#27 Awakening Consciousness

The Not-Yet God: Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin and the Relational Whole by Ilia Delio,

OSF Précis by Helene O’Sullivan, MM

The First Part of Chapter 11 THE RELIGION OF TOMORROW

Teilhard stated that any religion that focuses only on individuals and heaven is insufficient. “People are looking for a religion of humankind and of the earth that gives meaning to human achievements; a place to enkindle cosmic and human evolution and a deep sense of commitment to the earth.” Jung thought that a reawakening of the symbolic life was needed if religion is to survive in the current age. The experience of God and the language in which such experience is articulated must find new forms of expression. Teilhard was convinced that the cosmos has become a cosmogenesis, and this fact alone “must lead to the profound modification of the whole structure not only of our thoughts, but of our beliefs.” Human consciousness finds itself on the threshold of a new age, impelling religious systems to find new dimensions and values.

A NEW RELIGION OF THE EARTH Teilhard spoke of two types of faith: faith in the world and faith in God. He did not advocate for a new religion of humanity.

Instead, he saw the need for a general convergence of the different religious traditions, each according to its capacity, to animate and nourish the evolutionary drive within human beings. The uniting force between and among the different religions must be dialogue and encounter, based on the various religions’ perspectives of the human being. A new religious vision cannot develop in cultural isolation. From Teilhard’s perspective, such vision requires the coming together of experiences drawn from different religious traditions. He saw the encounter of religions as full of promise for the future of religion and was anxious to encourage all efforts toward greater unity. Ursula King notes that: “A convergence of the historically diverse religious traditions appeared to Teilhard to be a structurally necessary requirement for the higher evolution of humankind itself….Convergence means the search for, or the movement towards, a common meeting point through which we can interrelate and create a unity that transcends our diverse particularities…. It includes the vision of a common meeting point or summit where different currents can converge.” The decisive test for evaluating traditional religion, Teilhard said, has to do with the strength of their capacity to evolve, to lead humankind to greater unity. The evolutionary function of a religion, the “litmus test” relates to whether religion can animate the spirit of evolution.

All spiritual movements that draw human consciousness to higher levels of unitive consciousness, including secular movements of spirituality, help animate the spirit of evolution. Although each religious tradition holds a wealth of spiritual wisdom, there is still a resistance to understanding God in a new way. What Teilhard, Jung, and Tillich help us realize is that the name “God” is the power of absolute life dwelling within us, although God is not exhausted by us. We are God in the flesh—the Christ. There is no God “up above,” no sky God or supernatural Being. To the extent that we insist on an ontologically distinct God, we compromise the fate of the earth and the wholeness of life. Religion is not a special divine grace. It is integral to natural evolution and rises with the development of human consciousness. The only way to conceive of God is to begin with the evolution of consciousness, the experience of something deep within yet transcendent to an immediate grasp of knowledge. Without consciousness, God is not possible. Hence, as Jung and others realized, consciousness and divinity are correlated. The Eastern sages have known this for centuries. Sadly, the West rejected the spirituality of the East and argued for the existence of an ontologically transcendent God. The cost of having a supernatural sky God, has been detrimental to the welfare of the planet.

Teilhard maintained that Christianity is normative of evolution because of its faith in the incarnation: God is entangled with material life. He wrote: “Christianity takes on its full value only when extended to cosmic dimensions.” Teilhard’s theology is summed up in the phrase: faith in God is faith in the world. A true religion of evolution must be an integration of faith in the development of this world and faith in God as the activating force of attraction that makes development possible.

CONSCIOUSNESS, CONTEMPLATION AND CREATIVE EVOLUTION The biblical promise of a new heaven and a new earth is exactly that, a promise. God cannot realize any new reality apart from materiality and the human consent to be part of the divine fulfillment. Teilhard emphasized the need for active engagement and immersion in the world; attachment to the world’s becoming is necessary, and detachment from the world that opposes God is also necessary. To act on behalf of the evolutionary process requires us to overcome our inertia and apathy, our selfishness, our tendency toward individualism, egoism, and self-indulgence. To be attached to a world in process means that we must constantly leave behind what has already been achieved in order to move ahead to what is yet to be accomplished. It means to care about a world that is still forming.

MYSTICISM AND EVOLUTION Teilhard realized the importance of the interior life in the God quest and developed his ideas along the lines of mysticism and evolution. To love God with all one’s body, heart, and soul and with every fiber of the unifying universe is to be on the path of self-discovery. Teilhard’s mysticism is intellectually creative because it is the spirit of reason pursuing true knowledge. Teilhard’s mysticism sets reason at the center of the mystical. Mysticism is not a matter of contemplating a truth already established but lies in the very act of discovery that creates a new truth; the mind extends itself beyond. The mystical act involves the synthesizing work of the mind, a process of continuously probing into the unknown. The mystical knower is every person who searches for meaning. The mind—which includes the emotions, the imagination, and the senses—is oriented toward the mystical quest. Scientists are mystics, educators are mystics, physicians are mystics, and politicians can be mystics if they see the polis as the arena of potentially new knowledge. Teilhard calls us to consider thinking as a spiritual act. True knowledge creates new horizons of meaning and pulls us onward. Thinking extends the universe.

Karl Rahner had a deep sense of divinity at the heart of materiality and claimed that “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will cease to exist at all.” Rahner spoke of God as an ordinary experience because the human person is oriented by nature toward mystery. Whereas in past ages, the mystic was the exceptional person, the one who lived on the edge of society, the mystic is now the ordinary person who is attentive to what we might call “deep grace.” Teilhard wrote: “There is nothing profane for those who know how to see.” Grace is everywhere because God is everywhere. One has to learn to see the infinite possibilities of the present, but the inner eye must be opened for the outer eye to see clearly.