Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
File:Teilhard de Chardin(1).jpg
Born	(1881-05-01)May 1, 1881 Orcines, France
Died	April 10, 1955(1955-04-10) (aged 73) New York, New York, USA
Nationality	France
Known for	The Phenomenon of Man
Scientific career
Fields	Paleontology, Philosophy, Cosmology, Evolutionary theory

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ tejaʁ də ʃaʁdɛ̃]; May 1, 1881 – April 10, 1955) was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of Noosphere. Some of his ideas came into conflict with the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and several of his books were censured.

Teilhard's primary book, The Phenomenon of Man, set forth a sweeping account of the unfolding of the cosmos. He abandoned traditional interpretations of creation in the Book of Genesis in favor of a less strict interpretation. This displeased certain officials in the Roman Curia and in his own order who thought that it undermined the doctrine of original sin developed by Saint Augustine. Teilhard's position was opposed by his Church superiors, and some of his work was denied publication during his lifetime by the Roman Holy Office. The 1950 encyclical Humani generis condemned several of Teilhard's opinions, while leaving other questions open. More recently, Pope John Paul II indicated a positive attitude towards some of de Chardin's ideas. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI praised Teilhard's idea of the universe as a "living host" although the ecclesiastical warnings attached to his works remain.

Life

Early years

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was born in the château of Sarcenat at Orcines, close to Clermont-Ferrand, France on May 1, 1881. On the Teilhard side he is descended from an ancient family of magistrates from Auvergne originating in Murat, Cantal, and on the de Chardin side he is descended from a family which was ennobled under Louis XVIII. He was the fourth of eleven children. His father, Emmanuel Teilhard (1844–1932), an amateur naturalist, collected stones, insects and plants, and promoted the observation of nature in the household. Pierre Teilhard's spirituality was awakened by his mother, Berthe de Dompiere. When he was 12, he went to the Jesuit college of Mongré, in Villefranche-sur-Saône, where he completed baccalaureates of philosophy and mathematics. Then, in 1899, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Aix-en-Provence where he began a philosophical, theological and spiritual career.

As of the summer 1901, the Waldeck-Rousseau laws, which submitted congregational associations' properties to state control, prompted some of the Jesuits to exile themselves in the United Kingdom. Young Jesuit students continued their studies in Jersey. In the meantime, Teilhard earned a licentiate in literature in Caen in 1902.

Academic career

From 1905 to 1908, he taught physics and chemistry in Cairo, Egypt, at the Jesuit College of the Holy Family. He wrote "...it is the dazzling of the East foreseen and drunk greedily... in its lights, its vegetation, its fauna and its deserts." (Letters from Egypt (1905–1908) — Éditions Aubier)

Teilhard studied theology in Hastings, in Sussex (United Kingdom), from 1908 to 1912. There he synthesized his scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge in the light of evolution. His reading of L'Évolution Créatrice (The Creative Evolution) by Henri Bergson was, he said, the "catalyst of a fire which devoured already its heart and its spirit." His views on evolution and religion particularly inspired the evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky. Teilhard was ordained a priest on August 24, 1911, aged 30.

Paleontology

From 1912 to 1914, Teilhard worked in the paleontology laboratory of the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, in Paris, studying the mammals of the middle Tertiary period. Later he studied elsewhere in Europe. In June 1912 he formed part of the original digging team, with Arthur Smith Woodward and Charles Dawson, to perform follow-up investigations at the Piltdown site, after the discovery of the first fragments of the (fraudulent) "Piltdown Man". Professor Marcellin Boule (specialist in Neanderthal studies), who so early as 1915 astutely recognised the non-hominid origins of the Piltdown finds, gradually guided Teilhard towards human paleontology. At the museum's Institute of Human Paleontology, he became a friend of Henri Breuil and took part with him, in 1913, in excavations in the prehistoric painted caves in the northwest of Spain, at the Cave of Castillo.

Service in World War I

Mobilised in December 1914, Teilhard served in World War I as a stretcher-bearer in the 8th Moroccan Rifles. For his valour, he received several citations including the Médaille militaire and the Legion of Honour.

Throughout these years of war he developed his reflections in his diaries and in letters to his cousin, Marguerite Teillard-Chambon, who later edited them into a book: Genèse d'une pensée (Genesis of a thought). He confessed later: "...the war was a meeting ... with the Absolute." In 1916, he wrote his first essay: La Vie Cosmique (Cosmic life), where his scientific and philosophical thought was revealed just as his mystical life. He pronounced his solemn vows as a Jesuit in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, on May 26, 1918, during a leave. In August 1919, in Jersey, he would write Puissance spirituelle de la Matière (the spiritual Power of Matter). The complete essays written between 1916 and 1919 are published under the following titles:

• Ecrits du temps de la Guerre (Written in time of the War) (TXII of complete Works) – Editions du Seuil
• Genèse d'une pensée (letters of 1914 to 1918) – Editions Grasset

Teilhard followed at the Sorbonne three unit degrees of natural science: geology, botany and zoology. His thesis treated of the mammals of the French lower Eocene and their stratigraphy. After 1920, he lectured in geology at the Catholic Institute of Paris, then became an assistant professor after being granted a science Doctorate in 1922.

Research in China

In 1923 he traveled to China with Father Emile Licent, who was in charge in Tianjin for a significant laboratory collaborating with the Natural History Museum in Paris and Marcellin Boule's laboratory. Licent carried out considerable basic work in connection with missionaries who accumulated observations of a scientific nature in their spare time. He was known as 德日進 (pinyin: Dérìjìn) in China.

Teilhard wrote several essays, including La Messe sur le Monde (the Mass on the World), in the Ordos Desert. In the following year he continued lecturing at the Catholic Institute and participated in a cycle of conferences for the students of the Engineers' Schools. Two theological essays on Original Sin" sent to a theologian, on his request, on a purely personal basis, were wrongly understood.

• July 1920: Chute, Rédemption et Géocentrie (Fall, Redemption and Geocentry)
• Spring 1922: Notes sur quelques représentations historiques possibles du Péché originel (Notes on few possible historical representations of original sin) (Works, Tome X)

The Church required him to give up his lecturing at the Catholic Institute and to continue his geological research in China.

Teilhard travelled again to China in April 1926. He would remain there more or less twenty years, with many voyages throughout the world. He settled until 1932 in Tientsin with Emile Licent then in Beijing. From 1926 to 1935, Teilhard made five geological research expeditions in China. They enabled him to establish a general geological map of China.

1926 : Fr. de Chardin’s Superiors in the Jesuit Order forbade him to teach any longer.

In 1926–1927 after a missed campaign in Gansu he travelled in the Sang-Kan-Ho valley near Kalgan (Zhangjiakou) and made a tour in Eastern Mongolia. He wrote Le Milieu Divin (the divine Medium). Teilhard prepared the first pages of his main work Le Phénomène humain (The Human Phenomenon).

1927 : Holy See refused the Imprimatur for his book Le Milieu Divin.

He joined the ongoing excavations of the Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian as an advisor in 1926 and continued in the role for the Cenozoic Research Laboratory of the Geological Survey of China following its founding in 1928.

He resided in Manchuria with Emile Licent, then stayed in Western Shansi (Shanxi) and northern Shensi (Shaanxi) with the Chinese paleontologist C. C. Young and with Davidson Black, Chairman of the Geological Survey of China.

After a tour in Manchuria in the area of Great Khingan with Chinese geologists, Teilhard joined the team of American Expedition Center-Asia in the Gobi organised in June and July, by the American Museum of Natural History with Roy Chapman Andrews.

Henri Breuil and Teilhard discovered that the Peking Man, the nearest relative of Pithecanthropus from Java, was a "faber" (worker of stones and controller of fire). Teilhard wrote L'Esprit de la Terre (the Spirit of the Earth).

Teilhard took part as a scientist in the famous "Croisiere Jaune" or "Yellow Cruise" financed by Andre Citroen in Central Asia. Northwest of Beijing in Kalgan he joined the China group who joined the second part of the team, the Pamir group, in Aksu. He remained with his colleagues for several months in Urumqi, capital of Sinkiang. The following year the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) began. 1933 : Rome ordered him to give up his post in Paris. Teilhard undertook several explorations in the south of China. He traveled in the valleys of Yangtze River and Szechuan (Sichuan) in 1934, then, the following year, in Kwang-If and Guangdong. The relationship with Marcellin Boule was disrupted; the Museum cut its financing on the grounds that Teilhard worked more for the Chinese Geological Service than for the Museum.

During all these years, Teilhard strongly contributed to the constitution of an international network of research in human paleontology related to the whole Eastern and south Eastern zone of the Asian continent. He would be particularly associated in this task with two friends, the English/Canadian Davidson Black and the Scot George B. Barbour. Many times he would visit France or the United States, only to leave these countries to go on further expeditions.

World travels

From 1927–1928 Teilhard stayed in France, based in Paris. He journeyed to Leuven, Belgium, to Cantal, and to Ariège, France. Between several articles in reviews, he met new people such as Paul Valéry and Bruno de Solages, who were to help him in issues with the Catholic Church.

Answering an invitation from Henry de Monfreid, Teilhard undertook a journey of two months in Obock in Harrar and in Somalia with his colleague Pierre Lamarre, geologist, before embarking in Djibouti to return to Tianjin. While in China, Teilhard developed a deep and personal friendship with Lucile Swan.

From 1930–1931 Teilhard stayed in France and in the United States. During a conference in Paris, Teilhard stated: "For the observers of the Future, the greatest event will be the sudden appearance of a collective humane conscience and a human work to make."

From 1932–1933 he began to meet people to clarify issues with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, regarding Le Milieu Divin and L'Esprit de la Terre. He met Helmut de Terra, a German geologist in the International Geology Congress in Washington, DC.

Teilhard participated in the 1935 Yale–Cambridge expedition in northern and central India with the geologist Helmut de Terra and Patterson, who verified their assumptions on Indian Paleolithic civilisations in Kashmir and the Salt Range Valley.

He then made a short stay in Java, on the invitation of Professor Ralph van Koenigswald to the site of Java man. A second cranium, more complete, was discovered. This Dutch paleontologist had found (in 1933) a tooth in a Chinese apothecary shop in 1934 that he believed belonged to a giant tall ape that lived around half a million years ago.

In 1937 Teilhard wrote Le Phénomène spirituel (The Phenomenon of the Spirit) on board the boat the Empress of Japan, where he met the Raja of Sarawak. The ship conveyed him to the United States. He received the Mendel medal granted by Villanova University during the Congress of Philadelphia in recognition of his works on human paleontology. He made a speech about evolution, origins and the destiny of Man. The New York Times dated March 19, 1937 presented Teilhard as the Jesuit who held that man descended from monkeys. Some days later, he was to be granted the Doctor Honoris Causa distinction from Boston College. Upon arrival in that city, he was told that the award had been cancelled.

1939 : Rome banned his work L’Energie Humaine.

He then stayed in France, where he was immobilized by malaria. During his return voyage to Beijing he wrote L'Energie spirituelle de la Souffrance (Spiritual Energy of Suffering) (Complete Works, tome VII).

1941 : de Chardin submitted to Rome his most important work Le Phenomena Humaine.

1947 : Rome forbade him to write or teach on philosophical subjects.

1948 : de Chardin was called to Rome by the Superior General of the Jesuits who hoped to acquire permission from the Holy See for the publication of his most important work Le Phenomena Humaine. But the prohibition to publish it issued in 1944, was again renewed. Teilhard was also forbidden to take a teaching post in the College de France.

1949 : Permission to publish Le Groupe Zoologique was refused.

1950: de Chardin was named to the French Academy of Sciences.

1955 : de Chardin forbidden by his Superiors to attend the “International Congress of Paleontology”.

1957 : The Supreme Authority of the Holy Office in a decree dated 15 Nov 1957, forbade the works of de Chardin to be retained in libraries, including those of religious institutes. His books were not to be sold in Catholic bookshops and were not to be translated in other languages.

1958 : In April of this year, all Jesuit publications in Spain (“Raton y Fe”, “Sal Terrae”, “Estudios de Deusto”) etc., carried a notice from the Spanish Provincial of the Jesuits, that de Chardin’s works had been published in Spanish without previous ecclesiastical examination and in defiance of the decrees of the Holy See.

1962 : A decree of the Holy Office dated 30 June, under the authority of Pope John XX III. warned that “. . . it is obvious that in philosophical and theological matters, the said works (de Chardin’s) are replete with ambiguities or rather with serious errors which offend Catholic doctrine. That is why ... the Rev. Fathers of the Holy Office urge all Ordinaries, Superiors, and Rectors ... to effectively protect, especially the minds of the young, against the dangers of the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and his followers”. (AAS, 6 Aug 1962).

1963 : The Vicariate of Rome (a diocese ruled in the name of Pope Paul VI by his Cardinal Vicar) in a decree dated 30 September, required that Catholic booksellers in Rome, should withdraw from circulation the works of de Chardin, together with those books which favour his erroneous doctrines. The text of this document was published in daily L’Aurore of Paris, dated 2 Oct 1963, and was reproduced in Nouvelles de Chretiente, l0 Oct 1963, p. 35.

Death

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin died in New York City, where he was in residence at the Jesuit church of St Ignatius of Loyola, Park Avenue. On March 15, 1955, at the house of his diplomat cousin Jean de Lagarde, Teilhard told friends he hoped he would die on Easter Sunday. In the Easter Sunday evening of April 10, 1955, during an animated discussion at the apartment of Rhoda de Terra, his personal assistant since 1949, the 73-year-old priest was felled by a heart seizure; regaining consciousness for a moment, he died a few minutes later. He was buried in the cemetery for the New York Province of the Jesuits at the Jesuit novitiate, St. Andrew's-on-the-Hudson in Poughkeepsie, upstate New York.

Controversy with Church officials

In 1925, Teilhard was ordered by the Jesuit Superior General Vladimir Ledochowski to leave his teaching position in France and to sign a statement withdrawing his controversial statements regarding the doctrine of original sin. Rather than leave the Jesuit order, Teilhard signed the statement and left for China.

This was the first of a series of condemnations by certain ecclesiastical officials that would continue until long after Teilhard's death. The climax of these condemnations was a 1962 monitum (reprimand) of the Holy Office denouncing his works. From the monitum:

"The above-mentioned works abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine... For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers".

Teilhard's writings, though, continued to circulate — not publicly, as he and the Jesuits observed their commitments to obedience, but in mimeographs that were circulated only privately, within the Jesuits, among theologians and scholars for discussion, debate and criticism.

As time passed, it seemed that the works of Teilhard were gradually becoming viewed more favourably within the Church. For example, on June 10, 1981, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli wrote on the front page of the Vatican newspaper, l'Osservatore Romano:

"What our contemporaries will undoubtedly remember, beyond the difficulties of conception and deficiencies of expression in this audacious attempt to reach a synthesis, is the testimomy of the coherent life of a man possessed by Christ in the depths of his soul. He was concerned with honoring both faith and reason, and anticipated the response to John Paul II's appeal: 'Be not afraid, open, open wide to Christ the doors of the immense domains of culture, civilization, and progress.

However, shortly thereafter the Holy See clarified that recent statements by members of the Church, in particular those made on the hundredth anniversary of Teilhard's birth, were not to be interpreted as a revision of previous stands taken by the Church officials. Thus the 1962 statement remains official Church policy to this day.

Although some Catholic intellectuals defended Teilhard and his doctrine (including Henri de Lubac), others condemned his teaching as a perversion of the Christian faith. These include Jacques Maritain, Étienne Gilson and Dietrich von Hildebrand.

Teachings

Evolution

In his posthumously published book, The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard writes of the unfolding of the material cosmos, from primordial particles to the development of life, human beings and the noosphere, and finally to his vision of the Omega Point in the future, which is "pulling" all creation towards it. He was a leading proponent of orthogenesis, the idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal driven way, argued in terms that today go under the banner of convergent evolution. Teilhard argued in Darwinian terms with respect to biology, and supported the synthetic model of evolution, but argued in Lamarckian terms for the development of culture, primarily through the vehicle of education.

Teilhard makes sense of the universe by its evolutionary process. He interprets complexity as the axis of evolution of matter into a geosphere, a biosphere, into consciousness (in man,) and then to supreme consciousness (the Omega Point.)

Teilhard's life work was predicated on the conviction that human spiritual development is moved by the same universal laws as material development. He wrote, "...everything is the sum of the past" and "...nothing is comprehensible except through its history. 'Nature' is the equivalent of 'becoming', self-creation: this is the view to which experience irresistibly leads us. ... There is nothing, not even the human soul, the highest spiritual manifestation we know of, that does not come within this universal law." There is no doubt that The Phenomenon of Man represents Teilhard's attempt at reconciling his religious faith with his academic interests as a paleontologist. One particularly poignant observation in Teilhard's book entails the notion that evolution is becoming an increasingly optional process. Teilhard points to the societal problems of isolation and marginalization as huge inhibitors of evolution, especially since evolution requires a unification of consciousness. He states that "no evolutionary future awaits anyone except in association with everyone else." Teilhard argued that the human condition necessarily leads to the psychic unity of humankind, though he stressed that this unity can only be voluntary; this voluntary psychic unity he termed "unanimization." Teilhard also states that "evolution is an ascent toward consciousness", giving encephalization as an example of early stages, and therefore, signifies a continuous upsurge toward the Omega Point, which for all intents and purposes, is God.

Our century is probably more religious than any other. How could it fail to be, with such problems to be solved? The only trouble is that it has not yet found a God it can adore.

Christogenesis

The spacetime continuum is an ensemble of matter waves, involuting from a uniformly distributed state into a giant conoidal swirl (a gravitational well) of ever-increasing depth. Teilhard points out that the metric expansion of space is a consequence of the continuum's gravitational collapse ("involution upon itself"). The intensity of the continuum's gravitational collapse is subject to the inverse-square law, which makes the collapse of the continuum's gravitational centre more intense than the collapse of the continuum's periphery; the net result is that the collapsing continuum undergoes an exponentially accelerating impansion ("inward expansion").

A radius and a tangent to a circle.

The logarithmic spiral of gravitational in-formation. The closer to the in-formational spiral's centre, the steeper the radial flux's turning in upon itself—self-reflection, consciousness, traditionally symbolized by the Ouroboros serpent. After their encounter with the Serpent, Adam and Eve became self-conscious and began to cover their genitals with fig leaves. Thus, the Ouroboros (as well as a scorpion, stinging its own head) is a symbol of mankind itself. In the Gospel of John, Jesus likens himself to a serpent: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." —John 3:14–15.

The Ouroboros is a symbol of mankind itself. (Allegoria della vita umana, by Guido Cagnacci (1601–63))

The spacetime continuum is an ensemble of matter waves, which can undergo either destructive interference or constructive interference (every matter wave interferes with itself and with all the other matter waves of the continuum):

To the cosmic corpuscles we should find it natural to attribute an individual radius of action as limited as their dimensions. We find, on the contrary, that each of them can only be defined by virtue of its influence on all around it. Whatever space we suppose it to be in, each cosmic element radiates in it and entirely fills it. However narrowly the heart of an atom may be circumscribed, its realm is co-extensive, at least potentially, with that of every other atom.

— Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man

Since the constructive interference (in-phase coherence combined with spatial proximity) is synergetic (energetically favourable), every individual matter wave convolutes into a tiny conoidal swirl. The whole ensemble of the continuum's matter waves, too, convolutes into a giant conoidal swirl:

Hence forward we can and must break away from this view which lacks depth. We have no longer the crawling "sine curve", but the spiral which springs upward as it turns.

— Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man

The narrow top of the conoidal spiral—the Omega Point—is the point of the maximum synergy or, which is the same, the point of the minimum total potential energy (the point of the "Great Stability"):

We have said that spiritual energy, by its very nature, increases in "radial" value, positively, absolutely, and without determinable limits, in step with the increasing chemical complexity of the elements of which it represents the inner lining. <...> In Omega we have in the first place the principle we needed to explain both the persistent march of things towards greater consciousness, and the paradoxical solidity of what is most fragile. Contrary to the appearances still admitted by physics, the Great Stability is not at the bottom in the infra-elementary sphere, but at the top in the ultra-synthetic sphere. It is thus entirely by its tangential envelope that the world goes on dissipating itself in a chance way into matter. By its radial nucleus it finds its shape and its natural consistency in gravitating against the tide of probability towards a divine focus of mind which draws it onward. Thus something in the cosmos escapes from entropy, and does so more and more.

— Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man

Teilhard's universe is a gravitational field, consisting of two components—the radial (gravitoelectric, potential, spiritual) and the tangential (gravitomagnetic, vortical, material). The dichotomy into the radial and tangential gravitational fields originates from the theory of gravitoelectromagnetism:

From our electrodynamical experience we can infer immediately that any rotating spherical body (e.g., the sun or the earth) will be surrounded by a radial gravitoelectric (Newtonian) field g and a dipolar gravitomagnetic field H. The gravitoelectric monopole moment is the body's mass M; the gravitomagnetic dipole moment is its spin angular momentum S.

—Thorne, Kip S. ♦ Gravitomagnetism, Jets in Quasars, and the Stanford Gyroscope Experiment From the book "Near Zero: New Frontiers of Physics" (eds. J. D. Fairbank, B. S. Deaver, Jr., C. W. F. Everitt, P. F. Michelson), W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1988, pp. 3, 4 (575, 576)

In general, a system can have both translational and rotational accelerations, however. It follows from Einstein's principle of equivalence that locally—i.e., to the extent that spacetime curvature can be neglected—gravitational effects are the same as inertial effects; therefore, gravitation can be approximately described in terms of gravitoelectric and gravitomagnetic fields corresponding to translational and rotational inertia, respectively. This is the gravitational Larmor theorem [3], which is very useful in the post-Newtonian approximation to general relativity. The gravitomagnetic field of a massive rotating body is a measure of its absolute rotation.

—Novello, M. ♦ VII Brazilian School of Cosmology and Gravitation, Rio de Janeiro, August 1993 Atlantica Séguier Frontières, 1994, p. 257

From Maxwell equations (6.20) it follows that the electric field is potential: E(r) = −gradφ(r).

—Soviet Physics, Uspekhi volume 40, issues 1–6, American Institute of Physics, 1997, p. 39

Force in such a potential field is a flux in the sense of a mechanical driving agent.

—Ziegler, Franz ♦ Mechanics of Solids and Fluids Springer, 1995, p. 167

The angular momentum of the radial flux is conserved, which results in the flux's angular acceleration. The angular acceleration of the universe's radial flux is its information (from Latin informāre to give form to)—transition towards a formed, shaped, incarnate state:

From the aspect of energy, renewed by radio-active phenomena, material corpuscles may now be treated as transient reservoirs of concentrated power. Though never found in a state of purity, but always more or less granulated (even in light), energy nowadays represents for science the most primitive form of universal stuff. Hence we find our minds instinctively tending to represent energy as a kind of homogeneous, primordial flux in which all that has shape in the world is but a series of fleeting "vortices".

— Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man

The continuum's angular momentum (information), initially stored in the form of disjunct local vortices (elementary quanta of matter—photons, electrons, protons, etc.), gradually evolves into a global self-reflective vortex (a continuum-sized quantum—Christ):

From our experimental point of view, reflection is, as the word indicates, the power acquired by a consciousness to turn in upon itself, to take possession of itself as of an object endowed with its own particular consistence and value: no longer merely to know oneself; no longer merely to know, but to know that one knows. <...> And we are happy to admit that the birth of intelligence corresponds to a turning in upon itself, not only of the nervous system, but of the whole being.

— Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man

Since the total angular momentum (the total information) of the continuum is conserved, the emergence of the global vortex (Christ) is accompanied by an angular deceleration of the subsumed local vortices (elementary quanta of matter), whose actual (physical) individual angular momenta (unuseable information, confined within elementary quanta of matter) become radialized (ephemeralized) into their potential (spiritual) collective angular momentum (useable information in a state of potential flow towards the continuum's gravitational centre—Christ). Thus, through his incarnation into Christ, God redeems the world's elementary particles by assuming their sin (angular momentum, tangentiality, materiality) upon himself:

Let it be noted in passing that the less an element is "centred" (i.e. the feebler its radial energy) the more will its tangential energy reveal itself in powerful mechanical effects. Between strongly "centred" particles (i.e. of high radial energy) the tangential seems to become "interiorised" and to disappear from the physicist’s view. Probably we have here an auxiliary principle which could help to explain the apparent conservation of energy in the universe (see para. b. below). We probably ought to recognise two sorts of tangential energy, one of radiation (at its maximum with the lowest radial values, as in the atom), the other of arrangement (only appreciable with the highest radial values, as in living creatures, man in particular).

— Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man

It is important that in its potential hypostasis, Christ is already existing as the bottom of the universe's gravitational potential:

Lastly, to put an end once and for all to the fears of "pantheism", as regards evolution, how can we fail to see that, in the case of a converging universe such as I have delineated, far from being born from the fusion and confusion of the elemental centres it assembles, the universal centre of unification (precisely to fulfil its motive, collective and stabilising function) must be conceived as pre-existing and transcendent.

— Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man

To understand the potential pre-existence of Christ, imagine that you have two synchronized clocks and drop one of the clocks into a gravitational well, leaving its twin at the gravitational well's rim. The frequency of the matter waves, of which the falling clock consists, will increase, so that the falling clock will run faster and will travel ever further into the future from its nonfalling twin. Thus, falling towards the bottom of the universe's gravitational potential—towards Christ—is equivalent to travelling into the future, or, simply, to motion in time. Therefore, the universe's gravitational potential is eternity. The Teilhardist Terence McKenna summarized it as follows:

The universe is not being pushed from behind. The universe is being pulled from the future toward a goal that is as inevitable as a marble reaching the bottom of a bowl when you release it up near the rim. If you do that, you know the marble will roll down the side of the bowl—down, down, down—until eventually it comes to rest at the lowest energy state, which is the bottom of the bowl. That’s precisely my model of human history.

— McKenna, Terence ♦ Approaching Timewave Zero Magical Blend Magazine, Issue 44, November 1994

We are being sucked into the body of eternity.

— McKenna, Terence

Eventually (at the Omega Point), the universe's radial flux (the flux of time) will become tangentialized (looped on itself), which implies the possibility of time travel.

Being the centre of the cosmic radial flux, mankind orchestrates the matter waves of the universe and functions as a collective pre-Christ:

"Through human socialisation, whose specific effect is to involute upon itself the whole bundle of reflexive scales and fibres of the earth, it is the very axis of the cosmic vortex of interiorisation which is pursuing its course": replacing and extending the two preliminary postulates stated above (the one concerning the primacy of life in the universe, the other the primacy of reflection in life) this is the third option—the most decisive of all—which completes the definition and clarification of my scientific position as regards the phenomenon of man. <...>
One might say that, by virtue of human reflection (both individual and collective), evolution, overflowing the physico-chemical organisation of bodies, turns back upon itself and thereby reinforces itself (see note following) with a new organising power vastly concentric to the first—the cognitive organisation of the universe. To think the world (as physics is beginning to realise) is not merely to register it but to confer upon it a form of unity it would otherwise (i.e. without being thought) be without.

— Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man

The maximal constructive self-interference of the universe's radial flux requires its maximal spatial self-proximity. That is why the radial flux strives to become incarnated within a single human body. Having reached the limit of its complexity (the number of people) and centrality (the degree of urbanization and globalization), the collective pre-Christ—mankind—will vanish; all of mankind's universe-orchestrating power will become concentrated in the single survivor, who will be automatically promoted to the rank of Christ personal:

The death of the materially exhausted planet; the split of the noosphere, divided on the form to be given to its unity; and simultaneously (endowing the event with all its significance and with all its value) the liberation of that percentage of the universe which, across time, space and evil, will have succeeded in laboriously synthesising itself to the very end. Not an indefinite progress, which is an hypothesis contradicted by the convergent nature of noogenesis, but an ecstasy transcending the dimensions and the framework of the visible universe. <...>

However convergent it be, evolution cannot attain to fulfilment on earth except through a point of dissociation. With this we are introduced to a fantastic and inevitable event which now begins to take shape in our perspective, the event which comes nearer with every day that passes: the end of all life on our globe, the death of the planet, the ultimate phase of the phenomenon of man. <...>

The end of the world: the wholesale internal introversion upon itself of the noosphere, which has simultaneously reached the uttermost limit of its complexity and its centrality.

The end of the world: the overthrow of equilibrium, detaching the mind, fulfilled at last, from its material matrix, so that it will henceforth rest with all its weight on God-Omega.

— Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man

An orchestra with multiple conductors cannot produce anything but an incoherent cacophony. When the number of the conductors becomes reduced to a single man, the orchestra shifts from cacophony to symphony, turning into the conductor's "extended body". Analogously, when the universe is quantum-mechanically orchestrated by billions of human observers, it is incoherent (objective)—every part exists by itself, obeying the principle of locality. Having become orchestrated by a single human observer (Christ), the universe will shed its incoherence (objectivity) and turn into the observer's "cosmic body":

Christ has a cosmic body that extends throughout the universe.

—Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ Cosmic Life 1916

Through the incarnation, God descended into nature in order to super-animate and take it back to him.

—Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ Mysticism of Science 1939

See also: Omega Point

Influence

Teilhard and his work have a continuing presence in the arts and culture. He inspired a number of characters in literary works. References range from occasional quotations—an auto mechanic quotes Teilhard in Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly -- to serving as the philosophical underpinning of the plot, as Teilhard's work does in Julian May's 1987–94 Galactic Milieu Series. Teilhard also plays a major role in Annie Dillard's 1999 For the Time Being. Characters based on Teilhard appear in several novels, including Jean Telemond in Morris West's The Shoes of the Fisherman (mentioned by name and quoted by Oskar Werner playing Fr. Telemond in the movie version of the novel) and Father Lankester Merrin in William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. In Dan Simmons' 1989–97 Hyperion Cantos, Teilhard de Chardin has been canonized a saint in the far future. His work inspires the anthropologist priest character, Paul Duré. When Duré becomes Pope, he takes Teilhard I as his regnal name.

Teilhard appears as a minor character in the play "Fake" by Eric Simonson, staged by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2009, involving a fictional solution to the infamous Piltdown Man hoax.

Teilhard's work has also inspired the philosophical ruminations of Italian laureate architect Paolo Soleri, artworks such as French painter Alfred Manessier's L'Offrande de la terre ou Hommage à Teilhard de Chardin and American sculptor Frederick Hart's acrylic sculpture The Divine Milieu: Homage to Teilhard de Chardin. A sculpture of the Omega Point by Henry Setter, with a quote from Teilhard de Chardin, can be found at the entrance to the Roesch Library at the University of Dayton. Edmund Rubbra's 1968 Symphony No. 8 is titled Hommage a Teilhard de Chardin.

Teilhard's influence is commemorated on numerous collegiate campuses. A building at the University of Manchester is named after him, as are residence dormitories at Gonzaga University and Seattle University. His stature as a biologist was honored by George Gaylord Simpson in naming the most primitive and ancient genus of true primate, the Eocene genus Teilhardina.

The title of the short-story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor is a reference to Teilhard's work.

The American novelist Don DeLillo's 2010 novel Point Omega borrows its title and some of its ideas from Teilhard de Chardin.

Robert Wright, in his book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, compares his own naturalistic thesis that biological and cultural evolution are directional and, possibly, purposeful, with Teilhard's ideas.

Bibliography

The dates in parentheses are the dates of first publication in French and English. Most of these works were written years earlier, but Teilhard's ecclesiastical order forbade him to publish them because of their controversial nature. The essay collections are organized by subject rather than date, thus each one typically spans many years.

• Le Phénomène Humain (1955), written 1938–40, scientific exposition of Teilhard's theory of evolution
  • The Phenomenon of Man (1959), Harper Perennial 1976: ISBN 0-06-090495-X. Reprint 2008: ISBN 978-0061632655.
  • The Human Phenomenon (1999), Brighton: Sussex Academic, 2003: ISBN 1-902210-30-1
• Letters From a Traveler (1956; English translation 1962), written 1923–55
• Le Groupe Zoologique Humain (1956), written 1949, more detailed presentation of Teilhard's theories
  • Man's Place in Nature (English translation 1966)
• Le Milieu Divin (1957), spiritual book written 1926–27, in which the author seeks to offer a way for everyday life, or the secular, to be divinised.
  • The Divine Milieu (1960) Harper Perennial 2001: ISBN 0-06-093725-4
• L'Avenir de l'Homme (1959) essays written 1920–52, on the evolution of consciousness (noosphere)
  • The Future of Man (1964) Image 2004: ISBN 0-385-51072-1
• Hymn of the Universe (1961; English translation 1965) Harper and Row: ISBN 0-06-131910-4, mystical/spiritual essays and thoughts written 1916–55
• L'Energie Humaine (1962), essays written 1931–39, on morality and love
  • Human Energy (1969) Harcort Brace Jovanovich ISBN 0-15-642300-6
• L'Activation de l'Energie (1963), sequel to Human Energy, essays written 1939–55 but not planned for publication, about the universality and irreversibility of human action
  • Activation of Energy (1970), Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602817-4
• Je M'Explique (1966) Jean-Pierre Demoulin, editor ISBN 0-685-36593-X, "The Essential Teilhard" — selected passages from his works
  • Let Me Explain (1970) Harper and Row ISBN 0-06-061800-0, Collins/Fontana 1973: ISBN 0-00-623379-1
• Christianity and Evolution, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602818-2
• The Heart of the Matter, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602758-5
• Toward the Future, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602819-0
• The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier-Priest 1914-1919, Collins (1965), Letters written during wartime.
• Writings in Time of War, Collins (1968) composed of spiritual essays written during wartime. One of the few books of Teilhard to receive an imprimatur.
• Vision of the Past, Collins (1966) composed of mostly scientific essays published in the French science journal Etudes.
• The Appearance of Man, Collins (1965) composed of mostly scientific writings published in the French science journal Etudes.
• Letters to Two Friends 1926-1952, Fontana (1968) composed of personal letters on varied subjects including his understanding of death.
• Letters to Leontine Zanta, Collins (1969)
• Correspondence / Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Maurice Blondel, Herder and Herder (1967) This correspondence also has both the imprimatur and nihil obstat.
• de Chardin, P T (1952). "On the zoological position and the evolutionary significance of Australopithecines". Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences. Vol. 14, no. 5 (published 1952 Mar). pp. 208–10. PMID 14931535. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |publication-date= (help)
• de Terra, H; de Chardin, PT; Paterson, TT (1936). "Joint geological and prehistoric studies of the Late Cenozoic in India". Science. 83 (2149) (published 6 March 1936): 233–236. doi:10.1126/science.83.2149.233-a. PMID 17809311.

See also

• Edouard Le Roy
• Thomas Berry
• List of science and religion scholars
• List of Jesuit scientists
• List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics

Further reading

• Amir Aczel, The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution and the Search for Peking Man (Riverhead Hardcover, 2007)
• Claude Cuenot, Science and Faith in Teilhard de Chardin (Garstone Press, 1967)
• Andre Dupleix, 15 Days of Prayer with Teilhard de Chardin (New City Press, 2008)
• Robert Faricy, SJ, Teilhard de Chardin's Theology of Christian in the World (Sheed and Ward 1968)
• Robert Faricy, SJ, The Spirituality of Teilhard de Chardin (Collins 1981, Harper & Row 1981)
• Robert Faricy, SJ and Lucy Rooney SND, Praying with Teilhard de Chardin(Queenship 1996)
• David Grumett, Teilhard de Chardin: Theology, Humanity and Cosmos (Peeters 2005)
• Dietrich von Hildebrand, Teilhard de Chardin: A False Prophet (Franciscan Herald Press 1970).
• Dietrich von Hildebrand, Trojan Horse in the City of God
• Dietrich von Hildebrand, Devastated Vineyard
• Ursula King, The Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Teilhard de Chardin (Orbis Books, 1996)
• David H. Lane, The Phenomenon of Teilhard: Prophet for a New Age (Mercer University Press)
• Lubac, Henri de, SJ, The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin (Image Books, 1968)
• Lubac, Henri de, SJ, The Faith of Teilhard de Chardin (Burnes and Oates, 1965)
• Lubac, Henri de, SJ, The Eternal Feminine: A Study of the Text of Teilhard de Chardin (Collins, 1971)
• Lubac, Henri de, SJ, Teilhard Explained (Paulist Press, 1968)
• Mary and Ellen Lukas, Teilhard (Doubleday, 1977)
• George A. Maloney, SJ, The Cosmic Christ: From Paul to Teilhard (Sheed and Ward, 1968)
• Mooney, Christopher, SJ, Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery of Christ (Image Books, 1968)
• Murray, Michael H. The Thought of Teilhard de Chardin (Seabury Press, N.Y., 1966)
• Robert J. O'Connell, SJ, Teilhard's Vision of the Past: The Making of a Method, (Fordham University Press, 1982)
• Noel Keith Roberts, From Piltdown Man to Point Omega: the evolutionary theory of Teilhard de Chardin (New York, Peter Lang, 2000)
• Robert Speaight, The Life of Teilhard de Chardin (Harper and Row, 1967)
• Helmut de Terra, Memories of Teilhard de Chardin, (Harper and Row and Wm Collins Sons & Co., 1964)

External links

Pro

• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's books in the Internet Archive
• Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man Scanned book in the Internet Archive
• Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de ♦ The Phenomenon of Man An HTML version of the book (without illustrations)
• The Teilhard de Chardin Foundation
• The American Teilhard Association
• Teilhard de Chardin A personal website

Contra

• Warning Regarding the Writings of Father Teilhard de Chardin The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, 1962
• Medawar, Peter ♦ A review of The Phenomenon of Man Mind, N.S., 70 (1961) pp. 99–106
• McCarthy, John F. ♦ A review of Teilhardism and the New Religion by Wolfgang Smith 1989

Other

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