Theos-Talk Archives (July 1994 Message tl00011)

This is by Brenda Tucker.

It is the last part of three parts on THE HEART OF MATTER by Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin.  I had previously referred to him by the name
Teilhard de Chardin or just de Chardin.  I don't think this is
correct.  I think my reference to his last name should be
'Teilhard', for de Chardin refers to his place of residence, I
believe.  I apologize for not mentioning his first name, Pierre,
previously.

As God is revealed to us, a direct consequence of the unitive
process, He in some way transforms Himself as he incorporates us.
It is no longer a matter of seeing Him and allowing oneself to be
enveloped by Him.  We have to do more.  We have to disclose him,
ever more fully, to complete him.  All around us and within our own
selves, God is in process of changing, as a result of the
coincidence of His magnetic power and our own thought.

Every since Teilhard's childhood there was a force in conflict with
the supernatural compelling him toward some ultra-human existence.
In trying to pin this down he used to regard it as emanating not
from God, but from some rival star.  All he had to do then was to
bring that star into conjunction with God and into dependence upon
Him.  As he looked back on these thoughts, it appeared that the
Ultra-human was the God of the ahead who had suddenly appeared
athwart the traditional God of the above.  So henceforth we can no
longer worship fully unless we superimpose those two images so that
they form one.  The absolute being is no longer a participated
being of extraposition and divergence, but a participated being of
pleromization and convergence.  It is the effect no longer of
creative causality, but of creative union.

It is Christ who makes himself cosmic and then in some way makes
himself absolute.  Have you ever heard the argument that throught
the interpositioning of Jesus between man and God, we have become
atrophied in our development and that we no longer can stimulate
the need to worship, but only paralyze it? It is as though Christ
diminished the Stature of God.  In this universe there is an
inflexible law that says nothing is produced or appears except by
way of birth.  That's why we needed an historically incarnate God.
Remember, in a system of creative union, it is not only the
universe, but God himself who is necessarily Christifed in Omega at
the upper limits of cosmogenesis.  In other words, evolved
monotheism, springing up from all that is best in the earth's
religious energies, seems to be concentrating and is moving to its
logical and biological fulfillment in the direction of some
pan-Christicism.

The most important, though unvoiced, concern of modern man is much
less a struggle for the possession of the world than a search for a
way of escaping it.  The agony of feeling that one is imprisoned in
the cosmic bubble stimulates a fretful hunt for a way out for
evolution.  In the modern world that is the sorrow and the price to
be paid for a growing planetary reflection that lies heavy on the
soul of both Christian and gentile.

It seems to be indisputable, both logically and factually, that
there can be for man, even if he is devoted to the service of a
cause or of God, no matter how great their devotion, no road to
spiritual maturity or plenitude except through emotional influence,
whose function it is to sensitize his understanding and stimulate
at least initially his capacity for love.

No man can dispense with the feminine any more than he can dispense
with oxygen or light or vitamins.  We have a marriage that is
always polarized socially towards reproduction and a religious
perfection that is always represented theologically in terms of
separation.  There can be no doubt that we lack a third road
between the two.  I do not mean a middle road, but a higher road:
the spirit that comes from dematerialization can be substituted for
the spirit that comes from synthesis.  We are not retreating from
the unfathomable spiritual powers by abstinence.  These powers lie
dormant under the mutual attraction of the sexes.  We are not
retreating from them, but conquering them by sublimation.
Dematerialization, TDC is convinced, is the human essence of
chastity.

The emphasis of the phenomena of supercentration is that which
causes the consciousness of the corpuscular to fold back upon
itself and thence rebound in the form of thought.  The great cosmic
event of reflection takes the form of what we might call the
breakthrough into amorization.  Even after the great flash of
illumination in which the individual is suddenly revealed to
himself, man would remain but half complete if he did not come into
contact with the other sex and so under the centric attraction of
person to person, explode into flame.  First we have a reflective
monad and then to complete it an ineffective dyad.  After that,
only after that, the gradual and majestic development of a
neocosmic, of an ultra- human, and of a pan-christic, all three
illuminated in their very roots by intelligence, but also
impregnated throughout their entire mass as though bounded by
cement to the universal feminine.

Two months before his death, Teilhard put on paper "The Christic,"
an essay that had been maturing for five years.  TDC attempts to
present proof, objective evidence, regarding an unfolding and an
interpersonal experience.  First there are two fundamental psychic
movements arising in him as a human being.  1) the convergence of
individual thought with other thinking, including the arranging in
time and space of the other life, and 2) an individualization in
ego that nothing can stop, some sort of an "other" that seems to be
more than himself.  He has named these two the cosmic convergence
and the christic emergence.

In the cosmic convergence, the totality of the stuff of things
folds in on itself, to the point where it is made to coreflect
itself.  The presence that he feels within himself is by nature
universal or it couldn't satisfy the requirements.  He questioned
whether the two streams have any effect on each other.  What he
decided is that when the two spiritual themes are brought together
they react endlessly on one another in a flash of brilliance
releasing light so intense that it transfigured his entire world.

He was able to see the universe as amorized and personalized in its
own evolution.  Through Darwin's work, we are all evolutionists so
we all act and think as if the world is changing.

There are two processes worthy of note: the process of arrangement
producing infinite variety, and the process of disarrangement or
entropy, bringing energy back into its simplest forms.  The picture
looks like this, a river of amorphous streams for the entropy side,
containing countless eddies which are individualized by a
countercurrent.

He asks: is it true that the universe comes to rest in the
direction of the non-arranged unconscious which is the material
solution, or does it rest in the direction of the arranged
consciousness which is the spiritual solution.  Science refuses to
decide and says that it must be answered philosophically or
personally.  TDC answers that it is soluble by techniques provided
we are open to the biocosmic significance of a phenomena so
enormous and so close that we become completely swamped by it and
resultingly do not see it.  This is human co-reflection.

It is not only natural to think by ourselves, but also natural to
think with all other persons.  We are led to believe that any time
we lift a finger we are involved in the construction of a total
human act.  Evolution, in its aspect that is oriented toward the
improbable, extends with increasing speed beyond our insignificant
individual centers in the direction of a complex consciousness of
planetary dimensions.

He says to correctly interpret terrestrial coreflection, we have to
see that the drift of arrangement is to the form depicting
centration of the hominized portion of the stuff of things which at
the same time differentiates and fosters a common unanimous mind
and spirit.  The most advanced areas in the universe, the ones
reaching toward the improbable, converge upon themselves.  That
this is where the universe takes on consistence and value where it
folds in upon itself and not in the opposite direction.  A
universal flux both unifying and irreversifying appears and
transfigures the world.  This is the higher dynamism, controlling
all the other dynamisms from within.

Without this vision, anthropogenesis might lose its vision and if
we have this vision, we can see that there is no further forward
limit to the forces of ultra-hominization.  So we have a mental
concept of this human phenomena of co- reflection that transforms
the world.  Let's also consider the reversal of the idea to see if
it too can enact a metamorphosis of our intellectual and emotional
outlook: the Christian phenomenon of worship.

All we need to restore human to primacy is reflection.  So
Christianity placed in the primacy would give weight to its power
of pan-amorization.  Other religions express love for God and for
the world, so what in Christianity is different and stronger than
anywhere else.  TDC says that this faith has a higher degree of
warmth and a more intense dynamism of unification than any other in
history.  He notes these three characteristics, tangibility by the
historical entry of Jesus Christ through birth, expansibility by
the Christian center in the operative power of resurrection, and
assimilative power, the integration of the totality of the human
race in one body.  This faith, Christianity, is more consciously
identified with a Christogenesis, the rise of a universal presence
which is immortalizing and unifying.

In THE PHENOMENA OF MAN, TDC discusses the human state, where we
reach a sphere going deeper and deeper and we need a center, in
this case, in Christian explanation, we reach an expanding center
and are trying to find a sphere.  It is like these two belong
together.  First it seems like we are in a world where the two
halves, the physical and the mystical are closing in with planetary
force upon mankind, who is born of their approach to one another.
Then it looks like we are moving into a hyper-milieu of life,
produced by the coincidence of an emergent Christ and a convergent
universe.  Here is the description.  First the universe in Christ,
by fulfillment in their conjunction, one on one side, one on the
other side.  Second, from their conjunction a third thing appears.
In that third thing, there is a cessation of conflict between our
activity and our understanding.  Conflict ceases and the fullest
expression is felt.  With this new evidence from science, that man
belongs to a convergent type universe, man is developing a cosmic
sense.

TDC is convinced that the great spiritual edifices of tomorrow can
be constructed and will in fact be constructed only if we start
from this new element and use it as our foundation, the sense of
evolution.  However he doesn't think it is going in the direction
of Julian Huxley's explanation of a evolutionary humanism and this
is why he says that two things may convince us that a higher pole
of completion and consolidation awaits us at the higher term of
hominization: 1) the specific curve followed by the cosmic milieu
in which we are involved, 2) the necessity of being irreversible
which is inherent in the reflective action.  Even if this omega is
guaranteed we can only envision its features in a vague and mystic
way.

On the other hand, if we embrace both neoChristianity and
neohumanism, and then accept as proof that the Christ in revelation
is none other than the omega of evolution, TDC feels we will see
that the universe is once and for all activized and plenified.  Now
we can distinguish the highest point in the future.  The peak
certainly opens out in Christ Jesus.  Breathe a sigh of relief.  It
is not only the air for our lungs, but it is the radiance of love.
You can not only breathe, but you can look into the future with the
power.  So he says that Christ intervenes at exactly the right
moment to save man from revolt against life, prompted by the threat
of a total life.

So Christ has in truth saved, and should we also add that Christ is
saved by evolution.  Christian tradition is unanimous that there is
more to Christ than man and God.  There is a third aspect or cosmic
aspect in which he gathers up the whole of creation, however, it
hasn't drawn much attention.  The universe is growing along all the
lines known to us.  Christianity is faced with a new challenge of
being more precise in consciousness.  So if Christ is universal, we
hope that our expanding knowledge will reveal Christ as much
greater than we used to think, and he won't lose his personality.
So the picture shows harmony between a religion that is Christic
and an evolution that is convergent.  If in a static world (or
again if it were divergent), the only way to say Christ is ruler of
creation is by proclaiming it, and not ever through reliance on any
organic relationship.

With that way of thinking, you couldn't honestly speak of a
Christian cosmicity.  If it is a fact that the universe has a
biological vortex that is dynamically centered upon itself, then we
cannot fail to see where Christ is pantocrator.  So with Christ
standing at the evolutive omega it is possible to perceive of
Christ as radiating physically over the totality of things.  So
Christ is the one who is penetrating through the evolutive
movement.  He is prime mover, the transformer.  So cosmogenesis
reveals itself along the lines of its main axis, versus biogenesis
and then noogenesis, and finally culminates in the Christogenesis,
which every Christian venerates.  So the words of the Eucharist
regarding the bread and wine can gather together the whole mass of
joys and sufferings of the world.

Before this there were two roads through which man tried to unite
himself to the divine, the first was to escape from the world into
the beyond, the second was to allow himself to dissolve into things
and be united with them monistically.  What else could man try if
he wished to escape what was tormenting him?

However when the universe is directed upon a Christic omega and
assumes the shape of a convergent whole, a third road to unity
opens up.  Since the sphere of the world is precisely a center, the
process of centration has it working upon itself.  The road lies
where it is possible to get one's strength and one's heart to
coincide with the focus of universal unification.  A unification
diffuse but nevertheless already in existence.

With the Christified universe or the universalized Christ, a divine
milieu emerges and it is essential for everyone to understand
specifically what that milieu means.  The properties of the milieu
are linked with the emergence of completely new psychic dimensions.
In the mystifying milieu, there is a dynamic reality in which all
opposition between universal and personal is being wiped out, but
not by confusion of the two.  The multiple reflective elements of
the world obtain their fulfillment in their ego by integrant
ascension to the Christic ego towards which all participating
things gravitate, and in consumating itself, it consumates that
Christic ego.  By virtue of this interlinking of convergence, no
ego can move closer to the Christic center without causing the
entire global sphere to be compressed more tightly.  The Christic
center cannot begin to communicate to the least of its elements
without causing itself to be contained more strictly within the
entire integument of concrete realities.  Every operation because
of the curvature of space is either pan-humanizing or
pan-christifying at the same time.  It is ultimately pan-humanizing
AND pan-christifying.  All opposition is blurred between attachment
and detachment, action and prayer, centration upon self and
centration upon the other.  And this because God can be experienced
and apprehended, even completed by the whole ambient totality with
what we call evolution in Christ Jesus.  It is still Christianity,
but Christianity reincarnated or squared in the spiritual energies
of matter.

The Religion of Tomorrow

A key question, in progress of presenting itself to mankind, is the
problem of spiritual activation.  We have mastered the atomic which
is like reaching the primordial source of the energy of evolution.
However the victory can not be complete unless you match it with
one at the other pole: a way to increase the drive of evolution
within the Noosphere.  New powers call for new aspirations.  If
mankind is to use its new access of physical power with balanced
control it cannot do without a rebound of intensity in its
eagerness to act, to seek, to create.  So a new religion is
dawning, a religion of evolution.

The value of a religious creed may be measured by its respective
power of evolutive activation.  This religion of tomorrow, this
faith, is not satisfactorily found in anything presently in
existence.  It is neither present in the religions of the Ahead,
including Marxism and other humanisms, nor in the religions of the
Above, theisms and pantheisms.

He qualifies what he means by humanisms as the religions of the
Ahead, which don't admit of a biological convergence of mankind on
itself.  Also they don't see the rise of interest in the psyche as
anything more than a temporary phenomena, and in this way they are
incapable of advancing man toward the goal.  He says humanism
becomes too icy.  They depersonalize in order to socialize and
there is a threat of total death.

Within the religions of the Above, the advances of knowledge and
technology aren't presented as a primary accompanying condition of
spiritualization.  They are just an extra.  Failure in technology
would be regarded in the same way as success in technology.

The atmosphere is one of coming catastrophe or coming fulfillment.
The religions like Christianity have come to exist in too rarified
of an atmosphere - too lofty are their skies - while religions
closed to cosmogenesis, don't really feel with the earth.  It is
within our consciousness that a progressive coming together has
been going on between the forces of heaven and the forces of earth,
with an exact conjunction occurring between the old god of the
above and the new god of the ahead.

TDC feels that we could move Christianity from isolation into a
movement to become the world in motion and there it could regain
its original power to activate and attract.  He sees Christianity
as the only religion that can display the astonishing power of
energizing to the full by amorizing and that through its double
power of the cross and resurrection, it is capable of becoming a
religion whose specific property provides the driving force in
evolution.  So then man becomes a loving being, and recognizes all
the past, present, and future of the universe as the process of
concentration upon itself.

It seems there would be an explosion if a single ray of this light
were to fall on the Noosphere.  (Noosphere is total mankind.
Biosphere is total earth.)

When he doubts his revelations, there are three waves of evolution
which arise in him.  1) A coherence of the ineffable element or
milieu that is introduced in the depths of his mind and heart.  2)
Evidence of the contagious power of charity which is present when
all your body, soul, and love for God becomes the universe in
evolution and 3) the superiority of the vision, compared to what he
had been taught, even though there is some of the same identity in
each.

In harmony with the Christic, in this century the divine reaches
its summit of adorability and the evolutionary reaches the limit of
its activation.  This is where the human must find unity.  Men of
God and faith in the world are everywhere in the air, created by
the appearance of the idea of evolution.  They have appeared at
this time, to combine in one and the same subject.