Neo-Thomism

The Teaching of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on Humanity

Neo-Thomism is a leading current in religious philosophy, but it is not the only one. Several religious philosophers have sought to deviate from orthodox doctrine. A vivid manifestation of a new religious worldview is the philosophy of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). His work "The Phenomenon of Man" deserves particular attention, as the author endeavors to reconstruct an evolutionary picture of the world based on contemporary scientific data, delineating both the beginnings and the ends of human history. According to him, modern science has significantly revised the medieval conception of the universe and demonstrated that the world is in a state of continuous movement and development.

Evolution is invariably at the forefront of Teilhard's thought, and its significance is emphasized with acute intensity.

Primarily, Teilhard notes that evolution is not confined to the realm of living nature; rather, "from its most distant formations, matter presents itself to us in the process of development." However, regarding the pre-biological level, Teilhard's concept is often insufficiently specified and not fully elaborated. He is willing to suggest that, in the microcosm, development is limited to the emergence of atoms and elementary particles "suddenly" and "once and for all."

The most constructive part of Teilhard's doctrine of evolution is that which pertains to the biological level and its transformation into "the phenomenon of man." He views matter as replete with potential for development, generation, and transcendence—potentials that he sometimes refers to in metaphorical language as "divine" or "transcendent."

Overcoming the traditional Christian division of existence into two substances—spiritual and material, divine and earthly—Teilhard achieves this by recognizing the universal inspiration of matter. According to his views, to explain the possibility of everything existing from a single substance, one must posit that atoms, electrons, and other elementary particles must have some common basis, a "spark of spirit." Thus, for Teilhard, all material things possess a spiritual component, which he designates as "radial energy." In his view, radial energy drives the development of matter.

The relationship between matter and spirit is one of primacy, at least insofar as Teilhard does not question the creation of matter: "matter is the mother of spirit, and spirit is the higher state of matter." One of the weaknesses of "The Phenomenon of Man" is the absence of a direct definition and special consideration of the category of matter. It is difficult to ascertain why this is the case; perhaps it is due to a desire to enhance the phenomenological nature of the approach and to avoid giving the impression of the author's involvement in "the dispute between materialists and spiritualists."

According to Teilhard's concept, the world is constantly in a state of change, evolving from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher. He also emphasizes the interconnection between quantitative and qualitative changes, asserting that the emergence of a new quality cannot be explained without introducing the notion of a "leap" into natural history, understood as a critical point of change of states through which the next stage of evolution negates the previous one.

"In all fields," wrote Teilhard, "when any magnitude has grown sufficiently, it suddenly changes its appearance, state, or nature. The curve changes the direction of movement, the plane transitions into a point, stability collapses, liquid boils, an egg divides into segments..." Teilhard also understands development as a series of "leaps," a "nodal line of actions."

The principal critical points in the process of the world's development, or cosmogenesis, according to Teilhard, are the following stages: inorganic nature ("pre-life"), organic matter ("life"), the spiritual world ("thought," "noosphere"), and God ("Omega point"). However, within the first two of these stages, there also occur quantitative and qualitative changes. For instance, at the "pre-life" stage, qualitative states emerge, such as atoms and inorganic molecules, initially simple and then increasingly complex and large, transitioning into "megamolecules." Teilhard posits that the combination of external and internal conditions on the Earth's surface gave rise to living cells—a new form of material existence. Life, he asserts, is never an anomaly, chance, or exception.

Biological evolution plays a significant role in the formation of the Cosmos. However, it does not dictate the laws governing its development. Teilhard attributes decisive importance to the third stage of evolution, associated with the emergence and development of humanity. According to his teaching, humanity is a link in biological evolution connected with previous stages. Yet it occupies an exceptional place in the universe because at this level, the highest form of development arises—thought, consciousness, spirituality. The change in biological state that leads to the awakening of thought is not merely a critical point traversed by an individual or even a species. Being more extensive, this change affects life in its organic totality and thus marks a transformation that impacts the state of the entire planet.

Prior to the advent of humanity, endowed with its unique capacity for thought, all that existed in the world was disjointed, and this disconnection was ever increasing. However, through its activity, humanity continuously achieved a higher synthesis of all existence, thereby creating a distinct realm—the realm of spirit. Teilhard refers to this sphere, drawing an analogy to the stages of geochemical development of the Earth—such as the barisphere, lithosphere, and biosphere—as the Noosphere—the thinking layer of the Earth.

Teilhard depicts the Noosphere as the product of the process of hominization. Hominization, in his words, represents a fantastic spectacle of collective reflection. Each Ego transcends into a mystical Super-Ego. As a result of this process, a thinking, collective, and persistent organism forms—a "thinking stratum of the Earth." The Earth is not only covered with billions of grains of thought but enveloped in a singular thinking shell that creates a functionally existing broad grain of thought on a cosmic scale. The Noosphere finds its culmination in a certain synthesis of centers of human consciousness, in the spiritual center of the universe—“the Omega Point”—God. “In its structure,” writes Teilhard, “the Noosphere, and indeed the world, represents not merely a closed aggregate but one with a center. Space and time are inherently convergent in nature; thus, their boundless surfaces in the corresponding direction must once again converge somewhere ahead at a single point, which we shall call Omega, where they will completely merge and be absorbed.”

With the revelation of Omega as the organic center of the universe, its prime mover and final cause, the first part of Teilhard's philosophical-theological system concludes, in which there occurs a rational justification of monotheism (the belief in one God). In the second part, Teilhard sets out to imbue monotheism with a Christian character. The image of God—the Omega—transitions in this part of the system to the image of Christ—the universal, evolutionary Christ. Here, Teilhard endeavors to substantiate the position that the God-man—Jesus Christ—through the mechanism of the Incarnation, possesses universal and cosmic attributes, thus serving as the personal center of the entire universe, from which all paths of evolution commence and to which they converge. According to Teilhard, Christ embodies the inner essence of the entire world, rooted in the very heart of the smallest atoms.

All natural development—of not only the Earth and humanity but also of stars and other planets, such as Sirius and Andromeda—occurs around Christ. For Teilhard, Christ emerges as an inexhaustible synthesis of elements and systems, unity and multiplicity, spirit and matter, the infinite and the personal. Thus, Christ stands as the organic center of the harmonization of the entire universe. He imprints a decisive mark upon all properties of the universe, which is defined by his choice, inspiring its form. In Him converge all lines of the world; matter and spirit are created in a holistic manner.

He provides all with its consistency and, thus, in Him resides the pinnacle of creation, culminating and reaching the highest point in universal dimensions, in supernatural depths. According to Teilhard, the entire universe is nothing other than the body of Jesus Christ—the Divine Medium. All members of this body exist in a specific relationship with one another, mutually influencing each other.

As a paleontologist and evolutionist, Teilhard attempted to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable—the problem of the evolution of living beings and the Christian view of creation and the formation of the world. Here, he proposed an entirely unique, one might say, original concept. While Christian evolutionism is not his discovery—having existed before—Teilhard's perspective is absolutely unique in this regard. His primary vision, his intuition, was that the world resembles a living organism, infused with Divinity and directed toward perfection. This is not merely development for the sake of the emergence of diverse forms, as in Darwin’s work, which was titled "On the Origin of Species"; rather, his development has an altogether different objective, even a super-objective.

Nevertheless, Teilhard’s chief merit lies in his unveiling of a new vision of humanity itself. For him, humanity is the “key to the universe,” containing the resolution to all mysteries, the highest link in evolution, which entails a great responsibility for all that occurs in the world. For the first time in history, humanity has the capacity not only to know and serve evolution but also to love it. Thus, as Teilhard posits, humanity reflects the divine nature to such an extent that one can now directly tell God that people love Him not only with all their hearts but also “with the entirety of the universe.” Teilhard’s grand intellectual-religious model organically incorporates ideas of “super-life,” “overman,” and the “planetization” of humanity, allowing it to complement the purely religious characteristics of the world with its evolutionary description.

Thus, alongside the philosophical substantiation of the existence of God, the proofs of various religious doctrines, and the consideration of “pure being” as some spiritual primal source, Neo-Thomism engages in the interpretation of natural scientific theories and social practices. Neo-Thomism predominantly discusses the situation of the "human" living within the conditions of modern "industrial and scientific culture." Enlightenment presupposes a certain knowledge of one’s own history and culture, particularly those changes they have undergone in recent centuries. Knowledge of the Christian tradition, the language of one’s people, literature, the cultic activities of the Catholic Church, and the general ideological-cultural context in which Catholicism exists stands at the center of the socio-philosophical concepts of Neo-Thomism.