compassion, collaboration & cooperation iN transistion
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
- Evolution [≡] Rise of consciousness,
- Rise of consciousness [≡] Union affected
He abandoned a literal interpretation of creation in the Book of Genesis in favor of a metaphorical interpretation.
This displeased certain officials in the Catholic Curia, who thought that it undermined the doctrine of original sin developed by Saint Augustine. Teilhard's position was opposed by his church superiors, and his work was denied publication during his lifetime by the Roman Holy Office.
The Phenomenon of Man states that the Omega Point
must possess the following five attributes.
It is:
- Already existing.
- Only thus can the rise of the universe towards higher stages of consciousness be explained.
- Personal – an intellectual being and not an abstract idea.
- The increasing complexity of matter has not only led to higher forms of consciousness, but accordingly to more personalization, of which human beings are the highest attained form in the known universe. They are completely individualized, free centers of operation. It is in this way that man is said[by whom?] to be made in the image of God, who is the highest form of personality. Teilhard expressly stated that in the Omega Point, when the universe becomes One, human persons will not be suppressed, but super-personalized. Personality will be infinitely enriched. This is because the Omega Point unites creation, and the more it unites, the increasing complexity of the universe aids in higher levels of consciousness. Thus, as God creates, the universe evolves towards higher forms of complexity, consciousness, and finally with humans, personality, because God, who is drawing the universe towards Him, is a person.
- Transcendent.
- The Omega Point cannot be the result of the universe's final complex stage of itself's own consciousness. Instead, the Omega Point must exist even before the universe's evolution, because the Omega Point is responsible for the rise of the universe towards more complexity, consciousness and personality. Which essentially means that the Omega Point is outside the framework in which the universe rises, because it is by the attraction of the Omega Point that the universe evolves towards Him.
- Autonomous
- That is, free from the limitations of space (nonlocality) and time (atemporality).
- Irreversible
- That is attainable and imperative; it must happen and cannot be undone.
Like Creative Evolution before it Teilhard’s masterwork, The Human Phenomenon,
based its evolutionary speculations on widely accepted scientific knowledge, but it took an unusual turn by remaining strictly rooted in the theological wisdom afforded him by his deep Christian faith. Although his theories regarding the future cosmic evolution of consciousness didn’t win him many converts in the Catholic Church (which officially condemned his writings and prohibited him from publishing anything while alive), he has left a lasting impression on the hearts and minds of numerous evolutionary thinkers who have followed in his wake. In particular, many theorists have found immense value in Teilhard’s focus on the back-and-forth interplay of individuality and collectivity over the course of cosmic history. Teilhard envisioned the possibility that human beings, like molecules and bacteria before them, may one day come together in a higher integration, or “mega-synthesis,” of spiritual unification and collective consciousness—uniting in a kind of “thinking envelope” surrounding the earth. He dubbed this the “noosphere,” a psychic field of shared intelligence that was already beginning to slowly encompass the planet, transcending and including the geosphere (of insentient matter) and the biosphere (of life). And Teilhard foresaw the fulfillment of all evolution, both cosmic and human, in an ultimate convergence of matter and consciousness that he called the “Omega Point”—a concept that has also inspired many futurists and science fiction writers over the last fifty years.
Shortly before his death in 1955, Teilhard made the following reflection on his life and work, proving that despite the intense ideological adversity he encountered, his faith in the ever-ascending evolutionary power of divinity remained unshaken to the end:
When all is said and done, I can see this: I managed to climb to the point where the Universe became apparent to me as a great rising surge, in which all the work that goes into serious inquiry, all the will to create, all the acceptance of suffering, converge ahead into a single dazzling spearhead—now, at the end of my life, I can stand on the peak I have scaled and continue to look ever more closely into the future, and there, with ever more assurance,
see the ascent of God.
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Comment by Michael Grove on April 6, 2013 at 7:47
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The Evolutionary's Guide to Changing the World.
In his 1955 masterpiece The Phenomenon of Man, French priest and
paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote the following words:
"Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a curve that all lines
must follow." Over the course of the past half century since its
publication, this prophetic statement has turned out to be true, as
evolution has become a defining framework in which we are beginning
to understand virtually everything - from biology and technology to the
interior dimensions of reality like our psychology, cultural worldviews,
and even spirituality.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin goes on to propose in Chapter 3: The
Grand Option of his book, which he aptly entitled The Future of
Mankind ... "This being so, let us look at the human species
and SEE IF we can fit it into the scheme. Because we ate a part of it,
because the rhythm of its growth is infinitely slow in comparison with
our own, and because its grandeur overwhelms us, Mankind, in its
total evolution, escapes our intuitive grasp. But may we not see
reflected in the life around us things that we cannot see directly
in ourselves? Let us study ourselves in the mirror of other living
forms. WHAT DO WE SEE ? "
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At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the notion that the evolutionary process is ultimately driven by a spiritual impulse is continuing to gain traction, with a growing number of progressive philosophers, scientists, and mystics exploring its implications.
To many, it is simply a compelling philosophy, uniting the revelations of science and spirituality in a way that no other theory can. But others, like Aurobindo before them, are beginning to reach beyond a theoretical discussion to wonder: What might human life and culture look like if we fully took to heart the reality of this view?
Freed from the mythic dogmatisms of premodern religion, transcending the materialistic biases of modern scientific thought, and liberated from the narcissistic self-absorptions of postmodernity, what kind of new world could human beings aligned with the trajectory of a spiritually evolving cosmos actually create?
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“Just as the biosphere is the unified field of lifeand its support systems…so the noosphere
is the unified field of the mind, the psychic
reflection of the biosphere. Because we as a
species, the aggregate of consciousness-bearing
cells of the evolving Earth, are not yet awake to
our role as a planetary organism, so too the
noosphere is not yet fully conscious.
When humanity becomes conscious of itself asa single organism and unites to activate the
noosphere, we will find the collective resolve
and will to reconstruct the biosphere and divert
the energy of the human race from a path of
destruction based on a mechanised abstraction from
nature to a new harmonic order of super-organic
reality based on an entirely different state
of consciousness than has yet existed on Earth.”
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We stand today at the beginning of Teilhard's
third phase of evolution, the moment at which
the world is covered with the incandescent glow
of consciousness. Teilhard characterized this as
"evolution becoming conscious of [IT]self."
The Net, that great collectivizer of minds, is the
primary tool for our emergence into the third
phase and as John Perry Barlow says...
"With cyberspace, we are, in effect, [NOW]
hard-wiring the collective consciousness,"
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