Analogies can be taken too far and too literally, yet I wonder if we can apply to the human social organism, ultimately the Body of Christ, the example of a long-ago and primitive immune system ‘spinning off’ a neurological system. As I understand this particular line of speculation in evolutionary biology, and it was years ago that I read about it, that primitive immune system was largely a set of cells which tried to distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘non-self’, between what was supposed to be inside that particular organism and what was an invader. Somehow, that effort to distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘non-self’ led to a central nervous system, ultimately thought, as well as to defenses against diseases.
So this would be a line of questioning:
Government as we know it has grown out of systems to identify unfriendly or alien human beings (or sometimes to subjugate the other) or to protect against non-human dangers to the physical and moral aspects of our communities. As we mature towards the Body of Christ, is our government going to split into a policing (immunological) system which operates with some independence but under conditions where it has only as many resources as it needs for the task at hand and a planning and thinking (neurological) system which plays a role in the ongoing functions of the parts of the Body but also plays a central role in understanding the environment of that Body and planning for the future?
Once again, I’m throwing out a half-baked idea to point towards the possible fruitfulness of a true engagement with the organic aspects, and perhaps fundamentally organic nature, of human communities. By “half-baked idea”, I mean not a dumb idea but a speculation in the early stage of development. Many speculations will be still-born to be sure, but you have to have lots of ideas to have much chance of even a few good ideas. (I’m pretty sure Einstein made a comment to this effect somewhere.)
For all the silliness of conjecturing a speculative but hidden relationship between government and thinking, there might be something to this idea if only because we, at least we Christians, need to pursue the organic analogy for human communities, ultimately for the Body of Christ — else that Body becomes a mere illusion separated from reality. We should take seriously our knowledge of cellular organisms, abstract from it, and apply the abstractions to our efforts to understand human communities, political and social.
For the benefit of those coming into an ongoing line of speculative thought:
Human beings won’t lose their freedom when they become members of the Body of Christ. The best way to understand is by an analogy to the Christian belief in the Trinitarian God. As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are free Persons while being one God, so many men can become free persons while being one Body of Christ. Rather than being enslaved, human beings who become members of the Body of Christ will share in the absolute freedom of God.