Last Days and the Resurrection the Dead III: The Omega Point of Teilhard de Chardin

The Vision of Teilhard de Chardin
from Wikimedia Commons

“The great cosmic attributes of Christ, those which (particularly in St John and St Paul) accord him a universal and final primacy over creation, these attributes... only assume their full dimension in the setting of an evolution... that is both spiritual and convergent.[emphasis added]” Teilhard de Chardin, Catholicism and Science.

“The Church, the reflectively christified portion of the world, the Church, the principal focus of interhuman affinities through super-charity, the Church, the central axis of universal convergence and the precise point of contact between the universe and Omega Point.” Teilhard de Chardin, My Fundamental Vision

INTRODUCTION 

This is the third in a series on unconventional propositions about last days and the resurrection of the dead.  The first was on that of the Russian mathematician, Andrej Grib, dealing with quantum logic;   the second on that of the American physicist, Frank Tipler, dealing with his physics derived Omega Point;  this, the third, on the Omega Point as a goal in evolution, devised by the French Jesuit paleontologist, Teilhard de Chardin.   

With respect to the first two--Grib and Tipler--I want to emphasize that although I find parts of these propositions appealing, I disagree with what they say about last days and the resurrection of the dead.    They are not consistent with Catholic Teaching.   Nevertheless, we can sometimes learn more about the truth by showing what is false, and it was in that spirit that I posted those two articles:  to highlight what Catholic teaching tells us about last days and the resurrection of the dead.

Teilhard de Chardin's thesis is one more difficult to summarize and encapsulate in a short post.   He has fan clubs pro and con; there have been books and articles (including those by Popes) extolling his work, and those by emininent theologians consigning it to an ash-heap.    I will try to summarize the essential points and to point the reader to online sources (for and against) that delve more deeply.

THE THESIS OF TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Teilhard de Chardin participated in an important discovery in the evolutionary descent of humans, the discovery of Peking Man.     His training as a Jesuit and a scientist formed his belief  that both the Catholic faith and science were true and good, and that one need not forsake one to follow the other.  As N.M. Wildiers put it,

"In order fully to understand a writer...[we must] form as clear a picture as we can of the problem to which the teaching is presumed to supply a solution... the central problem with which Teilhard was concerned, the problem which is the core of his theological thought,... was without doubt what is now known as secularization."  N.M. Wildiers, Foreword, Christianity and Evolution

The implication here is that secularization, the loss of religious values, comes about because science is separated from religion.   Accordingly, de Chardin's project was to bring them together again.

The diagram at the top of the post illustrates Teilhard de Chardin's scheme for uniting science and Catholic teaching.   The scheme operates under the following principle: 

"...creation is not a periodic intrusion of the First Cause:  it is an act co-extensive with the whole duration of the universe.  God has been creating ever since the beginning of time, and, seen from within, his creation (even his initial creation?) takes the form of a transformation.   Participated being is not introduced in batches which are differentiated later...God is continually breathing new being into us.[emphasis in original]"  Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution, p. 2

Thus there are stages in this continuous development, in the evolution of the cosmos, as listed in the figure above:  matter--> life--> thought --> spirit,  or atoms --> cells --> man --> Omega Point (Christ).    At the Omega point all will coalesce and, as near as I understand de Chardin, there will be a super consciousness into which individuals are subsumed. 

The Christ of Teilhard's Omega Point is more than Christ the Word, who as God created all things, and Jesus, the man who suffered and died to save us.  He is "Christ-the-Evolver".   

"[He is identified] not with the ordinating principle of the stable Greek kosmos [the Logos], but with the neo-Logos of modern philosophy, the evolutive principle of a universe in movement." op. cit, p. 181.

Finally, de Chardin would combine the three mysteries of Christology--Creation, Incarnation, Redemption--into a fourth:

"The three mysteries become in reality no more, for the new Christology,...they are aspects of a fourth mystery, which alone...is absolutely justifiable and valid...it is the mystery of the creative union of the world in God or Pleromization." op.cit., p. 183

MY TAKE

In the above I have not commented on de Chardin's views on resurrection of the dead;  as near as I can tell from his works and commentaries on them he supposes that we are immortal (as a soul) and will be subsumed into the Omega Point at the end.   This is not the view given in Catholic teaching: both body and soul will be resurrected and we will be resurrected as individuals, not as components of a super-being.

With respect to other parts of de Chardin's Christology and theology, I can only say it is like the curate's egg:  there are some excellent parts and parts which are BAAD!    I'll leave it to the reader (after he/she goes through the references linked below) to decide which is which.

PROS AND CONS

Early in his career de Chardin ran into problems with Church authorities because of his novel views on evolution and the Dogma of Original Sin.   I won't discuss this matter here (it's worth at least two posts) but link to the following reference:  Evolution and Original Sin: the Problem of Evil (written by Jesuit priests and seminarians).

I'll list the links below for Teilhard fans and anti-fans:

PROS 
Teilhard de Chardin, World Public Library
Orthodoxy of Teilhard de Chardin, Part V.
Teilhard de Chardin and Trans-humanism
Will the Vatican let Teilhard de Chardin save the Church?
In the above there are quotes from Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI, writing as Joseph Ratzinger, extolling de Chardin's new views on Christology.   In addition, prominent theologians, such as Henri, Cardinal du Lubac, have praised his work. 

CONS
Challenging the Rehabilitation of Teilhard de Chardin
Critique of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin by Dr. Deitrich von Hildebrand
A Review of "The Phenomenon of Man" by Sir Peter Medawar (this review criticizes de Chardin's science, not his theology.)

Last Days and the Resurrection of the Dead II:Frank Tipler Does it with Physics

Penrose Diagram, for an Omega Point; Arrow is the "world-line" of a photon
from Wikimedia Commons

"It is our relative insignificance in time, not space, which is the real challenge posed by modern cosmology for traditional religion.  I shall show that this view leads naturally to a physical theory for an evolving God, which I term the Omega Point theory." Frank Tipler, "The Omega Point Theory: A Model of an Evolving God" in Physics, Philosophy and Theology--A Common Quest for Understanding

INTRODUCTION

In the post, Last Days and the Resurrection of the Dead I: Quantum Cosmology and Quantum Logic, I discussed  Andrej Grib's proposition that there would be a "Big Crunch", the universe disappearing in a singularity.    Grib, in his article about this and quantum logic, referred to that Big Crunch being an "Omega Point", proposed by the Jesuit paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin and later by the American physicist Frank Tipler.   I'll discuss Tipler's version (with which I disagree) in this post,  and then turn to that of de Chardin in a third.

PANTHEISM RUN RIOT?--TIPLER'S OMEGA POINT

If you do a Google search: "Frank Tipler Omega Point", you'll find several entries with the term "crackpot".    I won't go that far;  if you agree with Tipler's base assumptions, his arguments are cogent, to an extent.   These assumptions are listed below:

1. "...the possibility of a TOE [Theory of Everything]...might imply that there is only one logically possible universe. This would refute...the premise that God had some freedom of choice in creating the universe."
2. "An evolving God is very much in the world, creates it, and is created by it."
3. "...at the most basic ontological level there is nothing but physics and the 'stuff' studied by physics."
4. "...value is something connected with life, and thus if value is to remain in the universe, life must persist indefinitely;"
5. "...I claim that life is a form of information processing (the converse is not true) and the human mind--and the human soul--is a very complex computer program. [emphasis added]"
6. "...the future c-boundary of the universe consists of a single point--call it the 'Omega Point'." Frank Tipler, op.cit.

Let's examine these assumptions.   I don't disagree with #4 (which is not exactly the same as agreeing with it--there are quite a few qualifications that have to be added to make that statement satisfactory).    The pantheism implicit in #2 is rejected by Catholic teaching;  God transcends the universe even though He is immanent in it*.   I also reject the scientism implicit in #1 and #3;  I have posted

many articles** to the effect that much in the world cannot be explained by science, and that even in that prime example of physics theory, quantum mechanics, there is "a veiled reality" which science can not penetrate.  The proposition that  mind is nothing more than the emergent product of a meat computer,  the brain, is one with which many philosophers and scientists would disagree (including the mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, and the philosophers of mind, John Sears and Thomas Nagel).

The term "c-boundary" comes from terminology devised by Roger Penrose in his  cyclic conformal cosmology thesis.  (And this thesis deserves a post, nay a chapter, on its own.)   The c-boundary is defined as the set of points which are not the pasts of any points or the future of any point in spacetime.  The c-boundary is essentially the "edges" of spacetime--the perimeter of the square, as in the diagram above.   As the list of terms in the link gives it, an Omega point is a c-boundary in which an infinite amount of information has been stored***.

Tipler's vision of the Omega Point is described in more detail in his book,  The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead.   In the far distant future the universe is contracting.   Super-intelligences (not necessarily carbon-based life) use the shear forces of this contraction for energy.   These intelligences are benevolent:  they can reconstruct and download personalities into computers, where they will live a virtual life (a la' Matrix?), happy and pleasurable.  This virtual life will be essentially eternal, since time will slow down as the universe approaches the Big Crunch (as if one were descending into a black hole).    One remarkable "benefit" of such a virtual life is romantic fulfillment:

"it would be possible for each male to be matched not merely with the most beautiful woman in the world, not merely with the most beautiful woman who has ever lived, but to be matched with the most beautiful woman whose existence is logically possible." Frank Tipler, The Physics of Immortality.

And what's the story for females, and those of non-heterosexual inclination? Certainly this is a picture of Heaven different from that given by Jesus:

"For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." Matt 22:30 (KJV)

I have raised objections above to Tipler's thesis, and it is evident that it does not correspond to a Catholic position on the transcendence of God, the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment and being a saint in Heaven.

*See the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Relation of God to the Universe.

**See, for example, "There's more to there than physics", "Philosopic Issues in Cosmology 4: Creatio ex Nihilo, Theology vs. Physics", "Are All Great Scientists Atheists?", "Tipping the Sacred Cow of Science: Confessions of a Science Agnostic"

***If you go to this link you'll see many terms that are used for Tipler's Omega Point thesis.