INTRODUCTION
Teilhard de Chardin has never used the concept of Panmobilism;
but when we consider his metaphysics, a metaphysics of convergence, we observe
that it perfectly abide to this theory that holds that all things are in
movement. As a palaeontologist, a geologist, a theologian and a philosopher,
Teilhard de Chardin proves to be a man of science. His great scientific spirit
which accepted the complexity of our world and the complexity of human
relationships, enabled him to foresee that all human races, all cultures, all
civilizations, were coming up together through convergence. His scientific
investigations lead him, though he had not received a great philosophical
formation, to consider some philosophical problems and to stand out as a great
philosopher of the future. This is what Paul-Bernard GRENET asserts when he
says:
K Un grand esprit qui ne voulait faire que de la science
fut contraint, par l'universalite meme de cette science, de poser des problemes
qui etaient philosophiques, de parler un langage philosophique. Comme sa
connaissance de la technique philosophique etait sommaire, il passa aux yeux de
plusieurs, qui etaient ses juges par fonction, ou qui userent des droits de
tout lecteur a porter un jugement pour un maitre de mauvaise philosophie. Comme
son information scientifique etait immense, ses dons de cmur inepuisables, le
lyrisme de son expression prestigieux, il passa aux yeux de plusieurs autres
pour le seul maitre de la philosophie de l'avenir. »I
In effect, Teilhard de Chardin affirmed that the general
movement of civilizations was drawing them towards a panhuman convergence. In
his writings, he presents how civilizations are called to come together in
synthesis in order to unite in the Omega Point, the centre of all
civilizations. Throughout his metaphysical considerations, he maintains the
idea of totality, defending the complementarity and mutual duty of human races
in the process of collectivisation of mankind.
I Paul-Bernard Grenet, Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin ou le philosophe malgré lui, Paris, I960, p.5: He was a
great spirit who engaged in science and because of the universality of this
science; he was bound to posit philosophical questions and to speak in a
philosophical language. Because his knowledge of philosophical technique was
not developed, he was considered by some as a master of wrong philosophy and
because his scientific information was so great, he was considered by many
others as the only master of the philosophy of the future.
CHAPTER ONE
PANMOBILISM AND THE QUESTION OF
UNITY AND PLURALITY
Panmobilism is the theory that holds that everything -
pan - is in movement - mobilism -. It appears more explicitly
with Heraclitus when he affirms that things are in perpetual change and that
for this reason, one cannot step in the same river twice. If we seek to
discover what Teilhard de Chardin regarded as a central and fundamental
problem, we have some indications that the starting point of his philosophical
thought was the same as that treated by Plato in the Parmenides: the
relation between the One and the Many. Thus, Cuenot affirms in the following
words:
In his Sketch of a Personal Universe, he wrote: "Plurality
and unity: the one problem to which in the end all physics, all philosophy, and
all religion, come back."'
The problem of the One and the Many had been grappled with
throughout the history of philosophy and it lies at the basis of Teilhard de
Chardin metaphysics. The panhuman convergence, "creative union", is the theory
that accepts the conciliation of the One and the Multiple as Wolfgang SMITH
puts it:
In the present evolutionary phase of the cosmos (the only
phase known to us), everything happens as though the One were formed by
successive unifications of the Multiple. 1...] This does not mean that the One
is compose of the Multiple i.e., that it is born from the fusion in itself of
the elements it associates 1...] The One appears in the wake of the Multiple,
dominating the Multiple since its essential and formal act is to
unite2.
I Claude Cuenot, Teilhard de Chardin, London,
I965, p. 377. 'Wolfgang Smith, Teilhardism and the New
Religion, USA, I988, p. 66.
Teilhard de Chardin saw that convergence brought together the
One and the Many, the One being born from the concentration of the Many. Within
a universe which is structurally convergent, the only possible way for one
element to draw closer to the other neighbouring elements is by driving towards
the point of universal convergence. He calls it the Omega Point. According to
him, everything begins in multiplicity and converges towards an ever greater
unity. And yet, it is clear that even the most elementary observations disclose
just the opposite. The fertilized ovum for example, which looks like a sphere
or tiny globule, divides and subdivides, creating a spherical immensity of
cells. Then the cells begin to divide themselves, giving rise to a multiplicity
of layers, tissues, and organs. The entire movement appears to be in the
direction of increasing multiplicity. But Teilhard de Chardin seems to be
convinced that things invariably move in the opposite direction: first
multiplicity, then unity. For him, not only do all things begin in
multiplicity, but it is multiplicity that unites them.
1.1. Heraclitus and the law of perpetual change
The date of Heraclitus' birth or death is unknown, but we know
that he reached the peak of his fame around 505-500 BC, during the period of
Ionian anti-Persian activity. His homeland, Ephesus, was involved in the
political turbulence, provoking the philosopher's anger and causing him to
accuse political leaders of abdicating leadership to masses. His attacks were
also directed at earlier poets and thinkers, such as Hesiod, Homer, Pythagoras
and Xenophanes. His pride can be seen in his frequent use of the pronoun "I" in
his fragments and his open declaration of independence from any teacher.
However, it would be an exaggeration to negate the presence of earlier
doctrines in his thought, for example, Anaximander's philosophy.
This aristocratic thought was accompanied by pessimism; hence,
his entire philosophical conception is dominated by a profound sense of
reality's ephemeral fragility. Heraclitus expounded his thought in a prose work
entitled On the universe. From this work, we can have an impressive
picture of the universe. Its first feature and
that which was afterwards taken to be the distinguishing mark
of Heracliteanism is the passionate and eager acceptance of change as the law
of being: "you cannot step twice into the same river". All things, for
Heraclitus are in perpetual flux and change; nowhere in the universe is to be
found eternal rest, unchanging stability. And not only is there perpetual
change, but also perpetual conflict: war is the father of all things.
In effect, the clash of opposites is the very condition of
life. Evil and good, hot and cold, wet and dry and the rest are each other's
necessary complements and the endless strife between them is the sum of
existence. The only harmony possible is a harmony of conflict and contrast, a
counter-pulling harmony of conflict like that of a bow or a lyre. Also, to the
corresponding Pythagorean "taking sides" between the opposites, exalting good
over evil, light over dark, male over female, Heraclitus considers that the two
members of every pair are indivisible and equally natural and necessary; one
without the other is impossible. All things are in movement, they are in
perpetual flux and they are governed by the law of becoming: good becomes evil
and evil becomes good, hot becomes cold and cold becomes hot, wet becomes dry
and dry becomes wet, and so on.
This world of perpetual change and perpetual conflict pictured
by Heraclitus is not however a mere chaos. It is governed by an immanent
principle of order and measure. Heraclitus speaks of its work sometimes in
mythological terms. "Justice" and her ministers the "Furies" keep the
"Opposite" or the heavenly bodies within their due bounds. But his name for the
ruling principle is the Logos. It makes its first appearance in
philosophy with Heraclitus and he is the first to give it that peculiar and
very profound meaning which later made it so valuable for expressing the
Christian revelation.
The Logos of Heraclitus is the universal proportion
of the mixture, the law or principle of measure and just order which effects
the harmony of opposing tensions. But the Logos is law because it is a
living all-ruling intelligence which seems to be in
some way identified with the ever-living Fire which is the
stuff of the universe, the thunderbolt which tears everything. This fire is not
identical with the visible and elemental fire that we know and is ever-living,
not immortal, for it is in turn transformed into all things and all things into
it. This transformation of all things into each other according to the living
divine law which somehow persists when the Logos-Fire itself is
transformed, is a cyclic, ever-recurring process, the way up and down. The
Logos is the principle of life and intelligence to men, but they have the
choice of shutting themselves up in their private worlds of ignorance and
stupidity or to opening themselves to universal Logos and the unbound
depth of its wisdom.
Thus, the Logos is for Heraclitus a universal
principle which is the cause of order, proportion, balance, harmony and
rationality in the continual flow of being and is at the same time vividly
alive. It is this union of life and rationality in the continual single concept
of the Logos which is one of Heraclitus' great contributions to our
traditional inheritance of thought. The other, and this is what we are mostly
concerned with, is his extraordinary vivid intuition of the nature of the world
in which we live: a world in which things are subject to the law of perpetual
change, and die continually into each other's life, and in which the only
possible harmony is a delicate and precarious tension of opposing stresses; but
a world which is no mere chaos but one and governed by a living law: the
Logos. It is a view of the world of time and change which has been
accepted by later and greater thinkers who looked beyond it to a transcendent
and eternal world of the spirit.
We clearly see the seeds of Teilhardian Panmobilism from the
thought of Heraclitus. Things are in perpetual movement, humanity is in
progress towards Hominisation. There is a panhuman convergence of all races,
all civilizations, all cultures, all peoples and this planetary movement is not
in a mere chaos. Peoples are moving together towards the Omega point, centre of
all civilizations, point of universal convergence, centre of the Civilization
of the Universal. The Heraclitean Logos can find its best expression
under the Teilhardian Omega Point.
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