The World Order - Part 3

The Next three levels of the order of relationships, after the the Cosmic God and the Environment are Economics, Government, and Employment.

The world economy is the process by which the things we need are extracted from the earth and transformed into usable items.  This goes on everywhere, and the quality of life in an particular is usually connected to its trade with the larger economy.

Economies are governed by greatly by environmental conditions, since an earthquake or drought can wreck even the best-functioning economy.  However, the economy is not a beast with its own mind, but rather an adjective of human activity.  The environment is also just as mindless, begin subject to the laws of physics as established by God, while being subject to His intervention.

Economics also has its particular rules, though they are not entirely understood by men, which is why so many economic plans fail.

Government is man's attempt to relate to the challenges of economic principles on a local level.  Men band together to form 'states' which regulate and protect commerce with the economic condition.  This may include fighting with other states for more advantageous environmental conditions (i.e. better or more land).

Government, as a conglomerate of people, can often also take on a 'group mentality.'  Some governments can become oppressive, while others corrupt and dysfunctional.  The bigger it is, the greater good it can do, but also the greater the evil it can inflict.  After all, a lion's bite is deadlier than an ant's bite just based on size.

Within each state, people seek 'employment' to feed themselves out of the greater economy.  Men use their labor as a way to harvest value from the economy based on the parameters set by the state.  The state tells you what the rules of ownership are, and protects those who comply with the rules.

Employment is psychologically important to us, because it helps us better understand how we fit into the larger world.  It often manifests who we are as persons, which is why we will so often identify ourselves by our employment.

Schooling and education are part of this preparation for us to enter into the functions of the state and employment.

However, these levels below the Cosmic God have more to do with our material conditions and less to do with man's inner state of being.  The Cosmic God seems almost unreachable, and so the next layer of our relationships with the world come through the Church.

Employment and economics, even inclement weather, can be adversarial.  The Church represents a closer layer to man's hierarchy of relationships because the Church is the means by which these outer conflicts are defined.  We look out through the lens of our religious formation to see these outer layers with a proper frame of reference.

The Church teaches men that the conflicts of employment and state should not cause us to forget the Cosmic God at the end of all things, while also reminding us that God resides in our very personhood, as we are made in His Image and Likeness, and are meant to be His Temple.

The Church stands in the middle of all these layers, and God manifests there through the intervening levels of relationship.  We'll discuss this more in the next post.