2.2.4.1. Omega: the unity of the multiple
The notion of creative union is central to Teilhard de
Chardin's entire system of thought. In effect, here lies the basis of his
consideration of @Panmobilism'. Creative union is the theory that
leads us to such a collectivisation of humankind, what he calls
Hominisation as he says:
The coalescence of elements and the coalescence of stems,
the spherical geometry of the earth and psychical curvature of the mind
harmonising to counterbalance the individual and the collective forces of
dispersion in the world and to impose unification - there at last we find the
spring and secret of hominisation.2
Individual forces and even collective forces of dispersal are
being harmonised through the gathering of the elements of the earth in order to
bring forth unification which is finally the work of Hominisation.
From such a metaphysical framework, Teilhard de Chardin laid
the foundation of the Civilization of the Universal, the Pan-human-mobilism,
where the problem of the One and the Many was considered in terms of real men
and women. As he says:
I find that the one great problem of the one and the
manifold is rapidly beginning to emerge from the over-metaphysical context in
which I used to state it and look for its solutions. I can now see more clearly
that its urgency and its difficulties must be expressed in terms of real men
and women.3
I Id.
2 Ibid., p. 243.
3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in Cuénot, C.,
Teilhard de Chardin, London, I965, p. 377.
Pan- human-mobilism is a convergence that synthesizes the One
and the Many. More than this, in Teilhardian metaphysics, however, love in
unifying, ultra-personalizes. Thus Teilhard de Chardin's Cosmo-mysticism falls
in line with the demands of established Christian mysticism and this was the
core of his own spiritual life.
If evolution progresses, it must progress along the lines of
this increased personalization, that is, it must culminate in Omega
Point.I Even as a cell is more than the sum of its molecules, or a
plant more than the sum of its cells, so too is Omega more than the sum of its
persons. Teilhard de Chardin catalogues four necessary and novel attributes of
this Omega Point:2
I. Actuality: Omega is neither an ideal nor a
potential, but is rather, 'present' and 'real'. Though it arises out of the
Noosphere, it has its own ontological reality like consciousness which arose
out of the biosphere but has its own reality.
2. Irreversibility: Each of the thresholds
we have encountered has proven to be irreversible, a once for all event that
may be destroyed but cannot be undone. For example, thought can be destroyed if
humanity destroys itself, but will not be undone apart from such a cataclysm.
Omega however, escapes from even the potential of destruction by escaping
totally from the forces of decay. Because of this it inspires hope and action
and leads us to deduce a third attribute:
3. Autonomy: Omega is the terminus of
evolution, the point on the top of the pyramid of space and time. As such, it
transcends both space and time. We saw radial energy progressively gaining
increased liberation from tangential decay. At Omega Point, tangential energy
is shed completely. Though the earth will, in keeping with entropy, one day
perish, the Omega Point will not.
I See appendix I and appendix II.
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of
Man, New York, I959, pp. 267-272.
Teilhard de Chardin says: "Omega must be independent of the
collapse of the forces with which evolution is woven."'
4. Transcendence: Looked at from the
historical process, Omega "only reveals half of itself,» says
Teilhard de Chardin. "While being the last term of its series it is also
outside all series. Not only does it crown, but it closes."2
Escaping time and space, Omega is able to be simultaneously present at all
times and at all spaces. Here is the great secret of evolution, long hidden but
now revealed: Omega is the Prime Mover ahead.3 The radial
energy of evolution, what we have learned is really love, has been all along
the attraction of Point Omega.
The stability of the universe is not found in ever smaller
units but in the highest and most complex of phenomena: in life, in
consciousness, in Omega. Omega finally transcends and unifies the whole
universe; it "escapes from entropy and does so more and
more.»4
Because Omega has actuality humanity will not just unite
in Omega, but will unite with Omega and so will humanity achieve
its own liberation from entropy.5
Teilhard de Chardin is in love with the concept of Omega, his
tone switching to one of hushed reverence and sensual delight when he speaks of
it. For him actually, Omega was more than a concept; it was, in fact, personal,
a someone, and as a someone, it could be loved. Omega is the personalization of
the whole universe, the spiritual face of the world. As the combination of both
the universal and the personal, it is the
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Op. cit.,
p.270.
2 Id.
3 Ibid., p. 27I. We note here that the
concept of Prime Mover is given to us by Aristotle in his
Metaphysics.
4 Id.
5 Ibid., pp.27I-272. Teilhard de Chardin
describes how, once the critical point of reflection was crossed, a polar shift
occurred. The reflexive center is able to center itself in Omega which makes
death into something entirely new. "By death, in the animal, the radial is
reabsorbed into the Teilhard tangential, while in man it escapes and is
liberated from it. It escapes from entropy by turning back to Omega: the
Hominisation of death itself."
60 fulfillment of the Spirit of the earth anticipated in Noo
genesis. And, for, Teilhard de Chardin, it was still more.
In the epilogue to The Phenomenon of Man as well as
in a host of other essays, Teilhard de Chardin equates Omega with Christ. He
believed that he arrived at the personal Omega without deviating from his
strictly phenomenological approach to reality. However, in his epilogue,
Teilhard de Chardin cannot help but connect this vision with his own
Christianity. In Teilhard's mind, the different spheres of knowledge: science,
mysticism, philosophy, religion taken to their utmost, meet in this one point
of God-Omega. In inquiry as in cosmic evolution, "Everything that rises
must converge."' The equation of Omega with Christ has the
effect of christifying the whole universe. The entire evolutionary event can be
imagined as a cone: Cosmo genesis blending into biogenesis blending into
anthropo genesis blending into Noo genesis and finally Christo genesis reaching
its peak at Omega.2 Bernard TOWERS comments:
Superimposed, then, on what Teilhard called the Noosphere,
there is the beginning of the Christosphere. `Christogenesis' is the process
through which all men will come to share in, to form part of, the Mystical Body
of Christ. And men will bring with them all the rest of that world of nature in
which our human nature is inextricably bound up. Christogenesis constitutes the
last stage of the evolutionary process.3
2.2.4.2. Cosmogenesis and Noogenesis
The universe is a totum in which each element is positively
weaved with all the others. Man does not live in a world already arranged, but
in a world which is in transformation, in progress. Commenting Teilhard de
Chardin, Claude CUENOT says that this vision of the world is what is considered
as Cosmogenesis:
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of
Man, New York, I964, p. I92.
2 In an interesting twist on the concept of Christo
genesis, Teilhard sees the Church as the most significant shoot of the
Noosphere, a 'phylum of love' that leads the advance towards Christification,
which is identical with the revelation of the mystical body of Christ.
3 Bernard TOWERS, Concerning Teilhard,
London, I969, p. 49.
o L'évenement le plus considérable qui se
soit déroulé a la surface de la terre, c'est que nous prenons
graduellement conscience du fait que le monde est en mouvement. Dans
l'ensemble, l'homme avait vécu avec l'idée qu'il appartenait a un
systeme déjà tout arrangé oil il se trouvait placé.
Or, c'est ce systeme let qui est en train de se mettre en mouvement dans un
sens d'organisation. Ce passage d'un monde conçu comme arrangé a
un monde conçu comme en voie d'arrangement, c'est le passage d'une
vision en cosmos a une vision en cosmogénese. »1
Cosmo genesis is the birth and the development of the Cosmos.
In the Teilhardian system, it refers to the primary stage of evolution. At this
stage, the universe presents itself in the Biosphere with three important
elements: Matter, Energy and Life. The world of beasts, the world of forces,
and the world of stones is the Biosphere. The concept of Cosmo genesis brings
forth the idea of evolution, transformism. Gradually, the universe is moving
towards the Noosphere because evolution in Teilhardian metaphysics is matter
serving the spirit. The material world of the Biosphere is gradually developing
to reach the Noosphere, a world of complexification of human intelligence.
Teilhard de Chardin believed that in the movement of
convergence, there is within us and around us, a continual heightening of
consciousness in the universe. The term "Noo genesis" was coined by Teilhard de
Chardin. It means the growth or development of consciousness, the coming into
being of the Noosphere. Noosphere is defined as the sphere or stage of
evolutionary development characterized by the emergence or dominance of
consciousness, the mind, and interpersonal relationships. Noo genesis is the
birth and development of the Noosphere, a world of high level of
I Claude Cuénot, Teilhard de Chardin,
écrivain de toujours, Paris, I938, p. 7I. The most important event
which has occurred at the surface of the earth is that gradually, we are
becoming conscious of the fact that the world is in progress. Generally, for so
long, man has lived with the idea that he was part of a system already arranged
and where he just happened to find himself. In fact, it is that system which is
in movement in an orderly manner. The passage from the conception that the
world is already arranged to the conception that the world is in progress leads
us to Cosmo genesis.
62 development of consciousness. For the Jesuit priest, this
theory because of the novelty it brings along is not yet established as a
stronghold in the scientific field:
For a century and a half the science of physics,
preoccupied with analytical researches, was dominated by the idea of the
dissipation of energy and the disintegration of matter. Being now called upon
by biology to consider the effects of synthesis, it is beginning to perceive
that, parallel with the phenomenon of corpuscular disintegration, the Universe
historically displays a second process as generalised and fundamental as the
first: I mean that of the gradual concentration of its physico-chemical
elements in nuclei of increasing complexity, each succeeding stage of material
concentration and differentiation being accompanied by a more advanced form of
spontaneity and spiritual energy. The outflowing flood of Entropy equalled and
offset by the rising tide of a Noogenesis...! The greater and more
revolutionary an idea, the more does it encounter resistance at its inception.
Despite the number and importance of the facts that it explains, the theory of
Noogenesis is still far from having established itself as a stronghold in the
scientific field.'
Nevertheless, despite this resistance, Teilhard de Chardin is
confident with the fact that the theory of the Noo genesis is going to yield
the awaited fruits. The first result is that it will bring about the automatic
convergence of the two opposed forms of worship into which the religious
impulse of Mankind is divided, namely, those who believe in the world on one
hand and those who believe in God on the other.
In effect, after accepting the reality of a Noo genesis, those
who believe in this World will find themselves compelled to allow increasing
room, in their vision of the future, for values of personalisation and
transcendency:
Of Personalisation because a Universe in process of
psychic concentration is identical with a Universe that is acquiring a
personality. And of transcendency because the ultimate stage of 'cosmic'
personalisation, if it is to be supremely coherent and unifying, cannot be
conceived otherwise than as emerging at the summit of the elements it
super-personalises in uniting them to itself.2
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of
Man, New York, I964, p. 78. 2 Ibid., p. 79.
Teilhard de Chardin's vision is a vision of the entire cosmos,
matter as well as spirit, ultimately christified.I Omega occurs as a
kind of transfiguration: the cataclysmic end of material reality as we
presently know it and the birth of Omega, absolute consciousness.
Cosmos becomes Christos as the Cartesian dualism of
subject/object is left behind once and for all in the ultimate personalization
of the universe.2
And so Teilhard de Chardin comes to the end of the drama of
evolution, a unified picture of ascent from the first quarks all the way up to
the cosmic body of Christ. For him, this vision has become a creed and he sums
it up well in the following poem:
I believe that the universe is an evolution.
I believe that evolution proceeds towards spirit.
I believe that spirit is fully realized in a form of
personality.
I believe that the supremely personal is the universal
Christ.3
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