Teilhard de Chardin — Priest, Scientist, and Prophet

Dear Friends,

The contribution of the life work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955) towards the development of cosmic Christianity is inestimable. A French Jesuit and a distinguished paleontologist and geologist, he is especially well known as a religious writer, as the author of The Human Phenomenon and The Divine Milieu and other books. He was a fervent Christian mystic, harboring a special, life-long devotion to the Sacred Heart of the Christ Jesus. He was a deeply caring pastor of souls, as well a great thinker who developed and launched into the far future the meaning of the Christian gospel in the light of modern science and evolution.

“Under the combined influence of humanity’s thoughts and aspirations,” he wrote in Christianity and Evolution (trsl. R. Hague, London, 1971, p. 180) “the universe around us is seen to be knit together and convulsed by a vast movement of convergence. Not only theoretically, but experientially, our modern cosmogony is taking the form of cosmogenesis . . . at the term of which we can distinguish a supreme focus of personalising personality. . . . Just suppose that we identify (at least in his “natural” aspect) the cosmic Christ of faith with the Omega point of science: then everything in our outlook is clarified and broadened, and falls into harmony.”

Personalising personality: this for Teilhard de Chardin is the key idea of both his religion and of his science. This is the projected realilty of Christ’s transformation of the universe realized through each and every human being who would allow it to work through the soul as divine love and wisdom: there being, in the long view and in the highest sense, no reality beyond the Personality itself as the “Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end”.

In sum, the Sacred Heart is for Teilhard absolutely pivotal to the Christianity of the future, understanding as he did that the Sacred Heart is Christ Omega, which is nothing less than the point towards which the entire universe is converging.

Two articles follow.  The first is a biographical sketch by Siôn Cowell. The URL of this article is http://www.teilhard.org.uk/teilhard-de-chardin/noosphere/.

The  second is an interview with Professor Brian Swimme, mathematical cosmologist on the graduate faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies. The URL of the article is http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j19/teilhard.asp

In both these articles we are given a strong sense of the importance of this man’s thinking for the future of Christianity and for the future of humanity itself.  

Pax et bonum,
Randall Scott

The Man

By Siôn Cowell

‘The man was much greater than the sum of his qualities’

Prologue

‘In the beginning was power,
intelligent,
loving,
energising.
In the beginning was the Word,
supremely capable of mastering
and moulding
whatever might come into being
in the world of matter.
In the beginning there were not coldness and darkness:
there was fire!’

Fire, symbol of the numinous, is a recurring symbol in the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). It figures prominently in the Teilhard family motto: ‘Igneus est illis vigor et cælestis origo’ (‘Their strength is of fire and their source of heaven’).

Introduction

Member of the Society of Jesus, Teilhard (pronounced ‘tay-yar’) is probably one of the most written-about Jesuits of all time. And he is certainly one of the most controversial Jesuits of the twentieth century. After his death, his religious writings, once banned by his religious superiors, have sold in their millions and have been translated into every major language.  His influence on the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) is undoubted.  In one survey he was named as the person who, more than anyone else, had exercised a determining influence on those who look, not backwards to the past, but forwards to the future.

Much of his life was spent abroad in places far from home where his religious superiors in the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) thought he could cause the least theological disturbance. Frequently misunderstood by friend and foe alike, much of his time was spent in the company of non-believers. And yet the Christian faith he had learnt as a child was to be confirmed and strengthened by a lifetime of work and travel in four continents. His priesthood and his religious commitment dominated his lifework. And for his confrère and last superior: ‘Teilhard is, above all, a religious, a son of St Ignatius, a priest and a missionary.’

Teilhard himself was an internationally well-known palaeontologist – expert on human fossil origins. His reputation is grounded in the part he played in the discovery in 1929 of ‘Peking Man’ (Homo erectus pekinensis) – then thought to have been the first hominid to have used fire. His scientific work in China and elsewhere earned him international recognition. In 1950 his career was crowned by election to the French Academy of Sciences. In 1965 and again in 1981 he was honoured at symposia at the Paris-based UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation).

The Man

Teilhard was not ‘holy’ in any popular sense. And yet those who knew him speak of ‘a “climate” of deep spirituality and pure science which enveloped him wherever he went.’  They remember ‘his warm welcome and graceful manner; his aristocratic bearing, slightly ironic smile and twinkling clear eyes.’

Others mention his face, ‘long and thin, exuding charm like others exude boredom. His nose, slightly hooked, seemed to hover between cheeks etched with lines which appeared to radiate from magnificent pearl grey eyes.’  All who knew him recall ‘a certain grace and irony, a sharp yet benevolent finesse, an Oxford air which reminded one of an English scholar who was both a Darwin and a Newman.’

For his friend and confrère Pierre Leroy, ‘He was ever ready to display his natural sense of humour.’  ‘What struck me,’ he adds, ‘was his look: his eyes pierced you without harming you. His face radiated a natural kindness.’

Early years

Born the fourth of eleven children on 1 May 1881 at the modest family château in Sarcenat in the heart of the French Auvergne, Teilhard died in exile in New York on Easter Sunday 10 April 1955. Only a short time before, at a dinner at the French Consulate in New York on 15 March, he had expressed the hope that he might die ‘on the Day on the Resurrection.’

The Teilhard family traces its origins back to the early fourteenth century. Pierre Teilhard, notary in Dienne, Cantal, is mentioned in a deed of 1325. One ancestor, Astorg Teillard, was raised to the nobility in 1538. Another, Pierre Teilhard de Rochecharles-Beaurepaire, nearly lost his head in the Revolution. In 1841 the Teilhard and the de Chardin families were joined on the marriage of Pierre’s grandparents, Pierre-Cirice Teilhard and Victoire Barron de Chardin.

Pierre-Marie-Joseph Teilhard de Chardin spent his early childhood at Sarcenat (1881-1892). His parents with whom he had an excellent rapport taught him two ‘loves.’ From his father Emmanuel,  a well-known amateur archivist, he learned ‘love of the earth.’ From his mother Berthe-Adèle de Dompierre d’Hornoy, a great grand-niece of Voltaire, he learned ‘love of God.’ These two ‘loves’ – and the resolution of the apparent conflict between them – were to remain with him throughout his life. They were to cause considerable problems to him and his religious superiors.

Vocation

Teilhard like many children of the minor aristocracy was educated at home before going to the Jesuit College of Nôtre Dame de Mongré at Villefranche-sur-Saône, Rhône (1892-1899). On 20 March 1899 he entered he entered the Jesuit novitiate (Province of Lyon) in Aix-en-Provence. And he was to remain committed to the Society for the rest of his life. He saw the Society of Jesus as ‘an order of pioneers’ placed as it were at the head of the vanguard.

First vows followed in 1901 during his juniorate at Laval  just as a major anti-clerical storm was about to break in France. A series of anti-clerical laws forced many religious congregations to leave France. The Society of Jesus thought it prudent to withdraw its students from France and Teilhard and his confrères found themselves spending the next few years in Jersey (1902-1905).

After receiving his Licence-ès-lettres from Caen University (to which students of all disciplines from the Channel Islands went until the Second World War) Teilhard was sent to Egypt where he taught physics and chemistry at the Jesuit College of the Holy Family in Cairo (1905-1908) before returning to England in 1908.

Modernism

While in Egypt the modernist crisis in the Catholic Church reached its head with its condemnation by Pius X in his decree Lamentabili and his encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907). Modernism began as a well-intentioned attempt to bring the Catholic Church into line with the latest thinking in science and philosophy. It ended up by diminishing the person of Christ.

Teilhard was no modernist. He saw himself ‘at the antipodes of modernism … Christ must always be far greater than our greatest conception of the world.’  ‘The modernist “volatilises” Christ and dissolves him in the world. While I am trying to concentrate the world in Christ.’

In 1910 Teilhard and his fellow-students took the anti-modernist oath required of all clergy until comparatively recently under the Motu proprio Sacrorum antistitum of 1909.

Ordination

After his return from Egypt he spent the next four years studying theology at the Jesuit house at Ore Place, Hastings. On 24 August 1911 Teilhard was ordained priest at Ore Place. In 1912 he returned to Paris to begin research work at the Natural History Museum with the internationally well-known palaeontologist Marcellin Boule.

First World War

In December 1914 Teilhard was mobilised as a non-combatant stretcher-bearer (2nd class) in the 8th Tirailleurs (4th Mixed Zouaves-Tirailleurs) on the western front. Here he remained throughout the war. Preferring to share the fate of his fellow soldiers, he resisted all attempts to get him to accept a commission as chaplain. He emerged unscathed from the combat despite frequent forays into no-man’s land to recover the dead and injured. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded both the Croix de Guerre (1915) and the Military Medal (1917).

The First World War marked the beginning of the flowering of his genius. In 1916 he wrote his first essay ‘Cosmic Life’ and the three stories ‘in the style of Benson’ he called ‘Christ in Matter.’ In between essay and letter writing and trench-duties he found time to read Newman’s Apologia and Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine as well as Dante’s Divine Comedy.

‘I have been reading Thureau-Dangin’s Newman catholique … I feel more than ever in sympathy with the great Cardinal, so undaunted, so firm of faith, so full, as he says of himself, “of life and thought” – and, at the same time, so thwarted.’

Teilhard had been drawn to John Henry Newman while a student at Ore Place. Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845) not only influenced Teilhard’s thinking on the development of dogma but also, by transposition, his views on cosmic evolution. Newman had declared himself ready ‘to go the whole hog’ with Darwin: ‘I cannot imagine why Darwinism should be considered inconsistent with catholic doctrine.’ Newman believed evolution had important philosophical implications: ‘I saw that the principle of development not only accounted for certain facts, but was in itself a remarkable philosophical phenomenon.’

As a young Jesuit Teilhard had momentarily been tempted to give up the world to devote himself wholly to God. Happily his novice master at Laval, Paul Troussard SJ, had persuaded him otherwise. Love of God and love of the world could be reconciled, not renouncing one in favour of the other, but by loving one through loving the other.

In his first essay ‘Cosmic Life’ (1916) he writes: ‘There is a communion with God and a communion with the earth and a communion with God through the earth … In this first basic vision we begin to see how the Kingdom of God and cosmic love may be reconciled: the bosom of Mother Earth is, in some way, the bosom of God.’ And he concludes: ‘To live the cosmic life is to live with the dominating consciousness that each one of us is an atom of the mystical and cosmic body of Christ.’

On 26 May 1918 he took his final vows at Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon. Early in 1919 he was demobilised and returned to Paris. In 1920 he was appointed lecturer in palaeontology and geology at the prestigious Catholic Institute of Paris. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1921. And in March 1922 he successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the mammals of the French lower eocene at the Sorbonne. President of the Geological Society of France (1922-1923), he made his first visit to China (1923-1925) just as a major storm was about to break over his head: this was to be his ‘moment of truth.’

Fall

In the spring of 1922 he had prepared, at the request of a brother Jesuit, Louis Riedenger, a private discussion paper which (in his own words) looked at ‘three possible ways of representing original sin.’ His views, as he stressed to Riedenger, were no more than ‘an initial approximation.’ This essentially exploratory paper rejected the idea of a primaeval ‘earthly paradise.’ Its thrust was frankly evolutionary – something guaranteed to earn black marks in a Rome still reeling from the aftershocks of modernism at the turn of the century.

In 1924, while Teilhard was absent on a trip to China, a copy of this paper had somehow been ‘removed’ from his desk and sent to the Jesuit Curia in Rome. His line of thinking alarmed his superiors who found themselves under constant pressure from the Holy Office to take a closer look at the orthodoxy of their members. And the Jesuit Curia, fearing draconian action by the Holy Office, reacted with vigour.

Teilhard confessed he could not have imagined that ‘views … already well-known’ to his friends could have caused so much trouble. His superiors took a different view. In May 1925 they told him he was to leave the Catholic Institute and return to China. A month later he was asked to sign six propositions: he did so with certain reservations. These propositions cannot now be traced. And despite all, his faith in the Church remained unshaken.

Chinese exile

In April 1926 he left for China although officially he is shown as being on ‘leave’ until 1928. China was to remain his home on and off for the next twenty years. And during the thirties his palaeontological work was to take him to Asia, America and Europe.

The Jesuit Curia has often been criticised for ‘silencing’ Teilhard. But, as Thomas Corbishley SJ says, ‘If his superiors were to show a regrettable timidity in refusing to allow him to publish certain writings which seemed, at the time, dangerously novel, it was these same superiors who encouraged his scientific bent and gave him every opportunity to pursue his interests in the realms of geology, palaeontology, the study of human origins, which were to provide the basis for his larger speculations.’

The Jesuit Curia, in fact, was to provide Teilhard with invaluable protection against harsher measures by the Holy Office. ‘It was in the Far East,’ says Alain Guillermou, ‘on the road already trodden by Francis Xavier, de Nobili and Ricci, that Teilhard de Chardin, man of science and man of prayer, was to realise the ignatian idea of contemplation in action.’ In March 1927 he completed his spiritual masterpiece Le Milieu divin but the Jesuit curia successfully prevented its publication until after his death.

Peking Man

Early in 1929 he became scientific advisor to the National Geological Survey of China which was excavating at Choukoutien (Zhoukoudian) near Peiping (Peking). On 2 December 1929 Peï Wen-chung (Pei Wenzhong) discovered the first skull. At the time Sinanthropus pekinensis, now known as Homo erectus pekinensis, was thought to be one of the first hominids to have used fire – an important step in the process of hominisation. As stratigrapher – expert on geological strata and their succession – Teilhard played a major role in dating the discovery.

Second World War

During the Second World War Teilhard was unable to leave Japanese-occupied China. In 1944 he learned his superiors in Rome had refused him permission to publish Le Phénomène humain which he had written in Peiping in 1938-1940.

Paris interlude

On his return to Paris in 1946 he was appointed Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and promoted Officer of the Legion of Honour (1947). In Paris he met, amongst others, Julian Huxley, grandson of Darwin’s ‘Bulldog,’ Thomas Huxley.

Huxley was to become one of his closest friends and one of his most ardent defenders. It is a strange twist of fate that the grandson of the man who had earlier defended Darwin should later be the man who was to defend Teilhard against attacks from reductionists like Peter Medawar.

In 1947 he suffered his first heart attack. In 1948 he was refused permission once again to publish Le Phénomène or to offer himself as a candidate to succeed Henri Breuil at the College of France. But in 1950 he was elected a member of the prestigious Academy of Sciences in Paris – evidence of his eminent standing in the scientific community.

American exile

At the end of 1951 he began what was to be his final ‘exile’ in the United States where he occupied a research post at the Wenner-Gren Foundation in New York for which he made two palaeontological and archaeological expeditions to Southern Africa. He paid his last visit to France in the summer of 1954 before returning to New York where he died on Easter Sunday 10 April 1955: his funeral three days later was attended by less than a dozen people. He is buried in the Jesuit cemetery of St Andrew-on-Hudson near Poughkeepsie (NY) on property that now belongs to the Culinary Institute of America – a nice touch for a Frenchman who revelled in the joy of creation!

Writings

Teilhard was a prolific writer. In addition to no less than eleven volumes of strictly scientific material, he wrote three books and more than two hundred essays. None of his books and very few of his non-scientific writings were published in his lifetime. Much of what he wrote was never intended for immediate publication. He was never able to engage in the sort of critical dialogue with a wider audience that would have allowed him to refine his views.

Teilhard never thought of himself as a theologian in any professional sense but he was vitally concerned with the fate of his religious writings after his death. ‘Above all,’ he was to tell his secretary, Jeanne-Marie Mortier, ‘take care of the publication of my religious work. That’s what concerns me most. There’ll always be someone to publish my scientific work.’

And this is exactly what Jeanne Mortier was to do between 1955-1976. She had, in fact, been appointed executor in 1951 on the suggestion of Raymond Jouve SJ, editor of the Jesuit magazine études. And this wholly in conformity with Canon Law which allows for the disposal of personal property after the death of a religious.

Le Phénomène humain appeared in French in 1955 and in English in 1957. Le Milieu divin followed in French in 1957 and in English in 1960. Both rapidly became international bestsellers. The Human Phenomenon was published in a new and improved English translation in 1999.

Decree and Monitum

On 6 December 1957 the Holy Office published a decree laying down, amongst other things, that ‘the books of Father Teilhard de Chardin SJ must be withdrawn from the libraries of seminaries and religious institutes; they may not be sold in catholic bookshops; and they may not be translated into other languages.’ The decree had little or no effect on the continued publication or the translation of Teilhard’s works.

Five years later the official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano of 1 July 1962, carried a monitum that added nothing to the earlier warnings from the Holy Office. It no longer mentioned the ban on Teilhard’s writings but went further in speaking not only of ‘ambiguities’ but also of ‘grave errors which offend catholic doctrine.’ The monitum gave no indication of the ‘ambiguities’ or ‘errors’ it had in mind but the same issue of Osservatore Romano also contained a long but unsigned article which purported to represent a sort of authorised commentary.

Shortly afterwards, the Jesuit General Jean-Baptiste Janssens authorised Teilhard’s friend and confrère, the theologian (and later cardinal) Henri de Lubac, to publish a defence of Teilhard (La pensée religieuse du Père Teilhard de Chardin, 1962, published with imprimatur), saying it would be quite wrong to attach any value to an anonymous article. Pope John XXIII later described the incident of the monitum as ‘most regrettable.’ Both decree and monitum have long since been forgotten by all but Teilhard’s bitterest opponents who, in the words of theologian Bruno de Solages, quite simply cannot not see beyond their noses.

Vatican II

Teilhard would undoubtedly have welcomed the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the opening of doors and windows to the world proclaimed by John XXIII. He would have rejoiced in the language of Gaudium et spes – the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965).

He anticipated the Council by more than ten years. ‘In evolutionary terms,’ says Louis Armand, ‘the initiatives of the Jesuit palaeontologist and Pope John XXIII belong to the same wave.’ Émile Rideau SJ believes he contributed to its ‘new approach.’ And Henri de Lubac suggests there is a remarkable convergence between his thought and the thinking that predominated at the Council. René d’Ouince SJ is convinced the words of John XXIII and the texts of many of the conciliar documents contain clear teilhardian overtones.

Robert Faricy SJ argues Gaudium et spes is ‘clearly grounded in the fundamental orientations and basic concepts of Teilhard’s thought’ and depends ‘in many ways on Teilhard’s Christology.’ His theology, says Faricy, is ‘clearly the most important influence, even a dominating one, on the document.’ And the introduction reads as though it ‘had been dictated by Teilhard himself.’

Towards a new Nicæa?

Teilhard, however, looks to what he calls a ‘new Nicæa’ to combat the threat of what he calls a new arianism, a new diminution of Christ, not in relation to the Trinity, but in relation to the universe. ‘I am more and more convinced,’ he writes to Bruno de Solages, ‘the Church will only be able to resume its conquering march when (resuming the great theological effort of the first five centuries) it starts to rethink (ultra-think) the relations, no longer between Christ and the Trinity, but between Christ and a universe that has become fantastically immense and organic (at least a thousand billion galaxies each surely containing life and thought). Christianity can only survive (and super-live) by subdistinguishing in the “human nature” of the Word Incarnate between a “terrestrial nature” and a “cosmic nature.”‘ ‘I am more than ever convinced,’ he adds, ‘that we shall need, sooner or later, a new Nicæa that will define the cosmic face of the incarnation.’

He sees, in other words, a new ecumenical council defining the relations, not between Christ and the Trinity, but between Christ and the cosmos: ‘It seems,’ he tells André Ravier, ‘we are now reliving after 1,500 years the great conflicts with arianism – with the big difference that we are now concerned with defining the relations, not between Christ and the Trinity, but between Christ and a universe that has suddenly become fantastically large, formidably organic and more than probably poly-human (thinking planets – millions perhaps). And if I may express myself brutally (but expressively) I see no valid or constructive way out of the situation except by making through the theologians of a new Nicæa a sub-distinction in the human nature of Christ between a terrestrial nature and a cosmic nature.’

Vatican II only partially addressed these concerns. It dealt with the relationship, not between Christ and the cosmos, but between the Church and the world. The question of a third or cosmic nature of Christ remains ‘unfinished business.’ A ‘new Nicæa’ that would bring together the catholic and orthodox churches of east and west has yet to be summoned.

Scientific criticism

Many scientists see evolution as nothing more than the product of chance. Some like Peter Medawar and more recently Stephen Jay Gould see nothing scientific about Teilhard’s work. They impugn his scientific bona fides. They even accuse him of fraud and dishonesty. Medawar, for example, speaking on the Radio 4 Programme The Heart of Matter, says The Human Phenomenon is nothing more than ‘a metaphysical romance, a philosophical romance … a philosophical fiction, a good parallel with science fiction.’ And Stephen Jay Gould says ‘I see no evidence for Teilhard’s noosphere, for Capra’s California style of holism (sic), for Sheldrake’s morphic resonance. Gaia strikes me as a metaphor, not a mechanism.’

George Barbour, however, says, ‘In his own field of palaeontology his observations are unchallenged.’ Barbour stresses he is not alone: he is supported by Theodosius Dobzhansky, Julian Huxley and Charles Raven , Jean Piveteau, Conrad Waddington and Edward Dodson who recognise that even though Teilhard’s conclusions cannot be verified experimentally, they are not contrary to scientifically established facts.

Barbour suggests ‘the list of outstanding scientists and thinkers who were ready to sponsor’ the publication of his collective works is striking testimony to the regard in which Teilhard is held. And Julian Huxley, who was to become one of Teilhard’s closest friends and most ardent defenders, speaks warmly of his achievement in ‘linking science and religion across the bridge of evolution.’ Although Huxley confesses he was ‘quite unable to follow him in his conclusions about Christification, Point Omega and the like,’ he never denies Teilhard’s essential achievement as a builder of bridges.

Piltdown

It was while he was studying at Ore Place that Teilhard became implicated by association with the Piltdown Scandal that was to break many years later (1953-1954). In 1911 Charles Dawson ‘discovered’ so-called Piltdown Man (Eanthropus dawsoni) near Uckfield, Sussex. Teilhard mentions the ‘findings’ in his diary (3 June 1911) but was he really involved in the deception? His many friends in the scientific world did not think so. And his continued standing in the scientific community was more than adequately reflected in the composition of the international scientific committee of patronage formed after his death to promote the publication of his collected works. UNESCO would hardly have organised international symposia in his honour in 1965 and 1981 if they had really thought he was nothing more than a scientific fraudster.

He was – and continued to remain after the scandal broke – a Corresponding Member of the French Academy of Sciences, Hon. Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Hon. Member of the New York Academy of Sciences and Officer of the Legion of Honour. None of this would have been possible had there been any doubt about his personal, intellectual and scientific integrity. And his reputation has survived attempts by Stephen Jay Gould to suggest his complicity in the Piltdown deception.

Theological criticism

Some theologians were equally condemnatory. Guérard des Lauriers OP believed Teilhard’s thesis was nothing more than ‘a false metaphysics and a false theology sheltering under a parody of “science”.’ And Philippe de la Trinité OP, spoke of Teilhard as ‘a pseudo theologian from the point of view of catholic theology.’ Irish Marist G.H. Duggan thought his synthesis was bold but ‘not compatible with the Christian faith.’

This is clearly not the view of Cardinal Casaroli writing on behalf of Pope John Paul II in 1981 (see below). Nor is it the view of Cardinals Henri de Lubac SJ and Jean Daniélou SJ or of a host of distinguished but objective theologians and thinkers including James Lyons SJ, Christopher Mooney SJ, Bruno de Solages, Norbertus Maximiliaan Wildiers OFMCap, René d’Ouince SJ, Jean Guitton, Madeleine Barthélemy-Madaule, Gérard-Henry Baudry, André Ravier SJ, Francis Elliott SJ, Robert Faricy SJ, Thomas King SJ, George Maloney SJ, émile Rideau SJ, Thomas Corbishley SJ, Louis Barjon SJ, Attila Szekeres, Emily Binns, John Grim, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Ursula King, Claude Tresmontant, Gerald Vann OP, John Russell SJ and many others.

And even if some of Teilhard’s expressions may surprise or even shock, he remains wholly faithful to St Paul in emphasising the cosmic dimensions of Christ. When he writes that ‘evolution is holy’ he continues to profess a fully personal Christ.

‘Rehabilitation’

Teilhard was never condemned by the Church. Suspected – yes. Silenced and exiled by his own order – yes. But condemned – never. His views were frequently misunderstood by friend and foe alike. The Church, however, never questioned his commitment to herself or to his order. The process of ‘rehabilitation’ that had begun immediately after his death gathered pace on the centenary of his birth in 1981 with an important seminar on Teilhard at the Catholic Institute of Paris.

In a letter to the Rector of the Institute written on behalf of Pope John Paul II Cardinal Casaroli spoke warmly Teilhard’s ‘powerful poetic insight into the deep value of nature … his constant desire for dialogue with science’ and, above all, his concern ‘to honour both faith and reason.’ And Pedro Arrupe SJ, General of the Society of Jesus, wrote to the Provincial of France: ‘Teilhard’s ideas proclaim the openness and concern with cultivating the world which characterised the teachings of the Council and of John XXIII and Paul VI and, today, John Paul II.’

On 5 January 1983 Henri de Lubac was created cardinal. John Paul II honoured de Lubac in his own right but he also honoured, in a very real sense, Teilhard in the person of de Lubac who had been his great defender. And this was developed even further in 1995 on the fortieth anniversary of Teilhard’s death in letters from Peter-Hans Kolvenbach SJ on behalf of the Jesuits and from Timothy Radcliffe OP on behalf of the Dominicans.

Teilhard is now recognised as a true transdisciplinarian. He is one of the pioneer builders of bridges between science and religion. His ideas bring coherence to the new story of the universe. They continue to impact on science and spirituality. Above all, they provide a powerful antidote to the prevailing materialisms of contemporary society.

Pierre Noir SJ calls him ‘a European humanist with a planetary vocation.’ Étienne Borne speaks of him as ‘a religious genius and one of the greatest Christian thinkers of the century … a poet because all genius is poetic.’ Bruno de Solages, rector of the Catholic Institute of Toulouse (1932-1964), sees him as ‘the greatest Christian apologist since Pascal.’

‘Teilhard’s poetic vision,’ say Douglas Letson and Michael Higgins, ‘can be found at that point of intersection between matter and spirit that highlights the deficiencies of our conventional modes of discourse and understanding. It should not be surprising, then, that most scientists, both Jesuit and non-Jesuit, should approach Teilhard with a combination of caution, bemusement, and disapproval. It is the mystical flavour, the interdisciplinary thrust, of Teilhard’s thought that vexes them. The science is fine.’

The Divinization of the Cosmos

An interview with Brian Swimme
on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

What Is Enlightenment: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a great thinker who had a profound influence on your own understanding. Can you tell us a bit about Teilhard—who he was, and what you believe his most significant contributions were?

Brian Swimme: He was a French Jesuit paleontologist who lived from 1881 to 1955. His most important achievement was to articulate the significance of the new story of evolution. He was the first major thinker in the West to fully articulate that evolution and the sacred identify, or correlate. Teilhard de Chardin in the West and Sri Auro­bindo in India really arrived at the same basic vision, which is that the unfolding of the universe is a physical evolution and also a spiritual evolution. I think that’s his principal contribution. On the one hand, you have this awesome tradition about God or Brahman, and on the other, you have this tradition about evolution—and adherents of each view tend to be very critical of the others. Christians said, “Evolution, that’s horrible!” And scientists said, “Theism, that’s horrible!” Aurobindo and Teilhard brought them together. So I think of them both as geniuses who synthesized the two visions. Teilhard attempted to get beyond the fundamental subjective/objective dualism in much of Western thought. He began to really see the universe as a single energy event that was both physical and psychic or even spiritual. I think that’s his great contribution: He began to see the universe in an integral way, not as just objective matter but as suffused with psychic or spiritual energy.

Also, in my thinking, the central idea of Teilhard is his law of “complexification-consciousness.” He identifies this as the fundamental law of evolution. He sees that the whole process is about complexifying and deepening intelligence or subjectivity. The entire movement of the universe in its complexification is simultaneously a movement further into the depths of consciousness, or interiority. He saw the whole thing as a physical-biological-spiritual process. He was the one who saw it all together. You could summarize his thought simplistically and say that the universe begins with matter, develops into life, develops into thought, develops into God. That’s his whole vision, right there. Now clearly, this God that develops—it’s not as if God is developed out of matter. God is present from the very beginning, but in an implicit form, and the universe is accomplishing this great work of making divinity explicit.

WIE: What was Teilhard’s vision of the nature and role of the human being in evolution?

Swimme: His view was that the birth of self-reflexive consciousness in the human was a crucial moment in the earth’s journey. And he stated that the discovery of evolution by humans represents the most dramatic change in human mentality in the last two million years. You think of the Bill of Rights, the journey to the moon, the great religions, all of these incredible things—he thought all of these were secondary compared to this discovery of evolution by human consciousness. He saw it as “the universe folding back on itself.” There are all these creatures that live in nature, and then suddenly you have this one creature that looks nature back in the eye and says, “What exactly are you up to?” That switch he saw as fundamental.

He explored this idea further by speaking of—and I love this idea—the earth as a series of envelopes. First you have the lithosphere, or the surface layer of rock, and then the atmos­phere develops, and the hydrosphere, and the biosphere. But his understanding is that in our time, there’s another layer being added, and that is the “noosphere”—a layer generated by human thought. It’s not possible to understand the earth unless you see it in terms of these layers. The way in which this has captured the contemporary imagination is in the development of the internet—it’s almost like the sinews of the noosphere.

WIE: Wired magazine did an article on Teilhard a while ago that makes this point. But they went a bit too far and seemed to equate Teilhard’s noosphere with the internet, suggesting that his vision was simply a precognition of the internet.

Swimme: Yes. I guess there are different ways to reduce his thought down and miss parts of it, and one would be to say the noosphere is the internet. But of course, Teilhard would say that, like everything else in the universe, it has a physical as well as a spiritual dimension.

WIE: What is the significance of our becoming aware of the process of evolution?

Swimme: Teilhard gave a great analogy. Our moment of waking up as a species is very much like what happens in the individual at around two years old. I don’t know the exact time, but there comes a moment when the young child gets depth perception for the first time. So in their phenomenal field, there’s a rearrangement of the phenomena into the third dimension as opposed to a two-dimensional map. He said that the species is going through that right now—we’re discovering a depth of time. Before, we saw everything in terms of this much smaller space, and now, “Wham!” the universe as a whole opens up in the depths of time.

Teilhard also had this phrase called “hominization.” Hominization is the way in which human thought transforms previously existing practices and functions of the earth. Let me give you an example. The earth makes decisions all the time; it makes choices. And in a broad sense, this is called natural selection. But when you throw human thought in there, it explodes into all of the decisions we’re making all over the planet. Human decision has “hominized” the natural selection process—for good and ill. Everything that has existed up until now is going through this process of hominization. Another example would be—look at young mammals and the way they play. They mess around with each other and hide and chase, and we hominize that by creating this whole vast industry of sports and arts and entertainment. Everything seems to go through this explosion when it’s touched by the human imagination. Teilhard’s ultimate vision of what is taking place with the human is the hominization of love. You see, he regarded the attracting force of gravity as a form of love, and the way in which animals care for one another as a form of love, and so the hominization of love would be focusing that and amplifying it to make it a monumental power in the future evolution of the earth. That is his most famous phrase: “The day will come when we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, the human being will have discovered fire.”

WIE: How does our becoming aware of the evolutionary scale of time help the “universe develop into God” —as you said earlier—or further the invocation of God through human consciousness?

Swimme: He had this sense that a deep change at the level of being—a change of heart, a change of mind, a change of actual body—can take place in the human who learns to see the universe as suffused with divine action. And he made a huge deal out of this word—“see.” His sense of spiritual practice would be to develop those qualities that are necessary for us to truly get it, to truly see where we are. One thing he would speak about is how we tend to be overwhelmed by large numbers, and so he would say we have to develop a capacity to see the patterns in the large numbers. As we develop this capacity, rather than being crushed by the immensity of the universe, we’ll suddenly, instead, resonate with the universe as a whole as the outer form of our own inner spirit. That was his cry, for humans to develop these capacities.

He also had an interesting view of spiritual traditions in general about this. He seemed to say that eternity is easier than evolution. The idea of awakening to eternity he regarded as very, very significant in human history—but not as difficult as awakening to the time-developmental or evolutionary nature of the universe.

WIE: What do you mean by “awakening to eternity” in this context?

Swimme: How at any moment we arise out of eternity, moment after moment. To escape the illusion of transience and to see into the absolute moment—Teilhard regarded this as a great mystical event in the life of an individual, as well as in the human journey. But he said that a deeper and harder achievement and challenge before us is to awaken to the time-developmental nature of the universe. The whole journey is this moment—it’s not just the year 2000—this moment is also the birth of the universe itself. But more significantly for this particular discussion, it’s also the moment of the “absolute future.” The challenge before us is the absolute future calling to the present. This is really his mysticism. He would say that by learning to see, by becoming alert and awake in this universe, you feel the call and the presence of the unborn God asking for, or guiding us into, the type of creative action that gives birth to the next moment in a process that he called “divinization.”

WIE: This is something that we’ve been thinking about a lot in putting together this issue of the magazine. Often in the Eastern traditions, the focus is solely on the “awakening to eternity” that you were just describing. Yet in Teilhard’s work, there is another call. There is a call for the perfection of the absolute to be manifest in form—for there to be greater and greater complexity, greater and greater order, greater and greater perfection, in form, in time, in space, in matter. Teilhard seems to bring together the absolute and the manifest in a truly nondualistic vision that does seem unique.

Swimme: That’s right. I love his orientation and his view of the traditional religions. He says that the future of the spiritual traditions on our planet will be determined by the degree to which they enhance the divinization process. And he makes the point that one of the difficulties is that, up until the present moment, we have tended to see ourselves inside of these traditions. But now, he says, it’s the universe that is our home. So it’s a way of valuing them but seeing them from the proper perspective of the ultimate context—which is the universe as a whole.

WIE: Teilhard is probably best known for his idea of the “omega point.” The term has become quite popular, but it seems that few people really understand what he meant by it. Can you explain Teilhard’s omega point?

Swimme: By the “omega point,” Teilhard meant a universe that had become God. He meant God in embodied form. He regarded the omega point as two things. It’s an event that the universe is moving toward, in the future. But what he also imagined, which is difficult for us to really conceive, is that even though the omega point is in the future, it is also exerting a force on the present. When we think of the omega point, in our Western consciousness it’s hard to escape thinking in terms of a line with the omega point at the end of the line. His thinking wasn’t that way; it was that the omega point permeates the whole thing. He imagined the influence of the omega point radiating back from the future into the present. In some mysterious way, the future’s right here. Teilhard regarded that the way in which the future is right here is in the experience of being drawn or attracted, or in our “zest.” That’s his word, and I love that so much. We—“we” meaning anything in the universe—are drawn forward, and this attractive power is what begins a process that eventuates in deeper or greater being. That attraction he regarded as love, and it is evidence of the presence of the omega point. When you experience that attraction, that zest, you’re experiencing the future. You’re experiencing the omega point. You’re experiencing God. You’re experiencing your destiny.

WIE: What does it mean for the universe to become God?

Swimme: Because we’re in the midst of this process, at the best we can have crude images, metaphors. We have little glimmers and insights. The image that I like is this: You have molten rock, and then all by itself, it transforms into a human mother caring for her child. That’s a rather astounding transformation. Of course, it takes four billion years. You’ve got silica, you’ve got magnesium. You’ve got all the elements of rock, and it becomes the translucent blue eye and beautiful brown hair and this deep sense of love and concern and even sacrifice for a child. That is a deep transfiguration. Love and truth and compassion and zest and all of these qualities that we regard as divine become more powerfully embodied in the universe. That would be an image of how I think about the universe becoming divine.

WIE: So it’s a process of God becoming more and more explicit or embodied in the forms of the universe?

Swimme: Yes, exactly. Teilhard also spoke in terms of “giving birth to person.” For example, your colleague Craig is there across the room. But if you go back five billion years, all of the atoms in Craig’s body were strung out over a hundred million miles. The process, as mysterious as it is, of matter itself forming into personality or personhood, is what Teilhard regarded as the essence of evolution. Evolution isn’t cold. He saw the omega point as that same process of giving birth to or actualizing this new, encompassing Divine Person—through not just all the atoms interacting with one another, but also the “persons” of all the humans and other animals. All of us together are part of this same process, so that the entire universe becomes God’s body. To really get how radical Teilhard’s view is, think about an animal and dissolve the animal back in time in your imagination, back into individual cells. There weren’t any multicellular organisms until about seven hundred million years ago. For over three billion years, there were just single-cell organisms. If you get to know an animal well, the animal really has a personality. But the personality is something that is evoked by the cells of the animal. It’s truly mysterious. The animal’s personality is real, but that personality is evoked by the cells. So in Teilhard’s view, the individual members of the universe are actually in a process of evoking a Divine Person. We are actually giving birth to a larger, more encompassing, mind-spirit-personality.

WIE: In one sense, that was no less true sixty-five million years ago than it is now. But at the same time, humans are now becoming conscious of our own evolution and our conscious participation in this larger process. How do you think that has changed this process?

Swimme: Well, I think the difference is that while every member of the universe participates in the construction of the cosmos, that participation proceeds without a conscious reflection upon it. We, too, are participating in constructing the cosmos, but we have the awareness that we’re doing that. That’s the essential difference of being human. We recognize this process as happening, and we can actually awaken to the fact that we are actively doing it. We’re not just doing it. We’re awakened to the fact that we’re doing it.

This then calls for spiritual development so that we can find our way between the two extremes of how we tend to respond to this. On the one hand, we can be so overwhelmed by what that means, so frozen by the responsibility, that we divert ourselves from really embracing that destiny. And I think that happens a lot. Right now it’s what our civilization is about, for the most part. But the other extreme actually is just as bad. We become so inflated with the thrill of that role that we lopside into thinking that we are the real action of the universe and that the human, and human enlightenment, is all that really matters. But I think it’s not that. It’s rather that we’re participating in this huge, vast, intricate event, and we’re a member of the community, but we seem to be especially destined to reflect upon this and to participate in it consciously. So I try to emphasize the fact of uniqueness here—but at the same time there’s an equality. There’s both. We’re unique in our particular role. But on an ontological level, there’s an equality. We’re not somehow superior to the moon or to the phytoplankton or to the spiders or to anything else. Everyone is essential.

WIE: What is the importance of Teilhard’s understanding of evolution and the role of the human being for our current planetary crisis?

Swimme: There are two points I’d want to make. First, Teilhard’s thoughts on evolution enable us to begin to appreciate the true significance of our moment. It’s extremely difficult for us to really understand what it means to make decisions that will have an impact on the next ten million years. Even if you understand the idea, it’s only at one level of your mind. So studying Teilhard’s thought and his work can be considered a spiritual practice for beginning to think at the level that is required of humans today—to think in chunks of ten million years, for example. It’s so hard for people to get that.

The second thing I would say is that much of ecological discussion is framed in negatives because the destruction is so horrendous that anybody with any intelligence whatsoever, once she or he looks at it, becomes gripped by just how horrible it is. One of Teilhard’s great contributions is that he enables us to begin to imagine that this transition has at least the possibility of eventuating in a truly glorious mode of life in the future, and his vision provides the energy that we need for enduring the difficulties of this struggle. That, to me, is extremely important. He can activate the deep, deep, deep zest for life and existence that I think is required for true leadership in our time .

Interview by Susan Bridle