2.2. From Alpha to Omega: The Evolution of
Consciousness
Teilhard de Chardin says: "Seeing...We might say
that the whole of life lies in that verb--if not ultimately, at least
essentially."3 He continues:
Fuller being is closer union: such is the kernel and
conclusion of this book. But let us emphasize the point: union increases only
through an increase in consciousness, that is to say vision. And that,
doubtless, is why the history of the living world can be summarized as the
elaboration of ever more perfect eyes within a cosmos in which there is always
something more to be seen.4
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was, as we have said, a visionary.
His writing everywhere bursts with excitement as he gazes upon and describes
this cosmos where there is always something more to be seen. His chief
description is an account of the historical unfolding of these ever more
perfect eyes, that is to say, an account of the evolution of consciousness.
Teilhard de Chardin sees this evolution proceeding through a
series of four stages that correspond with the four 'books' contained in
The Phenomenon of Man. We can describe these stages as: matter, life,
humanity, and Christ; or perhaps, the cosmic,
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of
Man, New York, I959, p. 290.
2 Doran McCarty, Teilhard de Chardin, Waco,
I976, p. II6.
3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Op. cit., p.
3I.
4 Id.
38 the biotic, the noetic, and the Christic;I or
again, to use terms Teilhard de Chardin was fond of, the Geosphere, the
Biosphere, the Noosphere, and the Christosphere.2 Fundamental to
each stage is its evolutionary nature. These stages are dynamic not static;
they are in motion and can therefore be described as Cosmo genesis, Biogenesis,
Noo genesis, and Christo genesis. 'Whatever we call them, describing the
advance of evolution through these successive stages or epochs is the heart of
The Phenomenon of Man.
2.2.1. The Cosmic: The time before life
Teilhard de Chardin begins where any cosmology must, in the
time before the emergence of life. He starts simply with matter--as he calls
it, the "stuff of the universe."3 He describes these basic atomic
and molecular structures as they surprisingly and wondrously find each other,
joining together in increasing molecular complexity. It is a marvel to behold
and Teilhard de Chardin captures the electric intensity of the event quite
well. But then he sounds a note of disillusionment for though we have marveled
at the forces of complexification, the improbable arrangements of atoms that
capture our attention, we must still come face to face with the forces of
entropy and decay. Teilhard de Chardin describes the situation as follows:
Laboriously, step by step, the atomic and molecular
structures become higher and more complex, but the upward force is lost on the
way.... Little by little, the improbable combinations that they represent
become broken down again into more simple components, which fall back and are
disaggregated in the shapelessness of probable distributions. A rocket rising
in the wake of time's arrow, that only bursts to be extinguished;
I David Gareth Jones proposes similar terms- cosmic,
human, Christic- but inexplicably fails to recognize the biotic. Cf. Jones,
Teilhard de Chardin: An Analysis and an Assessment, London, I969, p.
25.
2 These are the terms McCarty uses when describing
Teilhard's stages though, oddly, he fails to include the final stage of the
Christosphere. Cf. McCarty, Teilhard de Chardin, p. 5I. That both
Jones and McCarty would use a threefold rather than fourfold division of
Teilhard's stages is especially strange since, as we noted, Teilhard clearly
delineates them in the four sections (`books') of The Phenomenon of
Man.
3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of
Man, New York, I959, p. 39.
an eddy rising on the bosom of a descending current--such
then must be our picture of the world. So says science...I
Reflecting on such phenomena as the second law of thermal
dynamics Teilhard de Chardin anticipates the reader's reaction: Can there be
any point to it? Can we explore further? Do these earliest explorations teach
us that evolution cannot but unravel, cannot but degenerate? Teilhard de
Chardin continues, " So says science: and I believe in science: but up to
now has science ever troubled to look at the world other than from
without?"2
To speak of a within at these earliest stages of the cosmos
may seem nonsensical to most readers. How, we ask incredulously, can he deem to
speak of the within of an atom? For Teilhard de Chardin however, the question
was reversed: how can we not speak of it? He understood the universe to be akin
to a single organism and he concluded therefore, that if humanity has a within,
then we can reason by extension that,
...there is necessarily a double aspect to the structure
[of the stuff of the universe], that is to say in every region of space and
time... co-extensive with their Without, there is a Within to
things.3
For Teilhard de Chardin, consciousness, an equivalent
term for the 'within' of things,4 "is taken in its widest sense
to indicate every kind of psychism, from the most rudimentary forms of
perception imaginable to the human phenomenon of reflective
thought."5 He states categorically that it does not emerge
through some spontaneous generation of mind; it is present, at least minutely,
in even the most elementary forms.6 This is why we can speak of
The Phenomenon of Man as being about the evolution of consciousness even
though life itself doesn't appear until book two and thought
in book three. At every point and in
I Ibid., p. 52.
2 Id.
3 Ibid., 56.
4 Ibid., pp. 7I-72.
5 Id., p. 57, footnote number I.
6 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin says: "Matter is the
matrix of Spirit" in The Heart of Matter, New York, I979, p.
35.
40 everything throughout the history of the cosmos,
consciousness has been present. Teilhard de Chardin described this poetically
in "The Mass on the World;I:
In the beginning was Power, intelligent, loving,
energizing. In the beginning was the WORD, supremely capable of mastering and
molding whatever might come into being in the world of matter. In the
beginning, there were not coldness and darkness, there was the
FIRE.'
This perception of nascent consciousness even in the beginning
lead Teilhard de Chardin to articulate the Law of
Complexity-Consciousness or, as it has become known, Teilhard's
Law. The Law of Complexity-Consciousness describes Teilhard's two central
perceptions regarding evolution:
1. That with the progression of time matter tends towards
complexification.
2. That there is a correspondence between the level of
complexity and the level of consciousness displayed within matter.
Thus, Teilhard de Chardin approximates the level of
consciousness present within any given subject through an examination of its
external complexity: a spider is more conscious than an amoeba; an iguanodon
than a spider; a dog than an iguanodon; an ape than a dog; a human than an ape.
With each subject there is an observable increase in material complexity, just
as there is an increase in consciousness. Using this law we could postulate,
for example, that an electron has more consciousness than a quantum. But they
all possess some form of consciousness, some form of potential life.
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the
Universe, New York, I965, p. 2I. 2 Id.
To explain further how one gets from the atom to Adam,
Teilhard de Chardin expands on the notion of energy.I All energy, he
says, is psychic in nature but it is divided into two distinct
components.2 On the one hand, there is what he calls tangential
energy of which we are all more or less familiar. Tangential energy is the
energy of thermodynamics, the force of entropy and heat death, and the energy
which governs external relationships. It tends to link one element to another
at the same level of complexity or organization and, with just a little
imagination; one can see how this leads to entropy, a dissolution to the lowest
level of complexity. But there is a second form of energy, radial energy, with
which we are less familiar. Radial energy draws elements "towards ever
greater complexity and centricity--in other words forwards."' Radial
energy, something we do not yet know how to measure, is the force of union
which is also called axial or centric energy, drawing elements onward and
upward, and manifesting itself ultimately in love.
These two forms are not two things but two forms of a single,
psychic energy. They exist complementarily but in polarity. Like the foci of an
ellipse, with the increase of radial energy, the pull of tangential energy
lessens and vice-versa. The play of these two ever present forms of
energy, especially the triumph of the radial, goes some way in explaining the
evolution of matter, from the hydrogen simplicity of the spiral nebula to the
complexity of chemicals on the crust of planets, long before Darwin's survival
of the fittest could ever make one bit of difference.
I At the time The Phenomenon of Man was
written Teilhard de Chardin was still developing his understanding of energy
and, though he never departed from the basics outlined here, he did develop
them significantly. Near the end of his life he was enraptured with the idea
of human energy and considered this to be the most fruitful and needed
area of study in the whole of science. This is the thought lying being one of
his most oft quoted lines, The day will come when, after harnessing the ether,
the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of
love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man
will have discovered fire.
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of
Man, New York, I959, p. 64.
' Ibid., p. 65.
42
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