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Orthogenesis and God-Omega

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Robert B. Smith
Robert B. Smith
Affiliation:
Westfield Rectory, Westfield R.R. #1, New Brunswick, Canada
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Extract

A recent article by George B. Murray draws the attention of philosophers and theologians to a problem in the thought of Teilhard de Chardin which they often tend to overlook. The “synthetic theory” of evolution held by the majority of contemporary biologists, Father Murray points out, is not to be found in Teilhard's scientific writings. Instead, Teilhard proposes a theory of orthogenesis, a word and concept now almost universally rejected by biologists. This discrepancy between Teilhard and the best contemporary biological thought is often ignored by those who find his writings a promising approach to the reconciliation of science and Christianity or to problems of science and philosophy. Father Murray gives a very useful analysis of probable reasons for Teilhard's insistence on retaining the word “orthogenesis” in the face of opposition from fellow-scientists and in spite of the fact that his modifications of the meaning of orthogenesis might have been more readily acceptable had he described them by a different name. However, much more important than the reasons why Teilhard insisted on the use of the word “orthogenesis” is the question, which Murray does not discuss, of the importance and place of orthogenesis in Teilhard's thought, whether it is legitimate for philosophers and theologians to accept the general outline of Teilhard's theories and leave this technical scientific question to the scientists, or whether Teilhard's whole system of thought stands or falls with a discredited theory of biology.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , October 1969, pp. 397 - 410
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1969

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References

1 Murray, George B. S.J., Teilhard and Orthogenetic Evolution, Harvard Theological Review 60 (1967), 281–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Dobzhansky, Theodosius, Evolution and Environment, in Tax, Sol, ed.,The Evolution of Life (University of Chicago Press, 1960), 405,Google Scholar says of such theories as orthogenesis that “Nothing in the known history of life on earth compels me to believe that the evolution is pre-determined or that organisms are able to change in just one direction.”

3 See Sir Medawar, Peter, The Phenomenon of Man, Mind 70 (1965), 99–106Google Scholar. From another point of view, Donceel, J. F. S.J., Teilhard de Chardin: Scientist or Philosopher? International Philosophical Quarterly 5 (1965), 248–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar, also maintains that the entire structure of TEILHARD'S thought stands or falls with his theory of orthogenesis.

4 Simpson, G. G., The History of Life, in Tax, Sol, ed., The Evolution of Life, 168Google Scholar.

5 Sir Huxley, Julian, Introductory: Towards the New Systematics, in The New Systematics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), 11Google Scholar.

6 E.g., The Phenomenon of Man (London: Collins, and New York: Harper and Row, 1959), 108Google Scholar f. Page references given here are to the Harper Torchbooks Edition (1961).

7 The Phenomenon of Man, 150. Cf. Fothergiix, P. G., Teilhard and the Question of Orthogenesis, in Evolution, Marxism and Christianity (London: Garnstone Press, 1967), 44Google Scholar L FOTHERGIIX suggests that by his insistence on complexity-consciousness and the importance of the “within” TEILHARD has made it possible for science to consider orthogenesis.

8 The Phenomenon of Man, 108f.

9 301, 307.

10 These three essays are published in The Vision of the Past (Collins and Harper and Row, 1966).

11 269n.

12 Op. cit., 38.

13 The Phenomenon of Man, 108n.

14 E.g., by Rabut, O. A., Dialogue with Teilhard de Chardin (Sheed & Ward, 1961), 53–59Google Scholar.

15 The Vision of the Past, 239f.

16 ibid., 250.

17 ibid., 254.

18 The Divine Flame (Collins, 1966), 35. Cf. The Phenomenon of Man, 224f

19 The Uniqueness of the Individual (London: Methuen, 1957), 138, 142Google Scholar.

20 The Vision of the Past, 254.

21 The Phyletic Structure of the Human Group, in The Appearance of Man (Collins and Harper and Row, 1965), 139.Google Scholar See also The Phenomenon of Man, 299-301.

22 The Phenomenon of Man, I08n.: “my considered opinion is that the word orthogenesis is essential and indispensable for singling out and affirming the manifest property of living matter to form a system in which ‘terms succeed each other experimentally, following the constantly increasing values of centro-complexity.”

23 In his essay, Esquisse d'une dialectique de 1'Esprit, in L'Activation de l'Energie (Paris: Seuil, 1963), 157Google Scholar, TEILHARD analyzes his thought into four basic movements, of which these are the first two. The third moves from the Christian phenomenon to God Incarnate, and the fourth from the living Church to Christ-Omega.

24 TEILHARD defines being in terms of union, and expresses the definition in two formulas:

“être = s'unir soi-même, ou unir les autres (forme active)

“être = etre uni et unifié par un autre (forme passive).”

(Comment je vois, 1948, unpublished)

TEXLHARD applies this definition even to the Being of God himself, who is and who creates because he is Trinity.

25 The Struggle Against the Multitude, in Writings in Time of War (Collins and Harper and Row, 1968), 95Google Scholar. Cf. Gilson, Etienne, The Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine (London: Gollancz, 1961), 211: “… pure multiplicity, which in its extreme condition would be identical with nothingness.”Google Scholar

26 Le Gôut de Vivre, in L'Activation de I'Energie, 242, my trans.

27 It is interesting to note that HUXLEY was also using the word “orthogenesis,” in a manner at least as careless as any of TEILHARD'S references to it, as recently as 1940. See The New Systematics, 11: “… basic biological facts of self-reproduction, mutation, and selection, perhaps with a little orthogenesis added.”