Teilhard Series - 7th

In this, the seventh and final of my Teilhard series, I focus on the most central of his themes—Love

            God is Love=Love is God

            Love is the energy of existence

            Love is the affinity of being-to-being

We have yet to understand love.  The contemporary world has misled us with overly sentimentalized, romanticized versions of love or has falsely applied love’s name to self-gratification.  We are closer to love’s reality at the joy of sharing experiences, thoughts and goals with another, of reaching out to give comfort, of working cooperatively toward a ‘good’ that is beyond self-interest and of saying ‘Amen’ to the wonder of creation.

Love is a ‘within’ quality—of the subjective realm—it cannot be weighed and measured, only experienced and so in the world of science it has no place and is as ill-defined as consciousness (of which it is a part).

Teilhard invites us to regard the ‘within’ as having supreme value, only it can awaken us to that new dimension to which the human is being called.  We are not just another species on an equal plane with all others.  We are more than bone and muscle and organs; with fully matured consciousness and the awareness of love, we are participants in the creative process.  We have been charged with shepherding our earth and creating our world. What we create is dependent upon our ability to realize our interconnectedness to this singular whole web of life.

Evolution begins with attraction and union; there follows a process of development.  That development (whether of species or individual) follows the law of complexity-consciousness, unfolding the pre-ordained possibilities of increased abilities and freedom.  Throughout the process, movement is toward greater being.

Looking back to the earliest and simplest level we see only a mysterious attraction propelling atoms to cluster and form molecules, then molecules joining to form cells.  Teilhard has stated that nothing comes to be in final form that had not pre-existed in an obscure and primordial way—there is a striving in coming to be.  Here we consider that attraction and union appears to be the driving force (energy) of the evolutionary process.  Teilhard states “The affinity of being with being . . . is a general property of all of life and as such it embraces . . . all forms successively adopted by organized matter . . .”; a complex concept which means ‘attraction to wholeness is everywhere in everything.’  That attraction that calls subatomic particles of protons, electrons and neutrons to join and form atoms, then atoms to join together to form molecules and molecules to cluster to form cells—that primitive attraction, over millions of years, came to be realized in ‘hominized’ form (human consciousness) as love—and continues to draw us together to realize our interconnectedness as part of our mandate to build a sustainable world.  Teilhard’s understanding of evolution and his vision of its trajectory gives hope to the future.

I conclude with one of Teilhard’s best-known quotes:

“Some day after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness—for God—the energies of love.  And then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

A Warning ?

I deviate from my series distilling Teilhard’s concepts to inject some impassioned thoughts that interrupted my reading as I searched through his books.  He was a visionary who weaves together the strands of human knowledge that arise from two seemingly disparate ways to understand life and the world—science explores the material aspect of being to understand function, religion searches the spiritual dimension to seek meaning—Teilhard sees they are not disparate, but rather interdependent.  What follows are my thoughts combining with his wisdom.

            God doesn’t need us—

            there is a vast universe God is nurturing—

            if this tiny planet self-destructs

            its disappearance will hardly be disruptive . . .

            its loss can be easily compensated for.

            But we need God—

            the unknown God beyond our understanding

            who gives order and balance to the evolving universe.

            A God who calls forth human reason and compassion

            inviting our creative participation in a sustainable world.

            A God who calls forth love and morality

            thus enabling life to flourish.

            There are uncountable galaxies and planets

            beyond our knowing—

            but what we do know of

            is that which we have been given to shepherd—

            this terra firma upon which we stand;

            it alone provides for our continuation . . .

            its fate depends upon us and our choices.

            Only by our active recognition

            of need for the order and balance

            which is represented by a loving God

            who calls us to acknowledge our interdependence

            can we survive our individual selfishness.

Deuteronomy 30:19—“This day I call the heavens and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Now choose life, so that you and your children may live . . . “     (NIV)

             

Teilhard Series - 5th

What is evolution?  Some say it is the scientific theory that explains how species became what they are through changes over long periods of time.  Some say it is the ‘crazy idea’ that claims our most distant ancestors were apes.  Others say it is an idea expounded by atheists to prove there is no God.  And still others say it is a lie spawned by the devil to lead people astray.  A dictionary describes evolution as the gradual development of something, especially from simple to complex form.

Darwin’s explanation of evolution did not include pattern, direction and goal; that is what Teilhard’s work shows us.  From atoms clustering to form molecules, then cells; to human consciousness continually building to greater awareness, there is movement toward increasing complexity.  The goal is realization of the interconnectedness of all that exists.

Although evolution is implicit in all of Teilhard’s writing, he actually uses the word sparingly.  As a scientist he worked with the data that discloses the pattern that is hidden behind all life-struggles at all stages: the simple moves to the complex and so opens to new and greater possibilities.

            Evolution is the underlying principle of all that is.

Nothing in the known world materializes in a ‘poof’ from nothing; development comes through gradual change programmed in the pre-existing state that holds the blueprint for the final product.  Throughout Teilhard’s life-long study of development in all aspects he came to realize that everything unfolds in a direction from simple to complex that expands possibilities for the organism evolving.  Within the earliest stage of the simplest form there exists the possibilities of the ultimate form . . . within the acorn is the potential oak tree, within the egg is the potential bird, within the DNA is the blueprint of the person, and within the energy leading to the explosion of the ‘big bang’ was the universe that came to be.  There is direction: movement is always forward from simple to complex.  We can search all the way back to the ‘primordial soup’ wherein we see and recognize a pattern emerging: elements with affinity join to form new units.  As pointed out in my last blog, our material world took shape through the building of layer upon layer moving from the inorganic foundation to developing the layers necessary to support the emergence of life, then the layer of teeming life forms, and ultimately life that birthed thought which enables humans to discover, evaluate and create. 

            Evolution is the name for the process by which all comes to be.

Even thinking is an evolving process.  We have discovered so much about how our world works!  How do we discover what we know?  By beginning with the simple and expanding to the complex.  We see and wonder, we ask questions and follow leads; we have new thoughts and ideas and test them against what we understand from previous discoveries . . . and if the new discovery contradicts what we thought we knew we re-define our knowledge.  All that thinking, analyzing and concluding takes place in a realm that is not material.  Our ability to think and reason is a quality of our being—a unique human quality.  In the modern world we’ve come to over-value the material—the ‘things’ of life that can be weighed and measured—but we take for granted and overlook the non-material, yet it is with those non-material qualities we have changed the earth we occupy.

Teilhard de Chardin calls us to consider the non-material realm of our existence that he calls the ‘within’ of things, and he does so by study of the material substances that he calls the ‘without’ of things.  He maintains “the internal aspect of things as well as the external aspect of the world [need] be taken into account.” He was a respected scientist devoted to the study of science but also a Jesuit—a man of faith.  He believed in evolution and believed in God as the author of the process.  He saw no conflict between them.  The world has order and is intelligible, that bespeaks design by an intelligent source.

Not a random happenstance; Teilhard sees meaningful order in life.  We see all of nature as balanced and purposeful.  The earth and sky provides conditions for trees and plants to produce their yield; all living creatures are provided with the means necessary to develop and flourish.  When given the freedom to exist in their environment there is a natural balance between predator and prey and each species instinctively knows how to self-protect and seek appropriate shelter and sustenance.

Only the human, gifted with intelligence, has the ability to alter the course of nature . . . and/or to disrupt it so as to threaten the planet’s very existence.  That quality—intelligence—must have a better purpose!  It will be discovered when humanity comes to truly recognize that all of life is interconnected—with that realization we will ‘learn to think in a new way’.

Teilhard Series - 4th

If we are to realize the contribution of Teilhard de Chardin to our contemporary perspective, the most fundamental point of departure is: ‘Everything is interconnected’.  From the Bible to St. Francis of Assisi to Albert Einstein, to Pope Francis we’ve been told of the connectedness in different ways, yet it seems to not reach our understanding.  In 1972 scientist James Locklove originated the Gaia Theory that tells us that the entire earth functions as a single living organism; in living organisms injury or damage to any one part affects the entire organism.  He sounded an alarm we have failed to heed.  Einstein’s search for a Unified Field Theory arose from his conviction that all forces of nature answer to a single law—clearly he believes everything is connected.

Through his life-work in geology and paleontology, Teilhard came to realize the key to understanding how ‘everything is interconnected’, lies in understanding evolution and he presents scientific data that discloses the underlying pattern that ties all orders of development together.

Perhaps since the dawn of consciousness the human has been dimly aware of life’s interconnectedness but the demands of survival narrowed his focus to that part most critical to survival in that place at that time—yet stirring within the collective unconscious, has been the desire to know and understand more about ‘the big picture’—the everything.  That impulse led to the development of philosophy, the search for Wisdom—the true, the right and the just.  The search was once of a whole but at the time of the Renaissance the wisdom search split into seemingly opposing camps—Science and Religion.

It was a combination of necessity, circumstances and habit that led us to consideration of life from a narrow focus.  As knowledge advanced, uncountable pieces of information accumulated and it became necessary to compartmentalize it into manageable units.  Now, in the modern era we’ve been conditioned to see our world in separate units and that inhibits our wider vision.  When confronted with a problem we look only at the ‘box’ from which the problem arises.  We have a box for economics, a box for government, a box for technology, a box for psychology, a box for industry, boxes for religion and multiple boxes for science . . . we make our choices from within the box of the problem; we haven’t developed the means for dealing with that bigger picture of ‘everything is connected’.

Einstein said, “We must learn to think in a new way.”  To help us learn that new way Teilhard gives us the study of evolution.  He first brings us back to the beginning, when the earth was being born.  There is a pattern: we see movement from the simple to the complex.

       Geologists have defined the zonal composition of our planet; each layer necessarily            

       preceded the subsequent one and transformed it, and only because they developed

       as they did, was it possible for life to ultimately emerge:

            (the lifeless inorganic layers)

-       barysphere: central and metallic

-       lithosphere: it rocky surrounding crust

(the layers necessary for evolving and sustaining life)

-       hydrosphere: the fluid layers—earth’s waters

-       atmosphere: the air or gaseous surroundings

     to these 4 concentric layers, science identified another layer

            (the living membrane)

-       biosphere: living organisms

    Teilhard recognized and named another layer of transformation

            (the thinking layer)

-       noosphere:  of mind or mental processes

It is this quality of mind, mental processes or reflective awareness that sets the human apart, not a mere changes of biological state but a change of ‘being’.  The awakening of thought “marks the transformation that affects the state of the whole planet” (Teilhard’s words).  The presence of the human species has changed the face of the earth.  That is what we are called to fully recognize; we must expand our vision to see the whole picture because our collective choices set the course we travel.

Teilhard Series - 3rd

            Why Teilhard?  Teilhard’s insights work to reunite Science and Religion.

            In Paleontology, digging through the rocks and debris to uncover evidence of the origins of life on our planet, one of the earliest signs of human habitation (along with the presence of tools) is the evidence of some form of worship . . . of ceremonial burying of their dead, of choosing to revere some objects as sacred, of establishing rituals; in this we see hints of reaching for ‘more’.  This points to an inherent quality in humans: the need to search out a ‘why’ to explain existence.  That quality is so fundamental that to deny it is to fail to understand the creature.

            Darwin was the first to bring evolution to our awareness.  As a botanist/biologist his concern was with the what and how of species development.  Teilhard, as a geologist/paleontologist was convinced of the validity of the scientific facts of evolution.  As a priest/theologian he brought to the theory his concern for purpose and direction—the ‘why’ of it all.  Whereas Darwin and his followers postulate that evolution progressed by random chance—without purpose and direction, Teilhard shows us a pattern and direction that emerges from his study of the phenomenon.  He calls the pattern Complexity-Consciousness and, for rational creatures, he identifies the direction to be perceived as realization of the interacting  wholeness of being.

            Let’s explore evolution with a simple overview of what Science has found to be the stages of our world coming to be.   

            From the earliest phase of evolution (the ‘primordial soup’) when only chemicals and particles were in existence (I will call it micro-evolution) random chance was operational as elements sharing affinities ‘found each other’ to unite and gradually form molecules and cells.  The direction of the movement was always from simple to the more complex. (complexification).

            Jumping ahead, but still in pre-history and looking to how life advanced (macro-evolution), many incipient species came into being.  For a time each developmental line underwent changes in appearance through random interbreeding.  The strongest models survived to finalize identifiable characteristics for a category while the earlier prototypes failed to continue and dropped off the phylum.  As species evolved we can see a continual advancement toward more and more complex neural networks and ultimately creatures with functioning brains appeared on the planet. 

Over eons of time the brain in the hominid species continued to evolve until it birthed thought, with consciousness and reflective awareness.  The human emerged as a rational being able to look back to the past and forward to the future thus having the ability to shape his environment. 

           Consciousness is not a random accident, but rather the axis and goal of the evolutionary process.  The emergence of consciousness changed the course of evolution from an external mechanical process to shape the structure and appearance of creatures, to an internal psychological-spiritual process that gives the power of change to the humans possessing it.  Evolution turned inward.  With reflective awareness we have the ability to shape the course of our world by our choices.  If we look back to discern the pattern life has traveled to get us to NOW, we can foresee and shape the direction ahead.  A central aspect of that direction is to see and realize that our world is one interacting system of which we each are a part. It is unfolding in a rational sequence and at this time it has become necessary for us to realize the part we play.

           Why Teilhard?
           His ideas present a challenge to our thinking.  Some of our knowledge and much of our religious understanding must readjust to fit with the expanding universe of which we are now aware.  Teilhard wrote during the first half of the 20^th Century.  The world, and especially his Church was not yet ready for his forward thinking.  It is now the 21^st Century and, if we are to avoid self-destruction, we must begin to learn the lessons he teaches.