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Teilhard’s Three-fold Process of Evolution As a boy, Teilhard was fascinated by nature, collecting specimens and marveling at the wonder of it all. It was no surprise that he eventually moved into a scientific career as a paleontologist. Growing up in a pious family, he cultivated the religious side of his character, studying in religious schools and eventually becoming a Jesuit priest. As a scientist, he was firmly committed to an evolutionary understanding of nature and creation. As a loyal Catholic, he also was committed to the teachings of the Church, particularly the description of creation found in Genesis. The conflict between these two views was deeply troubling to him and served as an impetus to his lifelong quest for a reconciled account. The problem with Genesis does not arise from its obviously inaccurate and contradictory story about the six days of creation, such as the appearance of light before there was a sun. On the contrary, like the other creation stories of early cultures, it provides a beautiful, mythical way of describing the benevolent power of the creator and the basic goodness of nature. The problem arises from the no-longer tenable paradigm of a static universe. From this perspective, for example, it was necessary for the creator to create all species at one time and for Noah to be sure he included a mating pair of each. Each new kind of plant or animal needed a special divine intervention to bring it into being. What is needed today is a dynamic paradigm based on the evolutionary development of the universe. Teilhard developed a vision of evolution as an overarching comprehensive process encompassing cosmological, geological, biological, and cultural aspects. His genius lay in his ability to see unifying themes in processes which seem so different but which would be seen simply as differing degrees of a single process. Consciousness, for example, was understood as a property not only of human beings, but of the whole cosmos down to individual bits of matter and energy. While a plant certainly does not have the degree of consciousness found in a human being, it has enough consciousness to allow it to follow the sun and extend its roots downward, and the like. To Teilhard, then, what is evolving is not simply plants and animals and the rest of nature, but consciousness itself. In his view, the level of consciousness reached by human beings has led to the development of a new layer on earth, the noosphere (the layer of the mind), to be added to the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. In a similar way, Teilhard saw the evolutionary process taking place in three steps: diversification, individuation, and communion. The overall direction of physical processes in the universe is a relentless increase in the tendency toward disorder, toward an increase in entropy. Nature viewed over a sufficiently broad scale is always tearing down, not building up, always mixing things together, moving toward a bland uniformity. The process of diversification, on the contrary, runs directly contrary, always bringing new species into being and then experimenting with variations. The process is similar to play or to artistic creativity: an artist no sooner has a basic design on canvas than she begins to devise variations; a child at play no sooner creates an assembly of building blocks than he decides to put them together in a different way. The fact that diversification seems a basic property of the universe suggests that we humans who wish to cooperate rather than impede the evolutionary process should cherish diversity. We must understand that different cultural styles—language, values, social organization—are no less important than different genetic constitution; both are required as ingredients in the recipes of evolution. We must also support the prophets who stand outside the common crowd and provide a vision of another way, at the same time showing us a model for our own prophetic activity. After diversification, there follows a phase of individuation, the development of an inner life to complement the outer life. Individuation refers to the capacity for self-organization. An animal in one sense is a collection of chemicals, but these chemicals are organized in such a way that the structures and functions are maintained even in the face of disruption. This ability to maintain a given condition, referred to as the set-point, is known as homeostasis (and also as negative feedback control). An example is the ability of warm-blooded animals to maintain a narrow range of body temperature, through regulation of perspiration, exhalation of water vapor, and distribution of blood to surface capillaries, regardless of severe fluctuations in the ambient temperature. Homeostatic controls are found in all living organisms, both in individuals and in ecosystems, where the supply of food and predators tends to keep populations in check. Similar feedback mechanisms also keep all the major life support systems on Earth in balance, and largely for this reason our planet is thought of as being itself alive. Unfortunately, these mechanisms, while quite reliable in responding to moderate stresses, tend to break down under more severe conditions and produce a state of no return. The third phase of evolution is communion, where the appropriately diversified and individuated creatures come together and begin to cooperate. Out of cooperation comes a power and fulfillment greater than the sum of the individual parts. The process occurs even at the most primitive level, where, for example, carbon atoms and oxygen atoms cooperate to form carbon dioxide, a substance entirely different from its constituent elements. With animals, mating is a further example. Of course, we human beings have by far the greatest capacity for communion, and it at this level that the cutting edge of evolution now finds itself. Clearly, this process as understood by Teilhard is much more than mechanical; it is understood as numinous from the beginning to the end toward which we are still progressing. How we are to act in response to this understanding is also clear and simple enough: we must do whatever we can to cooperate with the evolutionary process and refrain from doing anything which would put obstacles in the way. In practice, we are still called to do the same things, to seek peace, to act with compassion, to relieve the suffering of the world, as best we can. The difference is that the perspective of Teilhard is able to bring a new dimension of hope and serenity so much needed in these troubled time. The creator of the universe, working in us today as in the first beginning thirteen billion years ago, will not suddenly abandon the project and leave us stranded. Dom Roberti |