2.3.2. Christogenesis and the Parousia
There is a further objection raised by those uncomfortable
with Teilhard de Chardin's idea that the Parousia coincides with evolutionary
consummation. After all, a natural process culminating in Christo genesis
sounds little like the second coming of tradition. True, Teilhard de Chardin
allows, but this unfamiliarity is no sign of illegitimacy. Teilhard de Chardin
considers Christ's first coming: Could there have been a Jesus of Nazareth
without the long labor of evolution to produce humanity, or more specifically,
a Mary? No, he answers. "Christ needs to find a summit of the world for his
consummation just as he needed to find a woman for his
conception."2 Even as in Mary the supernatural and the natural
met, so too must Christo genesis be a meeting place of the natural, the Noo
genesis and the supernatural, the Parousia. And so Christ emerges as the
organic peak and cosmic power of the evolutionary process. He is at once
evolution's author, creator, animator and mover, director and leader, center
and head, its consistence and consolidation, its gatherer and assembler,
purifier and regenerator, crown and consummation, its spear-head and its end.
And, lest we forget, Teilhard de Chardin reminds us that
The universal Christ in whom my personal faith finds
satisfaction is none other than the authentic expression of the Christ of the
gospel. Christ renewed, it is true, by contact with the modern world, but at
the same time Christ become even greater in order still to remain the same
Christ.3
I Norbertus Maximilaan Wildiers, An Introduction
to Teilhard de Chardin., New York, I968, p. I37.
2 Quoted in the book of Christopher F. Mooney,
Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery of Christ, London, I966, p. 62. See
also Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, p. 22.
3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and
Evolution, New York, I97I, p. I29.
Teilhard de Chardin wonders at this God of Cosmo genesis,
consistence and union in the following words:
Who, then is this God, no longer the God of the old Cosmos
but the God of the new Cosmogenesis--so constituted precisely because the
effect of a mystical operation that has been going on for two thousand years
has been to disclose in you, beneath the Child of Bethlehem and the Crucified,
the moving Principle and the all-embracing Nucleus of the World itself? Who is
this God for whom our generation looks so eagerly? Who but you, Jesus, who
represent him and bring him to us? Lord of consistence and union, you whose
distinguishing mark and essence is the power indefinitely to grow greater,
without distortion or loss of continuity, to the measure of the mysterious
Matter whose Heart you fill and all whose movement you ultimately control--Lord
of my childhood and Lord of my last days... sweep away the last clouds that
still hide you... Let your universal Presence spring forth in a blaze that is
at once Diaphany and Fire. 0 ever-greater Christ'
In fact, the world is evolving, the elements are gathering up
together in order to become one. Teilhard de Chardin would then consider the
problem of the one and the manifold, plurality and unity, and he will insist on
the fact that civilizations, cultures, human races, men and women are able to
unite despite their differences in order to build up the Civilization of the
Universal. Instead of being pessimistic as Samuel Huntington who described the
clash of civilizations2, Teilhard de Chardin describes the general
movement of civilizations not in terms of a clash, but in terms of convergence.
In fact, Samuel Philips Huntington declared:
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Heart of
Matter, New York, I979, pp. 57-58.
2 Samuel Huntington wrote a book entitled The
Clash of Civilizations in which he considers that human relationships at
an international level are characterised by conflicts.
It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of
conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily
economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of
conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors
in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur
between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of
civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between
civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. The West won the
world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by
its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this
fact, non-Westerners never do.'
In all optimism, Teilhard de Chardin believed in a better
future and was already foreseeing what has come to be developed nowadays as
globalisation. After considering Panmobilism in the metaphysical field, with
the theories of Heraclitus and the Teilhardian development of consciousness,
time has now come to consider Pan-humanmobilism and this is the object of our
third chapter.
CHAPTER THREE
THE PANHUMAN CONVERGENCE
As earlier stated, Panmobilism is the theory that affirms that
all the elements in the universe are in movement. From a metaphysical point of
view, all beings, all that exists is in perpetual movement and in perpetual
change. This theory was developed by Heraclitus who affirmed that one cannot
step twice into the same river. With Teilhard de Chardin, this theory finds its
fulfilment with its application to human beings, real men and women and takes
the shape of a panhuman convergence towards the Omega point. As such,
Panmobilism leaves the mere metaphysical sphere in order to be considered in a
moral and political point of view. In effect, Teilhard de Chardin affirms:
The world of human thought today presents a very
remarkable spectacle, if we choose to take note of it. Joined in an
inexplicable unifying movement men who are utterly opposed in education and in
faith find themselves brought together, intermingled, in their common passion
for a double truth: namely, that there exists a physical Unity of beings, and
that they themselves are living and active parts of it.1
Despite the divergent and opposed conditions of people, they
are still being drawn in a unifying movement; despite their differences, they
are still able to come together in a unity that accepts difference and
diversity. This is the convergence of all peoples, all civilizations towards
the ultimate point of unity, the Omega Point, centre of all convergence. This
movement is inevitable and imposes itself to humanity. It does not depend on
peoples but what depends on them is the manner in which they are to be drawn
through this movement. They will either accept to join in a cooperative way or
they will be dragged by coercion because the panhuman convergence is an
irreversible phenomenon.
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of
Man, New York, I964, p. 20.
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