Today’s Post

Having seen Teilhard’s unique insights into evolution and how it proceeds in the human person and his society, this week we will take a look at how these insights apply to the phenomenon of religion.

The Evolution of Religion

Teilhard’s approach to picturing evolution illustrates the evolutionary nature of belief.  Religion, like any other form of human activity, evolves.  Threads and streams of thinking branch off into new thinking, just as can be seen in the arms and branches of the biological tree of life.  However, as discussed last week, in human evolution these branches are not doomed to remain disconnected from each other.  As we have seen in the entwining of Greek and Jewish thinking which result in the new Christian stream, in human evolution each branch has the potential for reconnection.   In this particular mapping of modes of thought, we have also seen the double result of increased use of the neocortex brain:

Increase in the skill of using the left brain modes of understanding

Increase in the skill of thinking with the modes of both the left and right modes

The Evolutionary Perspective on the History of Religion

As we have seen here, an equally important measure of human evolution (in addition to the increasing skill of using the neocortex to modulate the stimuli of the ‘lower brains’) can be seen not only in the increase of right and left brain thinking but the use of them in balance.  For several thousand years, the religions of the world showed a preponderance of domination by right brain modes of thinking.  The skill of using the left brain increased more slowly, bursting into florescence with the flowering of Greek philosophy and science in about 500 BCE.

The convergence between Jewish thinking and Greek thinking in the new Christian religion in the early first century AD resulted in the first recorded synthesis between the two modes.   The right-brained thinking of the Jews began to be supplemented by that of Greek left brained thinking. We have followed Jonathan Sacks as he traced this thread through the evolution of language, thinking and the understanding of the increasing influence of the left hemisphere.

In the last post, we saw Teilhard’s observation that in the human, different branches of evolution are not doomed to the three options of continuing to evolve, stopping or dying, but are open to future convergence.  This observation is confirmed when we see the subsequent connection of the Hebrew right-brained modes of thought described above, and that of the Greek left-brained modes into the first human dual-brained mode of thinking, that of Christianity.

It should not be a surprise, then, that such a new connection of the two primary seats of consciousness would open the human person to a wider world of potential and thus result in the success which can be seen in Western civilization.  As Teihard remarks,

“The whole world is advancing through application of the thinking processes and ideas which took root in human enterprises as a result of this unprecedented turn of evolution”.

With the two hemispheres beginning to balance, the true potential of the human person increases from when one or the other was more influential.  Openness to the next step of human evolution becomes more assured.

The left brain influence in the new holy book of Christianity eventually resulted in the emergence of science in the seventeenth century.  That this rise of left-brained thinking, bolstered by the cohesiveness of society fostered by the Jewish right-brained precepts, should have continued into the flowering of Western science in the seventeenth century, therefore, should come as no surprise.

However, as Jonathan Sacks points out, conflict between this ‘new’ activity of the left brain and the traditional right-brained thinking as entrenched in institutionalized Western religion was eventually bound to happen.  The rise of empirical thinking slowly came in conflict with the old intuitive traditions marked by metaphors and myths.  Unfortunately, in his opinion, the emerging influence of left-brained empiricism ultimately opened the door to a materialism which denies right-brained humanistic values.  While resulting in a newer, stronger science, it also can be seen to attack the historical right-brain foundations of instinct, intuition and integration.

All 0f which leads us to the crossroad that we face today:  How can these two deeply rooted modes of thought be brought into better balance?

Teilhard addresses the need for balance between these two human modes of thought:

“To outward appearance, the modern world was born of an anti-religious movement: man becoming self-sufficient and reason supplanting belief.  Our generation and the two that preceded it have heard little but talk of the conflict between science and faith; indeed, it seemed at one moment a foregone conclusion that the former was destined to take the place of the latter.   But, as the tension is prolonged, the conflict visibly seems to be resolved in terms of an entirely different form of equilibrium- not in elimination, nor duality, but in synthesis.  After close on to two centuries of passionate struggles, neither science nor faith has succeeded in discrediting its adversary.  On the contrary, it becomes obvious that neither can develop normally without the other.  And the reason is simple: the same life animates both.”

 As can be seen in the social experiments of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and the Korean Kims, science and society without religion can become very anti-human, but as can be seen in the case of religious fundamentalism, religion without science can become, in its own way, antithetical to the human spirit.

The Next Post

If this blog is to address a secular approach to God, such a synthesis as proposed by Teilhard must address religion in its secular context.  Next time we will take one last look at the phenomenon of religion, and attempt to answer the question,” What is Religion?”