Today’s Post

Last week be began a look at religion as a tool for managing the noosphere, particularly in dealing with the risks that arise with evolution of the human. We acknowledged the traditional ills that can be seen in various expressions of religion over its six or so thousand years of manifesting itself as a way to make sense of things, but opened the door to re-seeing it, at least in its Western manifestation, as simply an attempt to ‘articulate the noosphere’. In this sense, it can be seen as just the ‘right brained’ counterpart to the ‘left brained’ perspectives of science, which, too, does the same.

The question remains, of course: how can such an approach to religion be developed, weighted as it is with its historical attachment to such things as found in the radical and fundamentalist expressions of Islam in the Mideast, as well as fundamentalism, excessive hierarchical structures and dogmatism in the West? Is there a way that the teachings that have led to such obvious ‘noospheric risks’ can be reinterpreted into teachings that will lead away from them?

This week we will begin to look at the roots of Western religion to begin rediscovery of principles which will move us forward.

Rethinking Morality 

   It was in this vein that Teilhard, along with other thinkers such as Maurice Blondel, began to look at the tenets and structure of religion, particularly Western religion, in terms of the new insights offered by science.   Blondel was one of the first Catholic theologians to recognize that science’s discovery of both the depth of universal time and the nature of evolution provided an insight which understood not only the universe but the human as well as ‘dynamic’, as opposed to the medieval worldview which understood both as ‘static Teilhard substantially expanded this insight, understanding how this new thinking not only could bring a new, secular, empirical and more relevant meaning to religion’s ancient teachings, but that Christianity, as one of the first attempts to see religion and reason as sides of a single coin, was well suited to do so.

Teilhard offers five insights into morality as opportunities to not only increase the relevancy of religious teaching, but in doing so increase its value to science. Not only can religious teaching be better grounded in empirical facts, but in doing so can provide a much needed ‘ground of humanity’ to science.

The Evolutionary Basis for Morality

“If indeed, as we have assumed, the world culminates in a thinking reality, the organization of personal human energies represents the supreme stage (so far) of cosmic evolution on Earth; and morality is consequently nothing less than the higher development of mechanics and biology. The world is ultimately constructed by moral forces; and reciprocally, the function of morality is to construct the world.”

   Here Teilhard asks us to recognize that what religion has been trying to accomplish, with its topsy-turvy, noosphericly-risky, ultimately very human efforts has simply been to ‘make sense of things’. In this attempt to ‘articulate the noosphere’, it has used the slowly accumulated understanding of the noosphere provided by intuition, metaphors and dreams, but impeded by egos, fears, and ambitions.

He attaches no particular stigma to the fact that we’re already some two hundred thousands of years into human evolution, and in no way are we ‘there yet’.

While considering that evolution is ‘a work in progress’, he sees morality as a tool to ‘construct the world’. Conversely this calls for us to ‘construct morality’ even as we ‘articulate the noosphere’.

Properly understood, morals are the building blocks of the noosphere, by which we ourselves are ‘built’.

The Evolution of Morality

“Morality has until now been principally understood as a fixed system of rights and duties intended to establish a static equilibrium between individuals and at pains to maintain it by a limitation of energies, that is to say of force.

   Now the problem confronting morality is no longer how to preserve and protect the individual, but how to guide him so effectively in the direction of his anticipated fulfillments that the ‘quantity of personality’ still diffuse in humanity may be released in fullness and security.”

   Here Teilhard introduces two insights: First the most tangible way that morality ‘constructs the world’ is by clarifying the structure of the universe so that we can better understand it. Secondly, it offers a clearer understanding of how we are to make the best use of it in unlocking the fullness and security that is still diffuse in us.

   Put another way, as we better understand morals, we better understand the noosphere, and become more skilled at cooperating with its forces to actualize our potential.

The Morality of Balance (appropriate to a static universe) vs the Morality of Movement (appropriate to an evolving universe)

“The morality of balance is replaced by the morality of movement.

– (As an example) The morality of money based on exchange and fairness vs the goodness of riches only if they work for the benefit of the spirit.(advance human evolution)”

A secular example of such a shift in perspective can be seen in the examples of human evolution in human affairs today, as enumerated by Norberg. One of the facets that he identifies is a distinct correlation between the rise of human welfare in developing countries and their increase of GNP. This is a concrete example of Teilhard’s insight into the potential of secular wealth to improve human welfare as a metric of human evolution. Norberg echoes Teilhard’s belief that ‘the morality of money’ can evolve from seeing donated money as a measure of morality (charity) to understanding the application of personal freedom and improved relationships as necessary for a society to increase its wealth (GNP) and as a result, increase the welfare of its citizens.

As a direct corollary of this insight, Teilhard reinforces his assertion that morality must evolve from proscription to prescription if it is to fulfill its potential in fostering our personal evolution towards more completeness (autonomy and person-ness). Effectively he sees the need to move

“Individual morality (from) preventing him from doing harm (to) working with the forces of growth to free his autonomy and personality (person-ness) to the uttermost.”

   In Teilhard’s new insight, morality must now be recognized as a tool for increasing personal freedom and enhancing relationships, not as a hedge against evil to ensure our salvation.

Religion, Morality and Complexification

“By definition, his religion, if true, can have no other effect than to perfect the humanity in him.”

   Here Teilhard is delving into the most fundamental role of religion. As technology certainly can be seen to improve human welfare, it has no expertise at improving the unique human characteristics of personal freedom and personal relationships which are necessary to insure the innovation and invention at the basis of its expertise. He goes on to say,

“At the first stage, Christianity may well have seemed to exclude the humanitarian aspirations of the modern world. At the second stage its duty was to correct, assimilate and preserve them.”

The most appropriate role for religion Is as a tool for management of the noosphere. The deepest claim to authenticity for a religion is to be recognized as a tool for the evolutionary advancement of the human person, and through him the advancement of humanity.

Morality As A Basis For Dealing With The Noosphere

“So as long as our conceptions of the universe remained static, the basis of duty remained extremely obscure. To account for this mysterious law (love) which weighs fundamentally on our liberty, man had recourse to all sorts of explanations, from that of an explicit command issued from outside to that of an irrational but categorical instinct.”

   Here Teilhard is succinctly stating one of his basic tenets of the understanding of human evolution: Once put in an evolutionary context, all concepts which are pertinent to the continuation of human existence begin to present themselves as aspects of the single, unified and coherent thing that they truly are.

The Tool Set

In the same way that government must establish and safeguard the building blocks of society, such as Jefferson’s assertion of the person as the basis for society…

in the same way that medicine must understand physiology to diagnose illness to be able to prescribe treatment…

in the same way that technology must understand metal structure to build a bridge…

religion must recognize its role as a tool for understanding the noosphere to be able to assist us in living it in such a way that we maximize our potential for being fully and authentically human.

The Next Post

This week we took a look at Teilhard’s insights into the concept of morality andhow it can be seen as a tool for continuing our evolution as humans.

Next week we will begin to look at what is needed by religion if it is to begin to realize its potential as ‘co-creator’ of the future with science.