Teilhard de Chardin: Man's Future
A Visionary Theory of Evolution and Man's Fate, Beyond Genetics
Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest, claims in his theory that man's fate is to evolve spirtiually, not genetically, toward a version of Christ he calls the Omega Point.
A paleontologist and member of the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church during the first half of the 20th Century, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin taught that evolution had progressed beyond the physical realm, the realm of mere genetic alteration over time, and relocated itself in the immaterial dimension of human consciousness, or spirit. As he saw it, human evolution had a goal— to be understood as a divinely personal force existing outside the universe, which would be fully revealed only at the end of humanity's evolution: the Omega Point, a sort of super-Christ.
Teilhardian theory says that at the evolutionary point of man’s appearance within the biosphere, the development of life changed course. Thenceforth, it was no longer an affair of adaptation to material conditions for the sake of elementary physical survival—the evolutionary drive of speciation (creation of new species)—but of the ascent of man’s consciousness itself, which Teilhard identifies as “the spirit of the earth.”
Why Consciousness and Why Should It Evolve?
Teilhard maintains that human awareness is unique: not only are humans aware, they are aware that they are aware. This “folding back” of awareness is the defining trait of true consciousness—the gift and burden of human existence. Man is aware not only of material reality, the space/time cosmos, but of himself as the one who is aware. Man knows that he knows. And he knows the manner of his knowing as well: whether his purposes are creative or destructive, lovingkind or vicious. Thus man has a choice. He possesses freedom. And with this freedom comes an awesome power and responsibility.
In addition to the geosphere, the nonliving layer of the earth, and the biosphere, or life-layer, Teilhard de Chardin recognizes a third: the Noosphere (from Greek: nous, or mind). The Noosphere comprises consciousness alone. It is a solely human planetary layer, shared only (but in a manner inconceivable to human understanding) by the Omega Point itself. Due to the property of freedom in human consciousness—our capacity to discern and to choose between brutality and benevolence—our dominance, or “totalization,” of the planet will result in either self-destruction, or the unification of all humanity in a supreme effort of deliberate self-transformation along evolutionary lines leading to the Omega Point. In other words we must spiritualize as a totality, or perish as a species—evolve or die.
More About the Omega Point
The prime characteristic of spiritual growth is, according to this Catholic thinker, its irreversibility. We sense that the universe is not absurd, that “the spirit as a whole will never fall back” (Human Energy, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, pp. 40-41). This must be true, since otherwise we would lack the will to go on living. Spiritual evolution is therefore intrinsic to the Noosphere. Our spiritual attainments are never lost, never in vain—it is in the nature of the Omega Point to draw us on to ever higher attainments and “complexification.” Man’s totalizing appropriation of the planet is itself an aspect of spiritualizing growth, a phenomenon that cannot take place in conditions of individual isolation. Everyone is a part, or no one is a part. The Omega Point is both the goal toward which we are striving and a supreme consciousness existing independently of time, the laws of matter.
It is somewhat difficult to grasp Teilhard’s conception of how we are eventually to unite with Omega, the super-Christ awaiting us at time’s end. To gain some understanding of this, it is important to bear in mind that all consciousness is personal. There is no “folding back” of awareness, and therefore no spiritual evolution, outside of personality. Like each one of us, the Omega Point is a personal entity. Specifically, it is the sum of every human personality within the Noosphere, which it gathers to itself in a divinely transcendent version of earth’s totalization by man. Time will end—and our evolution be at last fulfilled—when, through a collective action of willed transcendence and harmonization, we voluntarily merge with God. Such is our cosmic fate according to Teilhard’s priestly revision of scientific evolution: to attain the highest by leaving our earthly, material plane behind and disappearing into the super-Christ.
Sources:
The Future of Man. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Human Energy. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
