#93 Living into a New Consciousness

The Cosmic Vision of Teilhard de Chardin

by John F. Haught

From the Précis by Helene O’Sullivan, MM

 #7 ~  How are We Made in the Image and Likeness of God?

 Evolution from Non-Human to Human

How are We Made in the Image and Likeness of God?

 According to most Christian evolutionists, especially Teilhard, Darwin’s new science now makes it possible to think of God’s power to create as more impressive than ever. A creator who brings into being a world that in turn gives rise to new kinds of being from out of its own resourcefulness is certainly more impressive than an imagined “designer” who molds and micromanages everything in the world directly. The wonder of creation consists not only of the fact that God makes things but, even more, that God makes things that make themselves.

 The creation of human beings by natural causes, therefore, does not diminish the creative role of God in bringing about a world inventive enough to produce, by evolutionary processes, not only living beings but conscious, moral, and religious beings as well.

Many scientists have now conceded that the Big Bang universe has been pregnant with life and mind from its very inception. The emergence of beings endowed with the capacity for thought ~ for understanding, reflection, and decision ~ begins during the first microseconds of the universe’s existence. We humans have appeared, scientists now agree, from out of a cosmos whose primordial physical makeup was such as to render the eventual appearance of life and thought highly probable.

= 2 =

Even though human minds have arrived relatively late in the cosmic story, the physical prelude to this emergent wonder was already quietly in play from the very start of the symphony. During the earliest moments of cosmic existence, mind was already beginning to stir, as it were, in the very heart of matter.

The Significance of Information

The science of genetics allows theology to consider the question of human dignity and the meaning of being created “in the image and likeness of God” in a new way. Information science, as applied to genetics “is the encoding and transmission of messages in the letters of the genetic code.”

The DNA molecule in the nucleus of each cell, for example, comprises a patterned series of the “letters” A, T, C, G, and sometimes R, embodying the various informational sequences. Chemical and biological processes translate the “messages” embedded in these sequences into corresponding arrangements of amino acids. The latter are the constituents of the proteins who three-dimensional patterns make up the diverse bodily types in the realm of life.

The arranging of letters in DNA creates sharp distinctions in the specific sequences of nucleotides of different species, say, radishes, alligators, chimpanzees, and human beings, even though physically, chemically, biologically, and historically they are all made of the same stuff. Human beings, for example, share with other species a common evolutionary history, as well as similar molecular and metabolic characteristics. However, even quantitatively small differences in the specific sequence of letters in the human genome, or that of any other species, make it qualitatively distinct from other kinds of life.

Even if human beings and chimpanzees have descended only gradually from a common living ancestor, and although their respective genomes differ only fractionally from each other, even a small informational divergence is enough to make each species and each individual within a species ontologically unique.

 We need not deny the atomic, physical and chemical continuity or the biological kinship humans have with all other forms of life, in order to claim with logical consistency that even minuscule informational differences can render each species and each member of a species qualitatively distinct from all the others.

 We may clarify this with a simple analogy.

In writing an essay, an author employs the same alphabet, dictionary, and grammatical rules as others but his/her message may be a love letter, or a funny movie script, a political commentary or a poem. As far as relying on these ingredients is concerned, there will be no important differences among writers. But at a higher reading level ~ that of the specific sequence of letters and words, their essays differ considerably from one another.

Teilhard: The Perspective of Cosmology

The relatively recent debut of life 3.8 billion years ago, and of conscious self-awareness only a few million years ago, points to a drama of cosmic awakening ~ still in progress ~ in which the universe is now becoming conscious of itself through the complex brains of members of our own species. In our specifically human mode of existence the universe is finally bringing one of its deepest potentialities into the open, at least here on earth. Perhaps our place in the universe is to be unique agents and instruments of a cosmic awakening.

As Teilhard’s numerous writings demonstrate, the phenomenon of thought, of reflective self-consciousness ~ in the medium of self-aware human persons ~ gives the universe a definition it would not otherwise possess. Cosmologically, the recent emergence of conscious self-awareness, accompanied by moral, aesthetic, and religious sensitivity, is the most dramatic development ever to have occurred in the long journey of our universe.

 Critical Consciousness and Human Dignity

Along with the emergence of consciousness, other human propensities associated with the Image of God, such as freedom, creativity, the ability to form deep relation-ships, and the capacity to love and keep promises, have also made their way into the universe. Cosmologically understood, however, the arrival in natural history of consciousness, freedom and moral sensitivity is how the universe dramatically reveals its true being and potential.

 The universe expresses its inner depth uniquely in the emergence of every form of life ~ not just in the arrival of modern humans. Nevertheless, in the emergence of human beings ~ and any other instances of thought or consciousness that may exist in extraterrestrial zones ~ the universe has made a momentous narrative leap.

 And now, through the medium of human thought, it is beginning to reflect on itself and on the many possible ways it may continue to unfold in the future. In producing beings that have the capacity for thought, reflection, and moral sensitivity, the universe demonstrates that it still has the reserve to become even more than it has thus far.

 The fact that we humans can contribute in countless and diverse ways to the universe’s becoming more implies that we have a special standing within the whole of creation.

In our creativity, our openness to new relationships, and our capacity to act responsibly, we mirror the image of God in an exceptional way among other creatures. It is mostly to Teilhard’s cosmic perspective that contemporary Christian thought owes this fresh perspective on the nature and dignity of human beings. Like freedom, creativity is one of the traits that grounds our sense of self-worth.

 While other species may, to some degree, be sentient and even conscious, there is no evidence that they perceive themselves as having a special cosmic vocation and responsibility.  They do not appear to possess a self-conscious concern about who they are,  or about what their destiny is.

 Nor is their specific mode of awareness developed to the point where they can ask what is really going on in the universe and whether the universe has a purpose or meaning. 

 The Soul

Christian thought traditionally affirmed human dignity by appealing to classical dualistic schemes in which the human “soul” is said to be separable from the body, just as matter seems separate from spirit.  This dualistic understanding has provided an excuse to avoid any deep reflection on human specificity within the framework of a still unfolding universe.

The typical approach of Christian education has been to salvage human dignity after Darwin by first allowing that our bodies may be the products of evolution but that an immortal soul has been infused in each person directly by God.

 Teilhard suggests that the idea of a directly infused human soul can scarcely be theology’s last word on the relationship of humans to nature and God.

 Is there not some way in the age of evolution and Big Bang physics

that Christianity may affirm human dignity without trying to outflank biology

and cosmology altogether?

 The longing for an eventual divorce of humanity from the cosmos,

after all, is quite unbiblical.

The apostle Paul rejected such dualism when he declared that the whole of creation longs for the redemption proclaimed by Christian faith.

(Rom 8:21–23)

 In Christianity’s foundational phase, devotees of Christ did not separate the Redeemer’s destiny or their own from that of the universe.

 Contemporary cosmology, as Teilhard’s many writings witness, provides the opportunity for a fresh theological valuation, in terms of cosmology and not just biology, of who we are and what our lives are all about.

 Cosmic reflection on human dignity by theology has barely begun, but even now, at the very least, it seems reasonable to acknowledge that the natural sciences provide justifiable reasons for Christians to have HOPE for the liberation of the entire creation to which they belong!

 Our following folders will be considering in more detail what it means that we humans

belong to an unfinished universe.