Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (IPA: [pjɛʀ tejaʀ də ʃaʀdɛ̃]; May 1, 1881 – April 10, 1955) was a Jesuit priest trained as a paleontologist and a philosopher, and was one of those who discovered the Peking Man. Teilhard de Chardin conceived such ideas as the Omega Point and the Noosphere. His ideas have been enormously popular and stimulated much popular culture, speculation and contemplation about God's role in the on-going creation. Fr. Theilhard was also concerned with each individual being potentially part of the small "growing tip" that influences the growth and direction of the collective "organism" we call humanity. The Omega Point was the goal of history, and though history may seem to cycle, it actually spirals as each "loop" is directed by the "growing tip" with each cycle getting a little closer to the "Omega Point," or goal of history. This cycle had decreasing diameters and increasing in elevation, thereby creating a spiral.

His theological works were filled with infectious passion and joy. He experienced and expressed the Divine in the human,material,scientific and spiritual aspects of our world.

In setting forth his sweeping account of the unfolding of the material cosmos, he abandoned the literal interpretation of the creation account in the Book of Genesis in favor of a metaphorical interpretation. In so doing he displeased certain officials in the Roman Catholic Curia, who considered that this undermined the doctrine of original sin developed by Saint Augustine from his understanding of the story of the Fall of Man. It was for this reason that Teilhard's account became controversial amongst certain church officials. His work was denied publication while he was living due to the opposition of the Roman Holy Office, then held by the ultra-conservative Cardinal Ottaviani (who was the strongest opponent of innovations approved during the Vatican II Council).

Life

Early years

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was born in Orcines, close to Clermont-Ferrand, in France. He was the fourth child of a large family. His father, an amateur naturalist, collected stones, insects and plants, and promoted the observation of nature in the household. This fostered Theilhard's love of science and the material world.

Teilhard's spirituality was awakened by his mother. He loved both parents very much, so it was natural that in his later life he could see no reason to choose one discipline over the other.

When he was 11, he went to the Jesuit college of Mongré, in Villefranche-sur-Saône, where he completed baccalaureates of philosophy and mathematics. Then, in 1899, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Aix-en-Provence where he began a philosophical, theological and spiritual career.

As of the summer 1901, the Waldeck-Rousseau laws, which submitted congregational associations' properties to state control, forced the Jesuits into exile in the United Kingdom. The young Jesuit students had to continue their studies in Jersey. In the meantime, Teilhard earned a licentiate of literature in Caen in 1902.

From 1905 to 1908, he taught physics and chemistry in Cairo, Egypt, at the Jesuit College of the Holy Family. Teilhard studied theology in Hastings, in Sussex (United Kingdom), from 1908 to 1912. There he synthesized his scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge in the light of evolution. His reading of l'Evolution Créatrice (The Creative Evolution) by Henri Bergson was, he said, the "catalyst of a fire which devoured already its heart and its spirit." His views on evolution and religion particularly inspired the evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky, who wrote the essay Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution. Teilhard was ordained a priest on August 24, 1911, aged 30.

From 1912 to 1914, Teilhard worked in the paleontology laboratory of the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, in Paris, studying the mammals of the middle Tertiary sector. Later he studied in Europe. Professor Marcellin Boulle, specialist in Neanderthal studies, gradually guided him towards human paleontology. At the Institute of Human Paleontology, he became a friend of Henri Breuil and took part with him, in 1913, in excavations in the prehistoric painted caves in the northwest of Spain, at the Cave of Castillo.

Prior to the World War, Theilhard was asked to examine and comment about an archaeological finding that came to be known as the Piltdown Man. The "finding" was later revealed as a hoax, with some saying that Theilhard was one of the perpatrators. He was later cleared of those allegations.

Mobilized in December 1914, Teilhard served in World War I as a stretcher-bearer in the 8th regiment of Moroccan riflemen. For his valor, he received several citations including the Médaille Militaire and the Legion of Honor.

Teilhard followed at the Sorbonne three unit degrees of natural science: geology, botany and zoology. His thesis treated of the mammals of the French lower Eocene and their stratigraphy. After 1920, he lectured in geology at the Catholic Institute of Paris, then became an assistant professor after being granted a science Doctorate in 1922.

China

In 1923 he traveled to China with Father Emile Licent, who was in charge in Tianjin for a laboratory collaborating with the Natural history museum in Paris and the Marcellin Boule laboratory. Licent carried out considerable basic work in connection with missionaries who accumulated observations of a scientific nature in their spare time.

In the following year he continued lecturing at the Catholic Institute and participated in a cycle of conferences for the students of the Engineers' Schools. In 1925, he was asked not to lecture at Catholic institutions, but to continue his scientific work instead.

Teilhard traveled again to China in April 1926. He would remain there more or less twenty years, with many voyages throughout the world. He settled until 1932 in Tientsin with Emile Licent then in Beijing. From 1926 to 1935, Teilhard made five geological research expeditions in China.

in 1929, Theilhard was a discoverer of one of the oldest known remains of a human being, the Peking Man. This was enormously important to archeology and evolutionary thought and also inspired his theological development. He met Helmut von Terra, a German geologist in the International Geology Congress in Washington, DC. A few months later Davidson Black died.

After a tour in Manchuria in the area of Great Khingan with Chinese geologists, Teilhard joined the team of American Expedition Center-Asia in the Gobi organized in June and July, by the American Museum of Natural History with Roy Chapman Andrews. While in China, Teilhard developed a deep and personal friendship with Lucile Swan.

Teilhard took part as a scientist in the famous "Yellow Cruise" in Central Asia. The following year the Sino-Japanese War began.

World travels

In 1926–1929, he traveled in the Sang-Kan-Ho valley near Kalgan (Zhangjiakou)China and made a tour in Eastern Mongolia. While there, he wrote Le Milieu Divin (the Divine Mellieu). Teilhard prepared the first pages of his main work Le Phénomène human (The Phenomena of Man). In 1929, the discovery of the Peking Man shook the world and made everyone more aware of his theological writings, to the chagrin of the church he loved so much.

Being a world traveler, in a trip to Somalia, his commentary shows a little bit of the kind of life he lived.

He wrote, "Monfreid and I, we did not have anything any more European", joked Teilhard. "Once we dropped anchor, at night, along the basaltic cliffs where the incense grew. The men were going by dugout to fish odd fishes within the corals. One day, Hissas sold us a kid goat with camel milk. The crew took this opportunity "to dedicate" the ship. The old reheated Negro who served Monfreid in his whole adventures dyed with blood the rudder, the mast, the front part of the ship, then, later in the night, it was the song of the Qur'an in the medium of thick incense smoke."

From 1930–1931 Teilhard stayed in France and in the United States. During a conference in Paris, he stated: "For the observers of the future, the greatest event will be the sudden appearance of a collective human conscience and a human work to make."

Teilhard participated in the a Yale University expedition in northern and central India and then made a short stay in Java, on the invitation of Professor Ralph von Koenigsvald to the site of Java man.

Answering an invitation from Henry de Monfreid, Teilhard undertook a journey of two months in Obock in Harrar and in Somalia with his colleague Pierre Lamarre, geologist, before embarking in Djibouti to return to Tianjin.

In 1937 Teilhard wrote Le Phénomène spirituel (the spiritual Phenomenon) on board the boat the Empress of Japan, where he met the Rajah of Sarawak). The ship conveyed him to the United States. He traveled to Philadelphia and New York to receive awards for his contributions to science, all amidst great controversy.

He then stayed in France, where he was immobilized by malaria. During his return voyage in Beijing he wrote L'Energie spirituelle de la Souffrance (Spiritual Energy of Suffering) (Complete Works, tome VII).

Controversy with Church officials

In China in 1923, Fr. Theilhard sent two of his theological essays on "original sin" to a theologian, on a purely personal basis, but they were wrongly understood. These were:

  • July 1920: Chute, Rédemption et Géocentrie (Fall, Redemption and Geocentry)
  • Spring 1922: Notes sur quelques représentations historiques possibles du Péché originel (Notes on few possible historical representations of original sin) (Works, Tome X)

In 1925, Teilhard was ordered by the Jesuit Superior General Vladimir Ledochowski to leave his teaching position in France and to sign a statement withdrawing his controversial statements regarding the doctrine of original sin. Rather than leave the Jesuit order, Teilhard signed the statement and left for China. This was the first of a series of condemnations by certain church officials that would continue until long after Teilhard's death.

From 1927–1928 Teilhard took a year away from China and stayed in France, based in Paris. He journeyed to Leuven, Belgium, to Cantal, and to Ariège, France. Between several articles in reviews, he met new people such as Paul Valery and Bruno de Solages, who were to help him in issues with the Roman Catholic Church.

From 1932–1933 he began to meet people to clarify issues with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, regarding Le Milieu Divin and L'Esprit de la Terre.

When he received the Mendel Medal from Villanova University, he made a speech about evolution, the origins and the destiny of man. The New York Times dated March 19, 1937 presented Teilhard as the Jesuit who held that the man descended from monkeys. Some days later, he was to be granted Doctor honoris causa of the Catholic University of Boston. When coming to the meeting, he was told that the distinction had been cancelled.

The climax of his condemnations was a 1962 monitum of the Holy Office denouncing his works. From the monitum: "The above-mentioned works abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine ... For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers."

As time passed, it seemed that the works of Teilhard were gradually returning to favor in the church, but the Holy See in 1981 clarified that recent statements by members of the church, in particular those made on the hundredth anniversary of Teilhard's birth, were not to be interpreted as a revision of previous stands taken by the church officials. Thus the 1962 statement remains official church policy to this day.

Death

A few days before his death Teilhard said "If in my life I haven't been wrong, I beg God to allow me to die on Easter Sunday". Teilhard died on April 10, 1955 in New York City, and that was, in fact, Easter Sunday.

He died in his residence at the Jesuit church of St Ignatius of Loyola, Park Avenue. He was buried at the Jesuit seminary at St. Andrews-on-Hudson in upstate New York. In 1970, the Culinary Institute of America bought the seminary but the cemetery remains on the grounds of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.

Work

Scientific Work

Theilhard established the first general geological map of China from 1925 to 1935.

As an advisor to the Chinese national geological service, he supervised the geology and the paleontology of the excavations of Choukoutien (Zhoukoudian) near Beijing. In December 1929 he took part in the discovery of Sinanthropus pekinensis, or Peking Man who was determined to be the nearest relative of Pithecanthropus from Java. This was an important link in a speculation of evolutionary descent. Theilhard and Henri Breuil discovered that the this ancient man was a "faber" (worker of stones and controller of fire).

Teilhard took part as a scientist in the famous "Yellow Cruise" in Central Asia. He joined in the northwest of Beijing in Kalgan the China group who joined the second part of the team, the Pamir group, in Aksu. He remained with his colleagues for several months in Urumqi, capital of Sinkiang.

Teilhard undertook several explorations in the south of China. He traveled in the valleys of Yangtze River and Szechuan (Sichuan) in 1934, then, the following year, in Kwang-If and Guangdong. The relationship with Marcellin Boule was disrupted; the Museum cut its financing on the grounds that Teilhard worked more for the Chinese Geological Service than for the Museum.

Teilhard participated in the 1935 Yale–Cambridge expedition in northern and central India with the geologist Helmut von Terra and Patterson, who verified their assumptions on Indian paleolithic civilizations in Kashmir and the Salt Range Valley.

He then made a short stay in Java, on the invitation of Professor Ralph von Koenigsvald to the site of Java man. A second cranium, more complete, was discovered. This Dutch paleontologist had found (in 1933) a tooth in a Chinese apothecary shop in 1934 that he believed belonged to a giant tall ape that lived around half a million years ago.

In 1937, he received the Mendel Medal granted by Villanova University during the Congress of Philadelphia in recognition of his works on human paleontology.

During all these years, Teilhard strongly contributed to the constitution of an international network of research in human Paleontology related to the whole Eastern and south Eastern zone of the Asian continent. He would be particularly associated in this task with two friends, the English/Canadian Davidson Black and the Scot George B. Barbour.

Answering an invitation from Henry de Monfreid, Teilhard undertook a journey of two months in Obock in Harrar and in Somalia with his colleague Pierre Lamarre, geologist, before embarking in Djibouti to return to Tianjin.

Theological Work

Throughout the years of World War I, he developed his reflections in his diaries and in letters to his cousin, Marguerite Teillard-Chambon, who later edited them into a book: Genèse d'une pensée (Genesis of a thought). He confessed later: "...the war was a meeting "... with the Absolute." In 1916, he wrote his first essay: La Vie Cosmique (Cosmic life), where his scientific and philosophical thought was revealed as was his mystical life. He pronounced his solemn wish to become a Jesuit in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, on May 26, 1918, during a leave. In August 1919, in Jersey, he would write Puissance spirituelle de la Matière (the spiritual Power of Matter). The complete essays written between 1916 and 1919 are published under the following titles:

  • Ecrits du temps de la Guerre (Written in time of the War) (TXII of complete Works) — Editions du Seuil
  • Genèse d'une pensée (letters of 1914 to 1918) — Editions Grasset

In the 20's in China,Teilhard wrote several lyrical and passionate essays that became important in their own right as well as a foundation for the direction he would pursue. These included La Messe sur le Monde (the Mass for the World), written in the Ordos Desert.

In 1929, amidst his discovery of the "Peking man," he was inspired to write L'Esprit de la Terre (the Spirit of the Earth).

Prevented by the church to be published while he was alive, his posthumously published book, The Phenomenon of Man, sets forth a sweeping account of the unfolding of the material cosmos in the past up to and including the development of the noosphere in the present and including his vision of the Omega Point in the future.

Teilhard de Chardin is the proponent of orthogenesis, the idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal driven way. This is often viewed as a teleological view of evolution. This still would not be the same as teleological implications of intelligent design. It does not deny the capacity of evolutionary processes to explain complexity. To Teilhard, evolution unfolded from cell to organism to planet to solar system and whole-universe (see Gaia theory).

Controversies about his line of thought center on the question of whether or not the mission started by Christ ended with the crucifixion, or is it up to mankind to continue it throughout the evolutionary process. In turn, this demands to know whether or not the key to human salvation is the mediation of the Catholic Church and its sacraments or the actions undertaken by mankind in moving towards the Omega point and so realizing the actual Christogenesis. Teilhard said "A religion which is supposed to be inferior to our ideal as mankind, whatever the miracles surrounding it, is a LOST RELIGION." Though many would ask one to choose between Heaven and heart, between God and mankind, Teilhard refused the honor the division. His opponenents would say he chose the later humanistically. His supporters would say he created a bridge for those who had previously been unable to find the link between those things we have designated as Heaven and earth.

Omega point

Omega point is a term Fr. Theilhard invented to describe the ultimate maximum level of complexity-consciousness, considered by him the aim towards which consciousness evolves. Rather than divinity being found "in the heavens," he held that evolution was a process converging toward a "final unity." This is identical with the Eschaton and with God. According to Chardin and the Russian scholar and biologist Vladimir Vernadsky (author of The Geosphere 1924 and The Biosphere 1926), the planet is in a transformative process, metamorphosing from the biosphere into the noosphere.

Legacy

Pierre Theilhard de Chardin inspired so many with his embrace of life, and ability to endure what some call persecution. He loved God and the Church; he loved Science. He never saw any reason to abandon either of them. He felt compelled to work out his problems with the officials in his chosen discipline by accepting their authority, thus truly exemplifying the way of Jesus. The enormous repect for this character is shown in his unique and enormous impact on popular culture. For example, novelist Morris West clearly based the heoric character David Telemond in The Shoes of the Fisherman on Teilhard. In Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos, Teilhard de Chardin has been canonized a saint in the far future. His work is a focal inspiration for the anthropologist priest character, Paul Duré. When Duré becomes Pope, he takes Teilhard I as his regnal name.

He was a disciplined and methodological scientist that worked for intra-disciplinary cooperation. He anticipated various scientific concepts in his work, such as the multiplicity of universes and possibilities as eventually proved in various Quantum physics theories much later. The debate over evolution and Intelligent Design is still going on, and it is possible that the technical validity of some hypothesis regarding his palentological findings may not hold to be entirely correct, his process and dilligence in observation will remain exemplary. His work will remain used much in the way Psychology still holds up William James for his process of thought and observation, even though most of his psychological theories were eventually found to be wrong.

The teachings of Teilhard de Chardin influenced many of the engineers that were the creators of "Silicon Valley" in California. Principal among these engineers is Bob Noyce, who created the integrated circuit chip and greatly advanced the world of technology with his work on computers.

Theologically and philosophically, many still discuss his ideas and work from them. This is exemplified in the seminal short story by Isaac Asimov,"The Last Question" (in the Book "Robot Dreams". Humanity merges its collective consciousness with its own creation: an all-powerful cosmic computer. The resulting intelligence spends eternity working out whether The Last Question can be answered; the The Last Question is "Can entropy ever be reversed". When the intelligence discovers that entropy can be reversed, it does so with the command: LET THERE BE LIGHT.

The merging of contemporary scientific principles with apocolyptic concepts is intiguing and has promise in reviving religous thought and devotion. Just a one example is found in Barrow and Tipler's "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle", p676: "At the instant the Omega Point is reached, life will have gained control of all matter and forces not only in a single universe, but in all universes whose existence is logically possible; life will have spread into all spatial regions in all universes which could logically exist, and will have stored an infinite amount of information, including all bits of knowledge which it is logically possible to know."

Just as there is still much thought and discussion within his beloved Roman Catholic Church, ther also is most certainly much legacy in the more secular world as well. The sheer joy and exuberance expressed through symphonies, popular songs, books,websites would delight Fr. Theilhard as evidence of many really taking his thoughts serioiusly, and thus decreasing the time it will take us to reach the "Omega Point."

Partial Bibliography

  • Le Phénomène Humain (1955)
    • The Phenomenon of Man (1959), Harper Perennial 1976: ISBN 006090495X
    • The Human Phenomenon (1999)
  • Letters From a Traveler (1956; English translation 1962)
  • Le Groupe Zoologique Humain (1956)
    • Man's Place in Nature (1973)
  • Le Milieu Divin (1957)
  • L'Avenir de l'Homme (1959)
  • L'Energie Humaine (1962)
  • Christianity and Evolution, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0156028182
  • The Heart of the Matter, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0156027585
  • Toward the Future, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0156028190
  • Activation of Energy, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0156028174

Links

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References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1950. The Future of Man.
  • -----, 1955. Le Phénomène Humain (The Human Phenomenon) (1955)
  • Frank J. Tipler, 1986, "Cosmological Limits on Computation," International Journal of Theoretical Physics 25: 617-61.
  • -----, 1994. The Physics of Immortality. Doubleday.

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