Spiritual Evolution
|
Ascension of Christ 5th century ivory carving, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Germany. |
 |
|---|
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1881-1955, lived in the age of Planck, Einstein and Curie. He wrote “that thought must be a quantum process”. For Chardin, the quantum of consciousness could be hypothesized and could, eventually, be proved. Perhaps electrons or quarks acting on neurons in the brain produce diffraction patterns. Perhaps quantum phenomena produce different dimensions. We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
The coming stage of evolution, Teilhard de Chardin said, won't be driven by physical adaptation but by human consciousness, creativity, and spirit. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Chardin wrote often that there is a natural progression in the evolution of consciousness. He saw evolution as the work and manifestation of the Holy Spirit. There is a Life Force, that may be part of the Holy Spirit, that helps create life from the chemical elements and that drives life to higher states.
No need for Adam and Eve here. Not surprisingly, Teilhard was barred by his religious superiors from publishing his philosophical works during his lifetime. Chardin was deeply religious and Christ was the center of his life and he tried to reconcile supernatural elements in Christian theology with the philosophy of evolution. He wrote “by the Incarnation, God descended into nature to ‘super-animate’ it and lead it back to Him: this is the substance of Christian dogma.”
“What could serve as a better background and base for the descending illuminations of a Christogenesis than an ascending anthropogenesis? “. Suppose that there is, in fact, a basis to it. Lets us not be afraid to ask the questions and make the hypotheses. Not as strange Genesis 6.
John 1:14 "And the Word became flesh and lived among us..." What would it mean for the Son of God to come to us. A word represents an idea, which is an element in consciousness. This is a way of saying the Word, or Logos, is the development of human consciousness - the Son of God is really consciousness. What God need humans for? Someone or thing to be able to communicate with. Christogenesis is evolution of consciousness, the Logos coming to Man, in which Man can then realize, or be conscioius of God. |
 |
|---|---|
| The Ancient of Days, by William Blake, 1794, etching and watercolor, British Museum, London. | |
Chardin viewed the universe and life and thought as evolving in order to become united with God. There is a thin layer of life on earth called the biosphere, and a mindsphere may be there, awaiting detection and /or development. Vladimir Inanovich Vernadsky, 1863-1945, was a Russian scientist and original pioneer of the concepts of the biosphere and noosphere. “Noos” and “nous” are from the Greek for mind.
| Chardin developed the spiritual side of the concept of “noosphere” or mindsphere, which can be described as a layer of mind, action, and love connecting all humans. This noosphere is envisioned as encircling earth, interacting with the biosphere, possible a connection between earth and Heaven, involving human consciousness and spiritual energy. |  |
|---|
This may sound very strange, but if we consider the difference between an ant colony, that communicates by organic molecules, and human society, that can communicate through cyberspace, the noosphere is a next logical step. Chardin started to develop these ideas one hundred years ago, now millions of people, for good or worse, are connected in a "psycho-social" network that we call the internet.
“Some evolutionists may see only random proliferation and disorderly diversification”, but Chardin sees a “spiritually evolutionary scheme of the universe”, and that there is direction, at least in terms of this driving life force. And this is not so different than some current ideas of creation termed “intelligent design”.
For Chardin, we are in a universe drawn to the spirit, an attractive universe. In this way, this scheme of Intelligent Design, life is driven by spiritual energy, vitalization, through the various processes of evolution to consciousness, thought and man. This is the phenomena of spirit and of man.
The next higher state would be a consciousness that can more directly attune with the Divine. And this may be an underlying fear of Creationists. If God exists, the argument goes, God would need consciousness of some sort in His Creation to commune with. Teleology is a word that relates to the purpose or meaning and direction of life.
In our own life, we may see intelligent design occurring when we are harmonious with the Holy Spirit. Some will see or feel the spirit, and others will not, or can not yet feel the attractive universe. It may be a case of not seeing the forest for the trees, or it may be neural connections, or it may be our in psychic self, or it may simply be a case of those that feel the spirit are just imagining it.
For the Catholic Jesuit Priest Chardin, “Love is the most universal, most tremendous and most mysterious of the cosmic forces. Love is the primal and universal psychic energy. Love is an attractive force, a higher form of human energy.” And this is Christ the Logos!
Cyberspace and electronic communication is part of the material evolution of the noosphere and is now a fact. Communion with the Divine is part of the spiritual nature of evolution of consciousness and the noosphere. This is only speculation - at least until further evolution in consciousness occurs. Teilhard Chardin's proposed Omega Point is a possibility.
The unknowable and impersonal God is knowable, on some level, through Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Next Reformation will come to realize Creative Attraction and the evolution of Christ Consciousness.
