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The Phenomenon of Man

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Simply astounding. These are about the only words that I think best describe The Phenomenon of Man. Certainly, this has to be one of the most wildly interesting books that I have ever read. Most of us know and at least vaguely understand evolution, and also theists usually respond defensively that there is no conflict between God and evolution. But rare is the person who seeks to intergrate evolution into God's large-scale, dynamic plan refusing even just to argue for some "Design" in the universe. Teilhard argues that with the onset of animals capable of internal reflection, human beings, evolution takes a turn "inward". The consciousnesss is now what evolves, evolving toward an Omega Point with Teilhard sees as Christ. Certainly in our lives we can see the appeal of this view. Shouldn't our lives be a constant growth, an evolution toward complete oneness with God?

Teilhard is a genius and the best modern example of the intellectual firepower that can come from the Catholic Church and the Jesuits in particular. Although he and the Church didn't always get along (most of his stuff was censored in some way) I think this is due to the fact that Teilhard was so far ahead of his time that the hierarchy really didn't know what to do with him. Surely, 50 or even 20 years from now Teilhard de Chardin will be regarded as one of the most prolific Catholic minds in the last few centuries.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1945) was a Jesuit Priest, theologian, philosopher, and paleontologist who expanded on the concept of the noosphere originated by the Russian mineralogist and geochemist, Vladimir I. Vernadsky (1863-1945) who also originated the concept of the biosphere- the "life zone" where all biological life exists between the crust of the earth to the lower atmosphere or the "life envelope" surrounding our planet.

The "noosphere" or "thinking layer", according to Chardin, comes about at that point in time when humans evolve to the realization of a global human consciousness and is totally aware of itself and then headed for the ultimate destination- the "Omega Point" or "Kingdom of God". At this point, the earth is enveloped by a collective human consciousness.

Chardin uses both science and theology to support this theory and his dissertation on this is fascinating and thought provoking. Unlike most of his religious peers, he was a proponent of directional evolution and that Darwin had hit upon the proof of God's intent, that final destination of the human conscious evolution where the Creator is realized. Darwin, of course, preferred to distance himself from theological assumptions of species evolution, especially so with us humans and his religious wife.

Chardin distinguishes humans from all other life-forms because of our abilities to contemplate our existence, hence, the uniqueness of or the "phenomenon of man". Hopefully, he concludes, that the human family will evolve to be totally conscience, intelligent and loving, cooperative, and rising far above our current chaotic existence. Amen to that lofty, but desirable goal!

The evolutionary path of the noosphere is laid out in Chardin's earth evolution and stated as: "We have been following the successive stages of the same grand progression from the fluid contours of the early earth. Beneath the pulsations of geo-chemistry, of geo-tectonic and of geo-biology, we have detected one and the same fundamental process, always recognizable-the one which was given material form in the first cells and was continued in the construction of nervous systems. We saw geogenesis promoted to biogenesis, which turned out in the end to be nothing less psychogenesis." (p 181). And leading therefore, to "noosgenesis" or global consciousness. Finally, and due to the interconnectedness and seemingly intentional direction of life on earth, Chardin gives Earth a soul: Gaia thinking- Earth "intentionally" supports life.

No wonder then that Chardin is referenced and quoted in a mountain of science and religious works. His theories have influenced such great thinkers as: Lewis Thomas

("The Lives of a Cell"), Buckminster Fuller ("The Dymaxion Map"), the Gaia Theory- Earth as a conscious, intentional, self-regulating life-support system and expounded upon by Guy Murchie ("The Seven Mysteries of Life") and later by James Lovelock (Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine"), Thomas Berry ("The Dream of the Earth") and many, many more.

Chardin traveled the world on his scientific investigations and he was present at the discovery of the Peking Man in China. Some historians have intimated that much of Chardin's travels were at the behest of the Catholic Church for they were not thrilled with his attempts to blend science and religion and the farther away from Rome he was, the better.

The church cautioned him not to publish any of his works and faithful to that edict, he left them to a friend in the U.S. to publish posthumously to avoid further conflict and retaliation from the Church- bad memories of the history of the Catholic Church's terrible treatment of scientist and thinkers whose musings drifted from repressive, suffocating church dogma, i.e., Galileo Galilei, et al.

No matter where one's leanings are on religion or science, this is a potent dissertation on bringing science and religion together for awe and respect of life and eventual peace on Earth through global consciousness.

Teilhard has been maligned in scientific circles for many decades and you still hear complaints about his work by people ignorant of or hostile to his message. But make no mistake about it, this book is a breathtakingly accurate and honest description of physical reality. Teilhard uses Bergsonian intuition and Catholic metaphysics to spring us from the trap set by Horgan in The End of Science. Further progress in science will proceed along the trajectories identified by Teilhard. As recent books such as Garden of Ediacara and Nonzero begin to grasp the implications of Teilhard's conclusions, it becomes increasingly clear that Teilhard set the course for both spiritual and scientific renewal. His scientific insights cannot be divorced from their spiritual and religious context. Teilhard should be praised rather than criticized for this because it shows us that the notion of 'pure science' is pure fallacy. Simon Conway Morris articulated this in his review of Nonzero: "to imagine that human destiny is entirely mundane may be one of the most peculiar errors of the moderns."

The reading of this book is an experience in itself. I approached the Phenomenon of Man with some skepticism, as most people will, since it conforms to neither Darwinian or Creationist dogma. Its putative teleology within a spiritual framework is a dissent from both views. What you notice, though, is the immense intellect behind this work. The process of formal argument anticipates and answers the counter arguments as soon as they are posed. You feel as if you are on tracks led to an inevitable conclusion. The book itself becomes analogous to the process de Chardin is proposing. It is finally the homogeneity of the spirit rather than the heterogenous complexification of the natural world which is the ultimate subject of this book. A merging of consciousness in the image of Christ is the conlusion, hardly conforming to Church doctrine of the sovereignty of the individual or free will, which led to the authors problems with the Roman Curia.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a Jesuit priest and a paleontologist at a time in history when our greatest minds here in the West were making quantum leaps in our understanding of the ultimate nature of reality and our place in it. Divine revelations and mystical insights were at an apex. Teilhard had several mystical experiences during his lifetime. He is considered by some to have been one of the four greatest thinkers in the Western Christian tradition. The others being St. Paul, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. His counterpart in the East was Sri Aurobindo. Sychronistically, or perhaps by chance, Aurobindo was given a classical education in England as a youth and then returned to India in 1893. There Aurobindo's thinking evolved from Advaita to neo-Advaita. The primary difference being the evolution in understanding from pure monism to holistic synergetics, a move from the rational to the transrational. Reality is not numerically one, it is a unitive one, whole. Both great men came to the same basic conclusion separately at about the same time. That conclusion being that the unfolding of the Universe is both a physical and a spiritual evolution. Though Teilhard thought of himself in pantheistic terms, I believe he would be better described as a "Pan'en'theist". Panentheism according to Charles Hartshorne is the belief that God is greater than the sum of God's parts. For the Pantheist Nature is God. For the Panentheist Nature is a part of God. The former is a monotheistic thus solipsistic view, the latter a manifold thus synergetic opinion. In the former God is playing Solitaire, hence the existential dread and nihilistic moroseness of Continental Philosophy. Rationality is a tool of awareness, not the be all to end all of understanding. In the latter God is playing a game of Hearts we all can play. God is more than one but less than two, a transrational whole number. With God all things are possible.

Henri Bergson with his book "Creative Evolution" also had a profound impact on Teilhard. Bergson provided Teilhard a theoretical basis for his feeling of intimacy with nature. Bergson saw a "force" at work behind the processes of evolution. From this Teilhard would come to an understanding that would reconcile his religion with his science. He chose to see the "Book of Genesis" from a metaphorical rather than a literal perspective. From Charles Darwin Teilhard would take "time" and apply it to his understanding of natural processes. Before Darwin's theory of evolution entered the literature Western Science was working under the constraint of a time frame of only a few thousand years from the moment of Creation. After Darwin "time" became nearly infinite, beyond rational understanding. How long is a million years, let alone a billion years? A lot can happen when time expands exponentially. Given enough time it is reasonable to believe that a monkey might evolve into a man. Especially if that metamorphosis was a part of a master plan, part of an intelligent design. Today Biologists no longer quibble over whether or not there is design in Nature, the argument now is whether such design is "real design" or "apparent design". Sounds like an infinite regression to me. A one-way ticket to a House of Mirrors. The nature of Reality is not either/or, rather, it is a dynamic blend of seeming opposites.

For Teilhard, the "Theory of Evolution" became a revelation, "The Revelation". This did not sit well with many atheistic scientists, most notably Stephen Jay Gould. Let me just say that in my opinion Gould made an ass of himself. In Gould's book "Hen's Teeth and a Horse's Toes" Gould accused Teilhard of psuedo-science while admitting that he based his opinion on "circumstantial" evidence. Gould then had the audacity to claim that it was up to others to prove he was wrong about Teilhard. Talk about psuedo-science. This controversy was in regard to Teilhard's role in the "Piltdown Man Hoax". That Gould made such an allegation more than 20 years after Pierre's death and based it upon circumstantial evidence speaks more to Gould's than Teilhard's character, in my opinion. Obviously, Teilhard could not respond to Gould's allegations, though many of his contemporaries defended his honor and launched attacks of their own questioning the motives behind Gould's attack of Teilhard. Science, like Religion, isn't always pretty. I digress.

Bergson's theory that there was a "force" behind the evolution of life on Earth inspired Teilhard. He saw evolution as guided by a plan, not merely by happenstance, at least as much by orthogenesis as by natural selection. The debate over the driving force behind evolution continues. Teilhard came to see Creation as being drawnout rather than sudden. That the world is still being created. That we are still evolving. He believed in God, and he believed in Evolution. As a young man on a Dig in Egypt he had what he describes as a mystical insight into the underlying unity of the Earth, from rock to Man. For Teilhard, Religion and Science were no longer mutually exclusive. Spending most of his adult years in China Teilhard became familiar with the idea of yin and yang. The ancient Taoist concept that things mutually arise in polar pairs of seeming opposites. In/out, male/female, good/bad, creationism/evolution, science/religion. Day and night are dependent on each other, neither has meaning without the other, and the seed of each is contained within its seeming opposite. It is darkest before the dawn. Teilhard was able to see that Western Science and Religion were in many ways polar opposite/non-opposites. Mutually interdependent poles of the same underlying unity. Science without religion is sterile, religion without science is superstition.

Teilhard was rewarded for his synthesis of Materialistic Science with his Faith with accusations of being a psuedo-scientist and a heretic. Some of these attacks continue. It would not be until after his death that his writings would be released for publication. Much of his influence on our current worldview remains anonymous. There is no doubt that his thought had a profound impact on many of his contemporaries, both within the Catholic Church and within the Scientific Community. Vatican II, the movement of the Catholic Church to a more ecumenical spirit towards those of other faiths, was largely the result of Teilhard's thinking. Understanding continues to evolve.

Today Teilhard is seen by many as a nature mystic, an ecological and evolutionary visionary, and even as a prophet. There is no doubt that Teilhard's holistic thinking inspired James Lovelock to come up with his "Gaia Hypothesis", that the Earth is a "Super" organism. An organic whole greater than the sum of its parts. For Teilhard even rocks had a certain but limited consciousness. Everything had a sacred quality. Teilhard's concept of the "Noosphere" is being realized today through the spread of the "Internet". From the "Biosphere" comes the "Noosphere", and finally we arrive at the "Omega Point". The Noosphere is composed of all the interacting minds on Earth. The Omega Point is the culmination of this process of evolutionary integration. "The Phenomenon of Man", more correctly translated "The Human Phenomenon", is Teilhard's magnum opus. If you read nothing else by Teilhard read this book.

The reviews here pretty much mirror the two camps out there regard PTdC - love him or hate him and little in between.

I think there is another way to approach the work. Is he a windy and obscure writer much of the time? Yes. Is he wrong about scientific details? Yes. Do either of those problems negate his genuine and largely orginal philosophical insights? In my opinion, no. Does one dismiss Aristotle because he's wrong about the way the human body works? Is Hegel worthless because he's windy and abstruse? Not at all (but it makes the reader's job much harder and casts some real suspicion on the work, I admit).

Did anyone really go into reading Teilhard thinking it was a scientific paper? Can his critics find some sympathy (in the midst of what seems to be their relentlessly peevish worldview) for someone forging radical ideas that meld philosophy, theology and science? The ideas, once distilled, are at least interesting, and the basic concepts are not at all invalidated (from my reading at least) by some scientific errors.

For some of you out there, please get over your unthinking hatred of any religious or spiritual writing. It's an enormous conceit and a huge intellectual blindspot.

And for Mr. Coffee-by-the-Fireplace, he's a Jesuit. It's not his job to speak up for Krishna. Sheesh.

Stunning, exhilarating, liberating in every way. Has no one recommended this book to the creationists -- informed them that without understanding evolution, we cannot come to a right conception of God?

Some passages are as gorgeous as Proust. Some are awkward and stumbling. Teilhard has to grope for a new language in which to formulate his vision; consequently the last quarter of the book becomes too heady, more intuitive than persuasive. It is not free from instances of circular thinking or of authorial bias. But these in no way detract from the power and originality of the vision and the synthesis it achieves.

As for Medawar's critique, citely so frequently and with such dismissive satisfaction: what qualifies a man of the microscope to comment on a work of metaphysics? Nothing is easier than to make fun of philosophy and philosophers, but it's a sophomoric sport. This or that paragraph or assertion by Teilhard is easy to pick holes in, and Medawar does so with glee and mean energy, not even neglecting, from his august Nobelist standing, to denigrate Teilhard's scientific credentials. But Teilhard's vision of life's long work since the beginning of space-time Medawar cannot injure, much less supplant with a vision of his own.

One way to summarize what's wrong with the world, with the nation, and with ourselves, is to say that not enough people have read this book and been given the faith in life that it demonstrates so powerfullly.

In the most serious intent to transcend dualism Teilhard de Chardin not only put the bases for a new worldview but also made the most clear distintion between the without of things and the within of things. In this way he opened the doors to start thinking in a new concept of unity in which the qualitative aspect of reality is just as important as the quantitative. Another important Teilhard contribution is the concept of "The Perception of Space-time" not as a linear-mathematical framework but as a new sphere of reality he also called DURATION as Bergson did...In the last century...has been taking place in our minds: the definite access of consciouness to a scale of new dimensions; and in consequence the birth of an entirely new universe.

Of all places, I was first directed to Teilhard de Chardin by a reference thereto in a work of Joseph Ratzinger (later known as Pope Benedict XVI). Given my general interest in the biological sciences as well as anthropology, I decided to investigate this matter. I am ever so thankful that I took that step into The Phenomenon of Man. Teilhard's work is a beautiful synthesis of paleontology, philosophy, and even theology, standing as a beacon to the members of all three branches of knowledge. It is a testimony to the greatness of his work that it still influences the Pope to this very day, who used evolutionary language to discuss the resurrection, a concept no doubt influenced by Teilhard's work.

The general path of this text is an investigation into the development of consciousness within creation. This is done in light that consciousness must be latent in creation in order for it to exist at all within the context of evolution. It is furthermore acknowledged by the findings of relativity which point to the fact that the various spheres of the physical world are not separate but related, although only slightly at slow speeds. So too must consciousness not be fully unknown within the earlier forms of life, although it may have had much less influence on the activity of that life.

The narrative itself is translated well and is readable without a great deal of difficulty. I must say that the author is a bit overly-flowery at times. However, just as I began to become vexed with this floweriness, I would hit passages which were such stunning expositions of his thesis that I would nearly have chills. Teilhard was the first person to ever make almost cry over the final jump to reflection found in the simian branch of the tree of life.

His other, just as important, theme is that of complexification. The author puts forth the justifiable analysis of the unitive aspect of creation. The groping of life comes to be only by the unification of atomic units. This remains his theme and ultimately drives his theories for a united humanity, particularly in his views with respect to Christ. While his ideas here are somewhat radical, they are not as unorthodox as they appear to many at a quick glance. Instead, his work is an affirmation that Christ has pushed the evolutionary trend to its Omega point, a point which must in all actuality autonomously exist.

The problem of pain is relatively unaddressed in this text and remains a reason for the Church's wariness with the work. I think that he handles it well enough, passing the torch to theologians, acknowledging his own shortfalls in developing this theme.

The Phenomenon of Man is a gigantic step in a beautiful understanding of the person, world, and God. Although it is not a complete breeze of a read, it is most definitely well worth the time to read it. I put off reading it for far too long and do not suggest that you do the same. I heartily suggest it to you if you have any interest in human evolution, the birth and deployment of consciousness, or any inkling of theological/philosophical interest.

42 years ago, I read The Phenomenon of Man, while in the service. It changed the direction of my life, because it animated me to return to my dream of teaching, which I felt was part of helping us all reach de Chardin's dream of mankind evolving towards the unit of point Omega. I bought it again recently, to bask in the ideas, the brilliance of his expression, and to re connect with our mutual dream. I hope to visit his grave this summer. I'm 70 years of age, and I'm still, hopefully, participating in his dream of compassion, unity, and universal love.