EVOLUTIONARY STAGES OF THEOLOGY

This is undoubtedly one of Jesus' most enigmatic parables: “The plant grows by itself, day and night”. A parable that focuses on the immanent vitality of a normal plant, which is gradually transformed into a wide variety of shapes, colours, sizes, without the need for external intervention.

Assessing this enigma, one can think that what happens to the plant, can also happen to the man who peregrinates towards his self-realization; in symbolic language, to the perfection that is a plant - and that no one can interrupt this evolutionary chain.

In the normal growing vegetable seed, there is no danger of adulteration because the seed has only one possibility of evolution, it has, so to speak, strictly marked paths, on which it must follow; it will either develop in this direction or it will not. However, when it comes to the evolution of the divine seed of the kingdom of God among men, there are countless possibilities for adulteration.

The same was true of today's Christianity, which is profoundly different from Christianity in the year 33 of our era, just as the wheat stalk bears no visible resemblance to the grain from which it sprouted. The external similarity between the plant and the seed is practically nil - but the identity of the essence is perfect. The seed is the potential plant, and the plant is the seed in a dynamic state.

It was not possible for the “grain of wheat” that was Christianity in the year 33 of our era to remain, externally, the same in the 21st century. Its destiny was to grow, to evolve, to gradually expand all its latent forces.

With the appearance of Paul of Tarsus on Christianity’s scenario, a major change in the primitive form of the doctrine of Jesus begins, which follows the Pauline model rather than the Christlike model. With Augustine, another factor of modification appears. Our ecclesiastical Christianity today would be inconceivable without the ideas of original sin and redemption by blood.

If humanity were spiritually mature, it would conceive Christianity exactly as Jesus conceived it and as it sprang from his heart. But immature humanity like today receives Christianity not according to the spiritual maturity of his author, but according to the immaturity and inability of his disciples.

A child with its childish manners is acceptable, pleasant with all the ingenuity, play and childishness of its age, and can even be charming and friendly; but when it looks like a mature person, it makes a different impression. On the other hand, the childlike behaviour of an adult man would be grotesque.

A similar thing happens with organized religions. While they only act as evolutionary stages towards the eternal and universal Christ, they are acceptable forms, but when they judge themselves on something complete and definitive when they pretend to be Jesus' own Christianity, they become absurd and unpleasant. Everything natural is pleasant, everything that is not natural raises suspicions, and may even be unpleasant.

It is metaphysically impossible to organize the spiritual element, divine. To organize is to define, to limit, to be finite - but the Infinite is beyond all these borders. Christianity itself is not organizable. What is organizable is the body, that is, the visible part, human; the soul of Christianity is not susceptible to an organization, because it is spirit, life, light. The moment the organization of Christianity begins, its decline begins.

All churches and sects organized in statutes, regulations, dogmas, creeds, standardized doctrines, crystallized ideas, sacraments, rites, etc., represent only the visible body of religion, the material symbol, beyond which there is the spiritual symbolized which is not organizable. Those who identify religion with these external symbols, know only the outer shell, but not the content of religion, which is not the object of definition or organization. Everything physical and mental is organizable, but Christianity is essentially rational or spiritual, it follows that Christianity cannot be organized.

The symbol can be useful so that, through it, the profane man reaches the symbolized. However, the evil of churches and sects is not in using symbols; evil appears when some of these organized societies prohibit their adherents from crossing the boundaries of dogmas and symbols and reaching the symbolized. What would we say of a driver who forced the traveller to stop before an arrow in the middle of the road, who looked at it, instead of following the indicated direction? It does not obey the direction of the arrow who stops at the foot of it, but the one who moves away from it following the indicated direction. Certain churches or sects that are reluctant to accept their adherents to surpass these symbols are like guides that do not indicate, demanding from the traveller the idolatry of the worship of the arrow itself. They broke the indicator arrow to prevent the traveller from moving forward.

Thus, for example, a certain theology teaches that the sacramental rite works automatically when this is an evident denial of the soul of Christendom. Jesus did not give any object, any magic formula, the power to produce the spiritual effect, automatically. This is reminiscent of the “esoteric mysteries” of Delphi, Eleusis, etc., from the time of Roman paganism, which contaminated ecclesiastical Christianity.

The evolutionary stage of theology, which dates back to the beginning of the fourth century were necessary for the first centuries after the catacombs, where there was no organization; represents the spiritual childhood of humanity; unfailing authority from above and unconditional obedience from below.

After that, Protestantism was also necessary as an adolescent period of humanity towards maturity; it was necessary to stress the importance of knowledge of the sacred books of the Old and New Testaments, practically replaced, in the Roman period, by the decrees of the ecclesiastical councils and by the philosophy taught in Catholic seminaries.

In the 20th century, in several countries of the Christian West, the movement of doctrinal spiritism emerged, whose primary mission is to emphasize the continuity of life after death and the need for social beneficence, especially among the most abandoned classes, as well as calling for the complete gratuitousness of religious services, precepts that Roman Catholicism and Protestantism had not taken seriously.

Christianity is not Roman, Protestant, nor Spiritist, but Universal. Although other forms of churches are, to some extent, necessary for humanity on the move. The hierarchical pomp of the Roman liturgy; the seriousness of biblical research cultivated by Protestantism; the spirit of sacrifice with which spiritism practices social charity, all this is necessary to pave the path towards eternal and Universal Christianity, and each of these organizations contribute to the completion of the gigantic sanctuary of cosmic Christianity.

The evil is not in this contribution but the presumption of some of these movements that intend to monopolize and identify their church or sect with eternal and universal Christianity.

This presumption arises from the inability to see the whole in a panoramic view, but only partial and selfish.

However, the divine plant of Christianity is growing, in serenity or tribulation. The vital principle is invisible in itself, but what it produces is visible. The root, the stem, the leaves, the flowers, the fruits - these are all part of the plant, but none of these parts is the plant, not even the total of these elements. While these parts maintain vital contact with the mysterious soul of the plant, they fulfil their mission; the day and time that obstruct the circulation of the vital saps of the plant's soul, the agony of the plant begins. No one can kill Life; we can only disconnect Universal Life from any of its vehicles.

Ecclesiastical organizations must not replace the Gospel of Jesus, the body must not kill the soul.