See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P..._Teilhard_de_Chardin

Here is a sample chapter from The Phenomenon of Man.

Basically, the broad contours of his thinking are as follows:

1. There is an "outside" and "inside" to matter, the latter being a kind of consciousness.

2. There is a relationship between the organic complexity of matter and the consciousness it embodies, the ultimate manifestation on earth being the human.

3. There is a line of evolution that has moved to greater complexity and consciousness through the aeons.

4. At the heart of this evolutionary process is the "omega force," which is moving toward the highest expression of complexity and consciousness. Ultimately, Teilhard identifies this with Christ.

5. The line of complexity moves as follows: from atoms to molecules to cells to tissues to organisms to humans to the creation of the noosphere (the realm of thought in which humans participate).

See this link for a rough sketch.

- - -

Ultimately, he got into trouble with the Church for being "soft" on Original Sin. I don't know why he was so boneheaded about this, as it's possible within his schema to account for the emergence of human consciousness and still affirm the traditional teaching on our rebellion against the lawfulness and Law-Giver who brought us forth.

In many ways, Teilhard's vision predicted the emergence of the Internet and the coming together of cultures; it's simply a continuing manifestation of the law of complexity and consciousness. See this article for Teilhard and the Net.

He was an incredible combination of gifts, including scientist, mystic, prophet, philosopher and visionary, all the while serving as a Catholic priest until his death on Easter Sunday, 1955.

Ultimately, he got into trouble with the Church for being "soft" on Original Sin.

I think I�m going to like this guy.

I much prefer the idea that life is hard and painful because, well, that's the way God designed nature and maybe had to design nature to suit his purpose (which, I admit, I'm still not sure about exactly what that purpose is). Evolution and life feeding on life are rather brutal ways to not only create new species but to exist. But it's an extremely clever, robust, and flexible mechanism. If one were trying to gauge the nature and purpose of a Creator from what we see in nature we would have to think of that Creator as a true genius. To create matter and energy in such a way that it can combine in the ways it does is truly astounding. But we would also see that this Creator was in no way averse to having his creations suffer. I'm not sure why this would be, but that is the way of the world. Rather than needing Original Sin to explain how something was broken, one could say that things are working exactly as they were meant to. There apparently is deep meaning in suffering. So after billions of years of slow, brutal, painful evolution we've gotten to this stage where a species has evolved (humans) who have the concept of morality and good and evil (the knowledge of good and evil). And thus, like it or not, and unlike most other animals (if not all of them), we are faced with the choice of consciously committing evil acts or good acts. And with this knowledge comes culpability which has some kind of importance in regards to the original purpose of evolving humans in the first place. And so an avenue is created whereby, through Christ, we can advance on further. We see then by this that obviously the complexity evolves to ultimately serve moral considerations. Thus we are heading toward good. That is the point.

Now, I'm gonna read some Teilhard and see if we intersect on anything. I sort of doubt it. He's a priest, I'm a heretic.

Phil,

I've heard a lot about Teilhard and pretty much agree on at least one of these notions which Darwinism doesn't account for: Grace. I like the figure of "tangent" to describe this force. However, I feel that Teilhard is at times weighty and excessive and unnecessarily complex when what is being said is not that complex. I'll have more to say as I consider the discussion over a weeks time and have time to absorb what exactly he is saying. Generally, I feel uneasy will teleological schemas of reality, which is a contradiction because I believe in Grace interpenetrating history. However, I connect to the idea of "world without end" more than I do the teleological schema in Genesis to the New Testament. So that's one point I'll have to struggle with. At any rate, here's one of my problems with his clunky style:

"The coalescence of elments and the coalescence of stems, the spherical gemometry of the earth and psychical curvature of the mind harmonising to counterbalance the inidividual and collective forces of dispersion in the world and to impose unification--there at last we find the spring and secret of hominsation."

What do you make of this? First off, why is "coalescence" repeated? What is "psychical curve"? How does the mind harmonize "to counterbalance individual and collective forces." By the Omega point, one assumes. The word "impose" has almost a missionary tone to it. And what is "hominsation?" I assume it is the act of becoming human, which depends on something that is not and cannot be verified? Isn't there a much simpler way of expressing this? This is what I mean by weighty. Since the whole sentence depends on "psychical curve" and I can't make much of it, it comes off as slightly pretentious and over-the-top. One other point is this: how does De Chardin fit, or does he fit with modern physics?

As I mull over the "curve" bit: he seems to be talking about the self-reflexive ability of the mind to harmonize with the "Omega point" and attain a balance with it, and, by extension, with Christ. The curve is an interesting opposition to a tangent which only move bidirectionally--towards beginnings and ending. Animals are perfectly happy without this self reflexive mechanism and function according to God's Laws it would seem, whereas humans must make an effort to "bend" their wills towards Him.

all this becomes intelligible from top to bottom as soon as we perceive it as the natural culm ination of a cosmic process of organisation which has never varied since those remote ages when our planet was young.

I don�t know about "intelligible" but it becomes quite suggestive in my opinion. Think of just how amazing a single electron is. For a human to keep something like that acting like an electron one would need an extremely powerful supercomputer to plot its trajectory as it interacted with other particles and forces around it. We might be able to manage this for one particle to the same accuracy as nature effortless does so, but it�s doubtful we could handle millions or even dozens.

I�m pretty sure that I�ve read philosophical views regarding nature and energy wherein matter is viewed as having a certain character or nature and that forces, as such, don�t really exist. Well, if one looks at how simple quarks, leptons, (and ultimately, perhaps) strings can combine to create things such as the human brain and consciousness, well, that should tell one (at least it has always told me) that "simple" matter is not so simple at all and that it has a nature far beyond what we can even imagine.

Really I can see no coherent, and therefore scientific, way of grouping this immense succession of facts but as a gigantic psycho-biological operation, a sort of mega-synthesis, the 'super-arrangement' to which all the thinking elements of the earth find themselves today individually and collectively subject.

THAT some kind of mega-synthesis is possible seems rather self-evident if one simply looks around at the world. My view would be that in the smallest unit of matter there is a vast, maybe infinite, nature to it that includes the possibility for such mega-synthesis or super-groupings. We might think of something, like consciousness, emerging from the brain as "more than the sum of its parts" but I say instead that we underestimate those parts.

I think one can see from what nature does and can do that there is more than just a "happy accident" involved in matter being able to combine as it does.

I hope I make a little more sense that Teilhard. I agree, Asher, that some of his writing seems rather clunky and unnecessarily complex.

Teilhard was mostly writing to himself and a few friends, as his works were not even published during his lifetime. His interpreters have done a much better job of explaining his system. Joe Provenzano's Philosophy of Conscious Energy is a nice intro to Teilhard, but he goes kind of nuts at the end adding his own theory that the Big Bang is the Fall of the Angels, and the story of the universe is these angels trying to regain their spirituality. Arraj and I tried to show him some of the problems with this theory, but he went his merry way . . .

Teilhard de Chardin theology of the Christian in the world by Robert Faricy, a fairly traditional priest, is superb. I've read it so many times the pages are worn. He makes Teilhard comprehensible and shows where some of the shortcomings are -- most of which are easily overcome.

Re. the concept of "radial energy," it pretty much corresponds to "consciousness," and, as you know, he believes everything has a kind of consciousness. I don't think physics has much to say about this except for the quantum physicists, whose findings about the relationship between one's subjective perspective and how matter behaves I don't really understand.

The Original Sin problem is easily overcome by simply affirming that it's the way we speak of the consequences of moral and spiritual evil, which Teilhard surely recognized. A problem, again, was that he was never able to engage in much dialogue with others about some of these issues, but he would have surely enjoyed doing so -- especially on the Internet.

Here is a quote from a presentation given by someone (no name, hence, no copyright) that sums up a key concept of Teilhard's view on Omega Point and Christ. The rest of the article is very good, too.

quote:

In a study circle, held in the Spanish College of Rome in the 1967-68 academic year, I was asked to explain the meaning of what is called, Omega point. Omega point, of a clear Parusia flavour, is the center upon which all realities converge. According to Teilhard, universe is centered on evolution (thus, it is evolutional). The direction of the evolutionary process is this: cosmogenesis-biogenesis-anthropogenesis, that is, world-life-man. But here is the problem: man � who becomes conscious of evolution - perceives his own finite being and the world itself. So, if nothing in itself is the future of evolution, does previous effort make sense? This is the context of my first essay, which deals with the Teilhard concept of death within the framework of a world in evolution.

Omega is the future that is awaiting an evolution that has become conscious, but has to face the vertiginous and dark path of death. Omega has to be, according to Teilhard, a transcendent and personal reality. Transcendent because it is the other side of each and every phenomenon. Personal, because - from the moment that the world has become personal � from then on, nothing can then make sense to him who is not supremely personal, from then on, no reality can be superior, or can attract him if it is not extremely relational, already no transcendent point could hold his attention.

Omega is the key point of the Teilhard hypothesis. If Omega exists, then all can be explained. Also death. Death is, then, a step forward to where one reaches the plenitude of Omega.

Advancing from below to above, that is, at the light of reason, one reaches only a hypothetical "unknowing god" who is Omega. But changing the perspective and considering things from above to below, that is, at the light of Revelation, Omega is Christ, who fulfils, holds, sums up and reconciles all creation.

quote:

Omega is the future that is awaiting an evolution that has become conscious, but has to face the vertiginous and dark path of death. Omega has to be, according to Teilhard, a transcendent and personal reality. Transcendent because it is the other side of each and every phenomenon. Personal, because - from the moment that the world has become personal � from then on, nothing can then make sense to him who is not supremely personal, from then on, no reality can be superior, or can attract him if it is not extremely relational, already no transcendent point could hold his attention.

That's a lot of ideas packed in one little paragraph.

Is the world advancing to an Omega point or are we winding down toward the heat death of the universe? One must first come up with a philosophical opinion regarding the moment just prior (if "prior" makes any sense) to the Big Bang when all matter and energy were compacted into an infinitely dense point. Was the Big Bang the starter's pistol for this Big Show we call the universe or was it a moment when perfect purity and order were broken up to be replaced by a slow and long period of disintegration and degradation?

If the Big Bang was the starter's pistol, the beginning, then we can think of the expansion of the universe, and all events in it, as contributing to some end point. Onward and upward, so to speak. But if the Big Bang was the blowing apart of some existing state of perfection then what we see in regards to evolution could just be small islands, small anomalies�reflections or memories of what once was but will be no more.

It certainly seems possible that the Big Bang was the starter's pistol, the beginning, not the end, of some vast project. Although the matter and energy in the universe may eventually face heat death, that would be as expected, for the physical universe would be the equivalent of a caterpillar's cocoon. Once the butterfly has hatched the cocoon is no longer needed. Transcendence has no need of normal matter and energy.

There are clues aplenty in this universe that we are heading somewhere. The various so-called arrows of time are one obvious clue, as is the fact that things are evolving from the simple to the complex on all scales. Making the leap to transcendence is a bit trickier and, I think, not at all obvious, but perhaps it makes sense if we keep in mind evolution and growing complexity as an attribute of the universe. We can comprehend the stages of physical evolution and complexity readily enough, from understanding the relative simplicity of a quartz crystal to the advanced complexity of a microchip � and maybe even the human body someday. And we aren't particularly overwhelmed by this contrast of complexity on either end of the spectrum and can perhaps imagine even more complexity. But we have almost no grasp of what the equivalent evolution beyond our human minds might be like. But surely we might imagine that it would involve a state not dependent on normal matter and energy and perhaps not even space. I'm not sure exactly how to think about "the other side of every phenomenon". That's an interesting concept.

Interesting essay, Phil.

Lucky Pierre was a real mystic, and you know how much I like mystics. He was a product of his times and Weltanshaung, which he hoped to advance to a new level. Still, I lump him in with these others:

http://www.crosscurrents.org/godand.htm

As with Tillich, I like what he says about direct experience of God, but not about orthodoxy.

My alternative, another theologian whose two points of focus are Omega and the Cross:

http://www.firstthings.com/fti...s/ft9412/pannen.html

Darwin, Marx, Freud, Tillich, Einstein and de Chardin are all falling into hard times these days, along with much of
modernism in general...

caritas,

mm <*))))><

Brad, this wiki entry on Omega Point might interest you. It should be noted, however, that Teilhard considered this philosophical hypothetical to be established already in Christ, whose resurrection and ascension prefigure what's in store for the race. Whether the universe runs down or not is another question. Maybe it will, but will also have done its job as a kind of enormous larval stage or crysalis for a new creation.

MM, there are indeed a few places where Teilhard's musings have flirted with or crossed the boundaries of orthodoxy, but these have been mostly corrected by theologians like Rahner. I think the basic principles he outlines are sound and provide a creative integration of science and theology. Maybe it would be helpful to identify some of these problem areas and then see what corrections have been made. Feel free to start us off by describing those areas you consider unorthodox.

quote:

Recent observations suggesting an accelerating universe mean that the Big Crunch, on which the theory was originally predicated, is now thought an unlikely scenario. However, Professor Tipler has recently amended his views to accommodate an accelerating universe if the acceleration results from a positive cosmological constant. He proposes baryon tunnelling as a means of propelling interstellar spacecraft. If the baryons in the universe were to be annihilated by this process, then this would force the Higgs field toward its absolute vacuum, cancelling the positive cosmological constant, stopping the acceleration, and allowing the universe to collapse into the omega point.

That's quite a flexible theory! But the idea of moving from a geosphere to a biosphere to a noosphere is an interesting one.

quote:

Just as the biosphere is composed of all the organisms on Earth and their interactions, the noosphere is composed of all the interacting minds on Earth.

I'm not sure if that means simply looking at what exists now from a new perspective (analogous to viewing the Earth as a big living organism) or whether some type of new thing actually emerges from this interaction of minds once it reaches some sort of critical mass and/or state of advancement. And would the noosphere become independent of matter and the minds that initially generated it?

We see that our own minds apparently emerge out of this complex arrangement of matter that we call the brain. Surely some type of noosphere could emerge from a complex arrangement of brains themselves.

Ok, Phil, I'll take you up on that. Please educate me more about Rahner. Never read Rahner.

Sex, Ecology and Spirituality by Wilber presumes this, although he does lean toward something like intelligent design. I also have 2500 pages of Aurobindo lined up as my fall project, so I will
s-t-r-e-t-c-h my evolutionary muscles a tad bit.

I recall William Johnston predicting lucky Pierre's becoming an important 21st century theologian. Oh, those Jesuits!

Re: the Cross Currents article:

I like the closing paragraph:

quote:

Nature is at once a sequence of events ascertained by science and an act of God. It may be time, in other words, to repair the breach that has opened up between the Darwins and the Paleys, to acknowledge that they were never that far apart, and to continue searching for a conception of the origin, end, and purpose of life that invites not only our continuing study but also our praise.

Surely one can see that it is very very tricky philosophical ground in regards to all this. Do most scientists, consciously or not, treat natural selection as a substitute for, and practical equivalent of, God? I surely think some do, but I believe many more (include many laypersons) at least think they are avoiding theology and philosophy altogether by retreating to the label of "science" and somehow believing that the utterance of that little 7-letter word will magically wallpaper over a number of biases and philosophical over-steppings.

The major philosophical underpinning of scientific atheism seems to be that complexity can emerge spontaneously out of randomness and therefore that no Creator is needed. All processes are random and only appear to be intelligently caused because of the accumulated complexity. And that might just describe the workings of nature perfectly. Even a deeply religious, and scientifically conversant, person might acknowledge that nature is a system following its own independent laws; albeit laws, at least from their standpoint, set up by an intelligent creator. But as soon as one starts philosophizing about the nature of nature, the nature of the total system in which nature lies (or doesn�t lie, assuming nature is all there is) then one must, of course, acknowledge that one is philosophizing and not doing science! Sounds easy, right? Well, not if you�re a scientist and think the sun shines out�.

Many people, and without really knowing they are mucking in philosophy or religion, take what we know about nature and extrapolate. They assume that because nature allows complexity to emerge without a guiding hand that therefore nature itself was created in the same way. There is no scientific evidence for this.

MM, I would hang onto your Creations tendencies but simply refine them. Do what scientists themselves (supposedly the smart ones) seem incapable of doing.

From my experience with biologists during the 12 years or so I was in the field, most of them don't do much philosophical or theological reflecting on scientific theories. That doesn't mean they aren't religious people; most I knew were. They're just kind of schizophrenic when it comes to this topic -- science has its domain, and so does religion, and n'er between the two shall meet. Biology describes nature and religion deals with "ultimate issues." That's true. Only there were those of us who were profoundly interested in the interfacings, and we had to basically fend for ourselves in both church and university.

The major philosophical underpinning of scientific atheism seems to be that complexity can emerge spontaneously out of randomness and therefore that no Creator is needed.

Well . . except maybe to provide a "creation."

But as soon as one starts philosophizing about the nature of nature, the nature of the total system in which nature lies (or doesn�t lie, assuming nature is all there is) then one must, of course, acknowledge that one is philosophizing and not doing science! Sounds easy, right? Well, not if you�re a scientist and think the sun shines out�.

There are a lot more religious people with that kind of arrogance and grandiosity, imo. And that's part of the reason some biologists come across so defensively, imo. Since the time of Darwin they've been pumelled by religious folks for seemingly undermining the prevailing mythos, and all sorts of dire motives have been attributed to their quest. The fundamentalists in Kansas still cannot say "evolution" without putting "Godless" in front of the term. That's part of the history of this conflict and it still goes on.

Only there were those of us who were profoundly interested in the interfacings, and we had to basically fend for ourselves in both church and university.

Yes. I too am interesting in that interface.

The fundamentalists in Kansas still cannot say "evolution" without putting "Godless" in front of the term.

LOL. I�ll bow to your superior first-hand real-world experience in this regard.

Hi all,

I suppose this point would be one of many problematic aspects of De Chardin's thinking. You guys are Christian so tell me where he went wrong...De Chardin writes:

"All around us, to right and left, in front and behind, above and below, we have only to go a little beyond the frontier of sensible appearances in order to see the divine welling up and showing through. But it is not only close to us, in front of us, that the divine presence has revealed itself. It has sprung up universally, and we find ourselves so surrounded and transfixed by it, that there is no room left to fall down and adore it, even within ourselves.
By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers. In eo vivimus. As Jacob said, awakening from his dream, the world, this palpable world, which we were wont to treat with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association for us, is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it. Venite, adoremus.(1)"

The link below is at least worth considering. Stephen Jay Gould's criticism aside, I think you'll unearth many unorthodox statements in here, if you really want to:

http://www.crosscurrents.org/chardin.htm

I have no idea, Asher, why those words from Teilhard would be considered provocative in the least. In fact, isn't that exactly the reaction you'd expect from someone who had woken up to the reality of a world created by a Supreme Being?

quote:

Throughout my whole life, during every moment I have lived, the world has gradually been taking on light and fire for me, until it has come to envelop me in one mass of luminosity, glowing from within. . . . The purple flush of matter fading imperceptibly into the gold of spirit, to be lost finally in the incandescence of a personal universe.

What a marvelously poetic view of the world by Teilhard. I like this guy so far. What freshness and lightness to what usually is the stodgy affair of everyday religion.

"Evolution is less than a fact, less than a theory,
less than a hypothesis- it is nothing more than a metaphysical research project." -Karl Popper

"The idea that a cell could have risen by chance is simply nonesense of the highest order." -Fred Boyle of Cambridge

"I suppose that the reason we leapt at the idea of 'Origens' was mainly that it might interfere with our sex lives." --Julian Huxely

Not exactly well known believers. What's "it"- God?

A few noted scientists who were also believers:

http://www.adherents.com/large...tian_scientists.html

quote:

Science in its development - and even, as I shall show, mankind in its march - is marking time at this moment, because men's minds are reluctant to recognise that evolution has a precise orientation and a privileged axis. Weakened by this fundamental doubt, the forces of research are scattered and there is no determination to build the earth.

Leaving aside all anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism, I believe I can see a direction and a line of progress for life, a line and a direction which are in fact so well marked that I am convinced their reality will be universally admitted by the science of tomorrow.

You might agree with this Teilhard quote, MM. Actually, I admit to being a bit of a creationist myself. But I believe there is no problem being a creationist. How could there be? Most everyone believes the universe was created by something, even if that something was somehow uncaused random chance. But I think the trick to being a modern day creationist is not seeing science as the enemy of the idea of a Creator. How could it be? And yet I don�t think the opposite is necessarily true, that being a friend to both science and religion means keeping them apart as if they were gasoline and a flame. And it may indeed prove to be true that being a modern day scientist means not being a knee-jerk enemy of religion. As absolutely weird and strange as quantum physics appears to be, an open mind is a must.

If my impression of Teilhard is correct, he was flat-out astonished by creation (nature) and saw the hand of a Creator in all things. He notes somewhere in that link that Asher provided that there is much common ground between science and religion, at least in terms of what drives them. Can anyone doubt that a sense of awe and wonder regarding creation drives the overwhelming majority of scientists? Surely much of the problem between science and religion is the inability of people to hold two simultaneous ideas in their head. But I expect too much for that is surely just the nature of people. I�ve noticed this phenomenon over and over again. Imagine me as a conservative disliking Barbra Streisand�s politics and also being unable to appreciate her singing and acting ability. But that seems to be the type of limiting factor that effects a number of people. They can�t hold two such ideas in their heads at one time, and that seems to include sincere religious people and smart scientists.

Much of the wall between science and religion is artificial and it is there precisely because people can�t seem to hold two divergent ideas in their heads at the same time. One might say that this has, at least in the short term, been to the benefit of both religion and science. But my Spider Senses are tingling and my intuition tells me that Teilhard is correct in believing that the stage we are in now is but a temporary blip and that progress in the future will require the easing of this artificial boundary.

MM, you might find this link to be a helpful introduction to Rahner's thinking. Arraj has arranged a fanciful interview with him and quoted from some of his works as responses. There are lots of other good links on the net. He's considered one of the top five Catholic theologians of the 20th C., so is definitely worth getting to know, a bit.

Asher, I don't see a problem with the quote you shared, nor with much in the article. There is that matter of the "Peking Man" fossil that he seems to have been part of, although somewhat innocently and naively. No deception on his part was ever proven. In fact, I think this quote below (echoed somewhat by Brad above) summarizes my view of his theological contributions:

quote:

Partly as a result of these defensive and dogmatic reactions to Teilhard, he is today tragically underestimated in both the religious and scientific communities. While many of his ideas have worked their way anonymously into currency and have been widely accepted, still Teilhard's innovative thinking has been taken seriously only by a minority of thinkers who see science and religion entering into a new era of cross-fertilization and creativity. For the vast majority, Teilhard's thought seems marginal at best, and his insights are not studied in the depth they deserve. This is partially explained by the active suppression of his ideas by the church and the suspicion of his ideas within the scientific community. Teilhard's obscurity is also to be explained, however, by his own style of writing and his tendency to wander into the realm of pure speculation. His fertile imagination sometimes led him into a fantasy world foreign to scientists and theologians alike. Yet even in the face of Teilhard's most serious mistakes I believe his initiatives should be pursued. When one cuts through his sometimes lurid prose, one encounters a series of highly imaginative and suggestive proposals for the reunion of research and religion. The questions raised by his work cannot be avoided. Anyone interested in extending the search for truth beyond the traditional frontiers of knowledge must wrestle with his basic affirmations.

Note, especially, the point that many of his ideas have worked their way anonymously into currency and have been widely accepted. That's so true!

I see. Well, I'm glad you guys are so open.

quote:

When human beings turn their powers of analysis upon the diversity and multiplicity of life (at the base of the cone), that is pure science. However, when humanity turns its powers of synthesis towards the summit, towards the totality and the future (at the pinnacle of the cone), that is theology. Yet science finds its fulfillment only as it turns from investigation and analysis towards synthesis: that is to say, seeing the totality of life and weighing its character, testing the relationship of the part to the whole. Likewise, those who engage in the search for God find their fulfillment only as they see the God who is available in the material world. A faith which is cut loose from the world is likely to be illusory and unreal. Conversely, the faith that truly counts is the faith which takes science as a fellow traveler in the final search for God.

I think that's a particularly wonderful and rich paragraph from the Cross Currents article. And what a crafty philosophical point: it is only when comparing one bit of scientific information to another (that is, in a larger context) that it is interesting and has meaning. It's easy to see how one can jump up higher in that cone and see science and nature itself in a larger context.

I always heard that lucky Pierre was involved in the Piltdown man hoax and subsequent coverup, and now hear that that may not be the case after all.Hhmmmm...

Then there is this fellow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_Daniken

Now we're back to extra-terrestrial intelligent design theory.

A quote I'm borrowing from Ken Wilber:

"Things like miraculous interventions of God, special inspirations and revelations are beneath
the level of real spiritual experience. Religion itself is immediacy [by which he means the precisely the immediacy of of basic Wakefulness or pure Presence, which is Spirit in us, as Tillich himself makes very clear]. The supernaturalistic heritage about the suspension of divine laws of nature for the sake of miracles collapses completely." --Paul Tillich (one of the five greatest protestant theologians of the 20th century, and a contemporary of lucky Pierre) with brackets from Wilber.

Tielhard de Chardin had something like 24 years in the classroom, a place where men sometimes sell their souls to the intellectual elite for a sheepskin or a collar. He began with an interest in geology and proceded from there. He was a naturalist. Tillich was a naturalist.

I am a supernaturalist. They have reached me too late, methinks.

(Thank you Phil for the Arraj reference.I also reread with interest "Evolution and Human Origins" from Arraj's new book.)

Finally, David Hawkins, fwiw, calibrates Darwin at 450 and the book of Genesis at 660. Aurobindo, the
evolutionist, calibrates at 605, so I'll take a look at what Aurobindo arrived at and get back 2U.

caritas,

mm <*)))))><

quote:

"Things like miraculous interventions of God, special inspirations and revelations are beneath the level of real spiritual experience. Religion itself is immediacy [by which he means the precisely the immediacy of of basic Wakefulness or pure Presence, which is Spirit in us, as Tillich himself makes very clear]. The supernaturalistic heritage about the suspension of divine laws of nature for the sake of miracles collapses completely." --Paul Tillich (one of the five greatest protestant theologians of the 20th century, and a contemporary of lucky Pierre) with brackets from Wilber.

That�s such an interesting thought/phenomenon. Can one sort of democratize spirituality? Can one get the benefits of it without the "baggage" of having to adhere to revealed doctrine? Is spirituality without a commitment to concrete moral ideas anything more than fluffy puffy lightweight new age screwballness?

Despite the way I phrased the question, the answer could very well be "Yes�sort of". I think one can surely tune into the magnificence of the universe and thus, by analogy, tune into god. From reading a bit of Teilhard it seems that this could be thought of as a needed backlash against the type of religion that tends to downplay the appreciation of our earthly experience.

But if one pooh-poohs miracles and considers anything outside of nature as inferior or non-existent, then can one really have a reverence for nature that stays inside nature? Isn�t reverence a sort of higher perspective? Shall we just call this perspective or practice "Nature Plus" and not suggest that it is a touch or whiff of anything transcendent? But I must do full disclosure and admit that "Nature Plus" could describe where I am right now. I�m sympathetic to new appraisals and perspectives regarding religion because I think religion is in need of it. On this trail one walks a fine line between new age BS (or one-man religion BS) and institutionalized BS. Choose your poison, I guess.

Reading through that CrossCurrents Tillich link there�s a lot of interesting stuff as well. I�m not quite sure what to make of it yet. Tillich (like so many other free, creative thinkers) seems to bring something new and fresh to the table and yet there are excesses (and I�m not talking about his sex life).

quote:

It would he a great victory for Christian apologetics if the words "God" and "existence" were very definitely separated except in the paradox of God becoming manifest under the conditions of existence.... God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore, to argue that God exists is to deny him.

The method of arguing through to a conclusion also contradicts the idea of God. Every argument derives conclusions from something that is given about something that is sought. In arguments for the existence of God the world is given and God is sought.... But, if we derive God from the world, he cannot be that which transcends the world infinitely. � Tillich