Omega What?

 

There was an intriguing discussion this week regarding Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s theory of the Omega Point. Per Dr. Thomas Shepherd, Teilhard believed “humanity was progressing along a predetermined track from Creation to the Omega Point, which he identified with the Christ.”  While neither the scope of this blog, nor my understanding of Teilhard is large enough to discuss this fully, it will be fun to toss around a few ideas. 

Personally, I really liked the idea but after some serious mind work I understood that at this time, our understanding of evolution is such that it just doesn’t fit.  While again, my understanding of the origins of the earth, and the life on it are quite basic it might be interesting to ask if mankind’s view, understanding and even technology are simply not big enough to encompass such an idea.

A few years ago I saw a video on the human Genome project in which a scientist actually said that the parts of the gene that scientists were unable to fit into the system of coding that was being done at the time was and I quote “junk”, filler so to speak.  Flash forward a few years and suddenly they’re discovering that this “junk” is actually serving a vital purpose as part of the genome.  We don’t know what we don’t know.

Pierre Teilhard was a Jesuit priest educated in the sciences, philosophy, and Christianity in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  He is known as one of the first minds to combine science and spirituality.  His ideas were not well accepted by the scientific community or the Catholic Church, but apparently evoked enough thought and controversy to still be discussed.  In the June 1995 on line issue of Wired, Jennifer Cobb Kreisberg wrote of Teilhard and Vladimir Vernadsky as being the minds that inspired the Gaia hypothesis. While the teleological elements have been essentially eliminated the basic concept of the entire earth as an organism affected by that which lives in it has become the basis for our current environmental worldview.  There was something in the thinking of these two great minds that inspired further discussion, investigation and a different way of looking at the world, and yet Teilhard’s teleological concept is not accepted.

It is interesting to note while the Omega point theory has been pretty much debunked by close examination of the study of evolution and the Omega theory, perhaps part of the appeal of the theory was that it gave man’s existence a purpose and hope, perhaps not here and now but in the future of mankind there will be the expression of full Christedness.  Is there not always a group of intelligent human beings seeking explanations for our experience of life?  First the weather was punishing us, then the weather Gods, then the God of weather, then the God of Gods, as we learn more the more sophisticated our Higher Being becomes.  This seems to be a form of evolution. (Changes in increments)

We all have a “seed” of the divine waiting to spring forth and in our individual lives many of us do evolve, albeit not always for the highest and best.  Sometimes the environment prevents the full blooming of this seed.  Yes, a rock will always be a rock but the rock has no will power and the predetermined track thing knocks out will on a lot of levels.  Mankind does have the ability to self-analyze and shift as seen in our environmental consciousness and even more importantly our world consciousness.  Perhaps it’s not a predetermined track as we understand it. 

Man will always be man but if what we teach is true we are seeking to express our divinity.  If we subscribe to the theory that we are One it could be reasonable to expect that at some time in the far away future we could express this Oneness in the physical world, with every”one” else.