slave planet toxic waste dump it will be sad but it's not as if the universe doesn't have alternatives

harder they come harder they fall.