Pierre Teilhard De Chardin in The Phenomenon of Man develops a view of evolution as an enduring and comprehensive process, a three-fold synthesis of the material, physical and the world of the mind and spirit (consciousness; this somewhat reminds me of the development of consciousness via Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit). It is a fascinating read in terms of thinking about the leap(s) and development of human consciousness. Chardin’s Phenomenon of Man views the planet we live on as biosphere translated (Swiss) as “the face of the earth,” and being aware that we are not just living in one place in one country, but in space and time—we’re living on a globe. We’re living on the whole earth and the earth has a face and a kind of identity, almost physiognomy, like a person, like a cosmic person.

Chardin, a Jesuit (who fully embraced evolution as a paleontologist) developed his work, partly theological, but more so, a “scientific treatise”. He seeks to help the reader “to see and to make others see what happens to humankind and what conclusions are forced upon us, when we are placed fairly and squarely with the framework of phenomenon and appearance.” He progresses from [I] “Before Life Came” (the evolution of matter), [II] “Life” (advent, expansion, ramification and tree of life) [III] “Thought” (birth of, deployment of the Noosphere, the modern earth), and finally [IV] “Survival” (collective, beyond collective, ultimate earth).

The Noosphere is an astonishing development which Teilhard is known for. It’s depicted as proceeding from a Neolithic metamorphosis that has occurred through various factors such as incessant advances of multiplication (migrations), inventions of all sorts of communal and juridical structures (property, morals, social), the appetite for research (period of growth in research and invention, e.g., horticultural, pottery, writing, metallurgy ), and conquest (the flush of expansion. Over a brief period of time relative to evolutional time, there have emerged increased exchanges in commerce, transmission of ideas, traditions have become organized and a collective memory has been formed encircling the earth.
This takes us into the leap and realm today of the whole region of cyberspace. There are even those who call Teilhard the patron saint of the World Wide Web. When you read the later part of this text, you have a sense that he foresaw this idea that we will intensify our communication.

It’s a fascinating awareness to reflect thus. The biosphere is the earth of the layer of living things and the noosphere is really about the layer of thinking beings and, in fact, of consciousness. Noos (Greek nous) is about synthesis and not our reason or analysis. It’s the self-thinking, and it’s the thinking that connects us. You catch his deep concern in the fourth book, Survival, where there is a fear that is the still emerging human. Here Teilhard was interested in where we are going as a species.

Teilhard sketched humans who existed in tiny groups having their separate symbolic systems, disconnected to each other; then, these grains of thought were coalescing which corresponds to increasing the scale of society. He thought that the earth is “becoming covered by myriads of grains of thought” and “enclosed in a single thinking envelope” forming “a single vast grain of thought on the sidereal scale, the plurality of individual reflections grouping themselves together and reinforcing one another in the act of single unanimous reflection” (251-2). This is a single global consciousness, the Hyper-Personal which he called the Omega Point.

Overall, this book is look at the past, preset, and future of the evolution of humanity.


TdC examines past evolutionary development of the different species and discusses how most branches end up in cul de sacs. Animals adapt to their environment, but over the millennia the overall form does not change. The size of cats may change throughout their evolution, but the concept of the cat with tooth and claw stays very much the same.

Humanity, however, is very different. What makes human beings different is the development of reflective consciousness. Man is no longer limited to the inbred tools of fingers and toes, but is now open to all the possibilities that can be thought of.

So, as their once was a sphere of mineral "life" to which was added the sphere of plant life, and on top of that sphere came animal life, the next evolutionary step is the sphere of consciousness, or the noosphere.

As the noosphere develops, growing mind and conscious reflection merge and work together with other minds until the Omega point is reached, which is a new type if existence based on group consciousness.

TdC is a Jesuit, and the driving force of evolution and the Omega Point have a very Christian dimension to them, which makes the process work. TdC was doing process theology before there was process theology.

My mother had this book in a drawer of her nightstand when I was a child. She would have purchased it when it was first published in English. She probably read at least some of it.

It is a philosophy of evolution in which de Chardin integrates the observed science of evolution with Christian belief. He begins with the Big Bang theory, quickly goes through the evolution of matter, the emergence of life in the form of the first cells, followed by the development of complex organisms, finally arriving at the emergence of intelligence, consciousness, and self-reflection in the first hominids. The ongoing psychosocial development of man is part of the process of evolution. Finally, de Chardin makes predictions of what the future will be like as a result of our continuing evolution. The book was written in 1938-1940 while de Chardin was confined in Beijing due to World War II.

The author writes as a naturalist. Most of the book is about science. The Christian ideas are unique to him, not orthodox in the slightest, at least not at the time they were published. He can be difficult to understand because his way with words, while aesthetically admirable, is unique and free-floating. He doesn't nail down his ideas. Hardcore, atheist scientists would rightfully consider his religious ideas as wooly and unscientific, while many religious scholars would not be disposed enough to apprehend the science. Luckily enough, some religious thinkers take his work seriously, including the last four Popes.

Con un granito de sal. Sería absurdo tomárselo al pie de la letra, pero, en una etapa mundial en la que no parece haber motivos de peso para tener fe en el ser humano, es acogedor leer sobre los tremendos esfuerzos fundados que hace este jesuita para abrir la perspectiva y recordarnos que somos el resultado de un complejísimo y milagroso proceso biológico y antropológico aún por culminar. Leyéndolo, me sentí como oyendo hablar a Carl Sagan, salvando las distancias.