Mankind has the inherent need to worship something. I am sure that most of you realise this. After all, our society is living proof of that very fact. Since the majority of mankind has rejected the true and living God, the only thing left for people to worship is the material world of which mankind is the supposedly highest evolved representative. But there are others who believe that mankind’s evolution is still unfolding. To them, mankind has not yet evolved to his highest state but will do so once he enters into a mystical union with God through a state of supreme consciousness.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 to 1955) was a French Jesuit Catholic priest who was also Darwinian and progressive. He was best known for his theory that man is evolving, mentally and socially, toward spiritual unity through human consciousness which would ultimately lead to divine consciousness. At the time of the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial, Teilhard observed that the issue of when human consciousness began – either in the Garden of Eden or through evolutionary processes – created too much contention. In developing his theory, he simply focused on the fact that although there were two major views on the origins of human consciousness, the indisputable fact was that at some fixed point, it did begin. It was this fixed point he called the “Alpha Point”. Naturally, that led to the question of if and when human consciousness would end. This point he referred to as the “Omega Point”. Teilhard didn’t think of evolution in the Darwinian sense but claimed that evolution is like a light illuminating all facts about the universe and its relationship with God. In other words, it is a rise of consciousness. But since he also claimed that evolution needs to work in a particular direction and God is that direction, he once bizarrely claimed that: “Christ is the end-point of the evolution, even the natural evolution, of all beings; and therefore evolution is holy.”
Although Teilhard’s views are complex and at times nonsensical, the Omega Point Institute website provides a good overview of his theory: “The definition of Omega Point, as Chardin saw it, is the point at which human consciousness, in a collective Jungian sense, turns in upon itself. Not a single enlightened being like Christ or Buddha, but all of human consciousness perceives that it is divine, and in that flash instant of recognition of human divinity, human consciousness no longer exists. All that is left is divine consciousness.” Why does the Omega Point Institute exist? Its charter lays out its goal to: “utilize its limited resources to leverage the likelihood that human civilization can arrive at Omega Point as quickly as possible”.
After enduring the pain of watching six of his siblings die prematurely, along with the carnage he witnessed in the trenches of World War I as a stretcher-bearer, Teilhard believed that suffering could ultimately be used to expedite the Omega Point. He wrote: “The world would leap high toward God if all the sick together were to turn their pain into a common desire that the kingdom of God should come to rapid fruition through the conquest and organization of the earth. All the sufferers of the earth joining their sufferings so that the world’s pain might become a great and unique act of consciousness, elevation, and union. Would not this be one of the highest forms that the mysterious work of creation could take in our sight?”
Teilhard also developed a theory around the oddly named “Noosphere”. The word comes from the Greek noos (mind) and sphaira (sphere). He claimed it would develop as a great web of consciousness through the interaction of human minds which envelope the Earth. Proponents of this theory claim that the Noosphere is a holistic idea that forces us to think through global challenges together. What is troubling is that Teilhard considered that the increasingly integrated consciousness of the human race would approach a level similar to that of God. This is echoed by Professor Francis Heylighen of the Free University of Brussels who argues that the Noosphere has immense potential to develop versions of divine attributes: omniscience (knowing everything needed to solve our problems); omnipresence (being available anywhere, anytime); omnipotence (being able to provide any product or service in the most efficient way) and omnibenevolence (aiming at the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people).
But the Noosphere is not the final evolutionary stage in Teilhard’s theory. There is one more stage – the Christosphere – which would come about through a process he called “Christogenesis”. In his essay, “How I Believe”, Teilhard wrote:
I believe that the universe is an evolution.
I believe that evolution proceeds towards spirit.
I believe that spirit is fully realized in a form of personality.
I believe that the supremely personal is the universal Christ.
On the website of the Center for Christogenesis, they write: “The universe is God coming to be fully the Christ through creative union in love.” At this point, it is helpful to point out that when Teilhard writes about the emergence of Christ, he is not limiting his thought to the Second Person of the Trinity. To him (and many who think like him), the term “Christ” signifies divine love incarnate throughout the whole of creation. Therefore, when he speaks of “the fullness of Christ” he sees that as a process which will only culminate at the Omega Point. Or, in the words of the Center for Christogenesis: “We are moving toward the unity of created life fully entangled with divinity; this is the pleroma or the fullness of Christ”. In simple terms, they argue that it is a process in which the whole universe becomes the cosmic body of Christ. The Center for Christogenesis goes on to say: “We are—all of us—mothers of God’s new birth.” Or, as a Facebook page dedicated to Christian mysticism put it: “We now are the new Marys giving birth in the universal process of Christogenesis.”
Teilhard’s views bring together Eastern mysticism, speculative science and spiritual evolution. His followers extol the brilliance of his work, even though much of it makes little sense. However, he is lauded by the world because of his core message – everything in the world follows the road to unification and the universal Christ will not reject anybody who truly wishes to “unite” with Him. After all, to Teilhard, the Second Coming of Christ means the divinization of the entire universe. No heaven, no hell, no judgement – nothing except the world “becoming Christ”. To Teilhard, we don’t have to worry about sin or repentance. All we have to do is let ourselves be united with the universe. All will be one. And peace will reign forever.
As I often say to people – just because somebody mentions the name of Jesus, it does not mean they are speaking of the Jesus revealed through the Scriptures. Teilhard’s Christ is no longer Jesus, the God-man and Redeemer. Instead, his Christ is simply the initiator of a purely natural evolutionary process and, simultaneously, its end – the Christ-Omega. In his theory, the wonderful story of redemption loses its entire meaning and instead takes on a form of universalism through pancosmic evolution. In short, Teilhard does not proclaim the wonderful message of salvation. He offers a theological wolf in sheep’s clothing through the offering up of a false Christ. It is yet another tragic example of somebody completely obscuring the free gift of salvation.
