The second point that he did was to identify the Human as a dimension of the Universe from the beginning. In other words, the universe is always integral with itself at all times and everywhere. That is, everything requires everything else, and it's not itself without everything else. The world we have now couldn't be what it is, unless what was before this was what it was and so forth. >> Okay. >> This couldn't be what it is, unless what came first had the power to produce this. >> Yes, I see, I see what you're saying. >> Unless the fireball could produce a galactic systems, the fireball neither could exist. Unless galactic systems could produce an earth, the earth couldn't exist. Unless the whole universe produced a human, a human couldn't exist. So that the human is in a manner, integral with the universe, [INAUDIBLE] to tell my story, you have to tell the story of the universe. >> Uh-huh, all right. >> And that's what this television program not long ago called Creation, that was the last statement in it. It was a magnificent story of creation, and it ended with that statement, that the story of the universe is the human story. And so that, >> And that was a key insight of Teilhard. >> That was one of the main things of Teilhard, and that has been further elucidated. >> Mm-hm. >> And when he was saying this, as early as 1930, he has one called The Spirit of the Earth, an essay he wrote in 1930 and that was after he had gone, he was on his way back to China. He had just traveled across this continent, across North America, and he wrote it on a [INAUDIBLE] ship, when he was in the Pacific, going back to China. It's a very wonderful essay called, The Spirit of the Earth. That was the first form, I think, of the human phenomenon that he wrote ten years later. >> Later, yeah, yeah. >> But that's the second. The third thing though, that is so important with Teilhard is that he moved the question, the essential Christian issue, from the Redemption to the Creation. In modern times, because of the struggles in interpreting the gospels, and the Epistle Saint Paul that came out in the 16th century, and all our struggles to explain redemption, and our attachment to redemption, and our feeling of being caught in the turmoil of time, and wanting to get out of the universe rather than to stay in the universe, there was kind of a Christian attachment to anything but the universe. And so that it was salvation, processes that Christians were looking for, and Teilhard said, it doesn't make sense. >> Hm. >> But to have that thing I just read, that the primary work of the Christian is this universe. And if anything's going to be saved, nothing can be saved without everything else being saved. >> Uh-huh. >> So that to move the issue to creation, and this would be in accord with Duns Scotus's position, other than Thomas's position, that the essential thing is the creation process. And a person has to see redemption as somewhere occurring in that process, as kind of a phase of divine presence in the universe, and functioning with the universe. But it must be seen within the Creation Perspective. >> That really is a very new kind of religious stream, that's being- >> That's a new, that's the part [CROSSTALK] to think for Christians. >> Emerging today, yeah. [CROSSTALK] >> We're always saying don't love the world, love not the world, other things in the world. >> And the transcendent- >> Yeah, and to seek the things that are above. >> Above, yeah. >> Well you can't seek the things that are above unless you behold them in the things below. And to make that radicalist distinction between the things above and the things below, it puts the whole creation in the state of chaos. >> Mm-hm. >> And as the divine Saint Paul says in the Epistle to the Romans in his first chapter that we come, through the things that are made, we come to the knowledge of the higher things. So then, unless the Earth were so gorgeous and so beautiful, we wouldn't have a grand idea of the divine. >> Yeah, yeah. >> I always say that if we lived on the moon, our idea of the divine would reflect the lunar landscape. It'd be desolate. Our idea of God would be desolate. >> Because we learn from this- >> We learn from what surrounds us. >> Uh-huh. >> There's no way to come to perspective on the divine except through our experience that we have, we assent being. St Thomas even says that, there's nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses. >> Wow. >> Well anyway, there are these three things. >> Three things, yeah. >> Central things. Okay, so that certainly has, those are deep, deep contributions. Would you- >> But perhaps a couple other things that might be mentioned that I think are somewhat important as regards to Teilhard, in understanding Teilhard, the foregoing extent to the idea of how he relates to the ecological age is a sense of psychic energy. >> Mm-hm. >> He lived during the period of, the vibrant period of the existentialists [CROSSTALK] Camus and also Sartre. And some of the other writers were very depressed about the world, and the chaos, and the idea that you had to accept the fact that the universe is absurd. >> Yeah. The sense of an absurd universe- >> Okay. The universe that's presented say by Samuel Beckett and tell yourself then very clearly the crisis of human energy, of psychic energy. And the thing he was most afraid of in humans meeting the future with a dying down, what he called, the zest for life. >> Zest for life. >> Zest for life. >> Yeah. >> He wrote a thing using that as the English title. So he didn't use [INAUDIBLE] but the zest for life. >> Zest for life. >> So that there is enormous need to be fascinated with life. If we're not fascinated with life, then we're just not going to have the physic energy needed to carry through the human endeavor and any fascinating or any fulfilling manner. >> Mm-hm. >> So, there is that aspect of his work, and then there's one other thing that needs to be emphasized also, is the mystical quality of the scientific venture. That is then a science he once called a research is the highest form of worship. >> My goodness. >> It was an extraordinary statement. But he has an essay and it's in the English edition, under the title of Human Energy, the last essay and that has to do with the Science and the high mission of the scientific world. I sometimes say science is a yoga of the west. >> Okay. >> That's our spiritual discipline. Now, a person say, how can you say that, when science has been so mechanistic? >> Right, that's a question. >> There is a very important phase of science, science had to move into a setting aside of the spiritual for a while in order to penetrate matter. And one of the great contribution of science is to, in it's investigation of what we call matter, to end up with the realization that matter, Krauss matter they end up in the spiritual. Because they see the psychic component that matter is considered merely as Krauss, what might be called just opaque matter is not opaque. >> Mm-hm, yes. >> It's a luminous reality, it's a luminous organizing, energetic process that has in it the capacity to produce such a stupendous universe. And so it has something more than what the person might call simply matter, this was looked upon for a while. Once it's done that, then it turns toward a more greater sensitivity, what we call the spiritual of the numinous quality of matter. Then we're back to a new way of experiencing the divine. We are back to a new way of seeing what the primitive humans thought. I've always seen that the universe is pervaded by a numinous sacred aspect of [INAUDIBLE] >> And because he was scientist and deeply religious, Teilhard was- >> He was the first person really, that's why I say they in a sense, they have changed and be Christian thinking more than any thinker since Saint Paul. >> Yeah, the mystical quality [CROSSTALK] >> Of the scientific venture. >> Of the scientific venture. It has a trans-scientific mission. Well, a person has to keep in mind that the dynamics of technology are non-technological. They're visionary, they're like santople. There's almost a spiritual quality or drive because we think technology is going to bring us to some mystical mode of existence. Advertising is based on mysticism and the idea that is taking us to this heavenly realm. They have this automobile drives, that take you up in paradise. And you can take and advertise the power of soap which will eliminate all the tensions of the human invasion, take it off to wonderland. Advertisment, all of that is involved in this process. >> Mm-hm, so in some way, Teilhard's contribution has become distorted though in the technological kind of- >> Well, the pathos of Teilhard, yeah, this is where a person has to still be, there's a critical dimension that a person has to bring to bear on Teilhard. >> Okay. >> Because although we did so much, and understood so profoundly some of the issues that we're dealing with he was overly fascinated with the human. And is what might be considered, what might be called anthropocentrism was excessive. He wanted a human through human intelligence to conquer the rest of the world, and to control it. >> Mm-hm. >> And so I dropped my paper here, but my paper, I have just a a couple passages. >> Right, it would be helpful. >> I might read you here, that mentions something of this >> of control over matter, which was so, in a certain sense, frightening. That as humans we are to conquer nature. He says in the phenomenon, the human phenomenon, the phenomenon of man, he wrote. When mankind has once realized that his first function is to penetrate, intellectually unify, and harness the energies which surround it. In order still further to understand and master them, there will no longer be any danger of running into an upper limit of its fluorescence. In other word, he was so captivated with the idea of progress through technology, and see, he did not have the sense of communion with the natural world. >> That the human was somehow in communion. >> Was to control it. He had the idea, he did not commune with it the way the ecologists want to commune with it. It was not ecocentric in that time. >> So isn't that interesting because it was all work in paleontology. You would think that the Earth, kind of resonance with the Earth would be very central. >> Well, when a person talks about Teilhard in the ecological age this is what needs to be done. Teilhard is enormously important in setting in the foundations of this communion. In a certain sense there is an ambivalence about Teilhard in this. And that is the point of it, that is why an excessive cultic orientation to Teilhard is just not good and not. We need a beyond Teilhard even. And so the great mission of our times, and those who understand and appreciate the enormous contributions of Teilhard cannot stop where he stopped in my estimation. And so when I proposed the idea of Teilhard in the ecological age, it's not to say that he has provided a perfect interpretation of it. But that he has provided the principles, those three principles are those, even those five principles are very important. But the first three can be the basis of a deep entry into this type of ecological community that we're seeking. But the pathos is that Teilhard in his text is not that much into the ecological age. Now why not? Well, in a certain sense, the real tragedy of human oppression of the natural world had not quite begun. Rachel Carson had not written her book until 1962, so that's when I would say the ecological age begins, with that very stark presentation. Although earlier there were, in the whole of American history this issue has been a dominant item of our literature. Moby Dick of Melville. >> Conquering and- >> Conquering. >> And mastering- >> Moby Dick is possibly the most significant novel ever written to identify this human earth issue. >> And n the religious tradition, it's Ahab, his psychic or pathological determination to kill the whale, to dominate the whale. Has to do with, to a large extent, with the human emphasis and intention to control the natural world. >> And also Mark Twain with the raft, that simple raft of Huck and the slave, when the steamboat comes down and smashes that. Mark Twain is talking about the way in which the more early the type of experience tends to be smashed by the technological world. And you get Fenimore Cooper wrote about, in The Pioneers, one of his early Leatherstocking Tales. He writes about the woodcutter, wanting to cut down all the trees. And even then he said, another character said, if you keep cutting down these trees, you're going to devastate everything. And so Cooper was well aware of this issue. So it's not exactly a new issue. But in the 20th century, when we got this enormous power over the natural world, it has become just dangerous. Not only dangerous, catastrophic, because we're into nuclear power and so forth. And that's when Teilhard came into contact with nuclear power, he was totally in ecstasy over it. >> Isn't that interesting, yeah. >> He went to visit the cyclotron, I guess in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or somewhere in California. And he had a certain elation over these experiences. And so that what is needed in terms of the ecological issue is to be able to translate those early sensitivities of Teilhard into a more acceptable context. >> Yeah. >> Because in the ecological age, we need to see the universe as a community, and particularly the planet Earth. Particularly in the biosphere, we need to encompass the Earth. For instance, with America, what's the matter with the American Constitution, this is the year of the Constitution. Everybody's saying that, such a great document, it is a great document for humans. >> For humans, yeah. >> But what happens to the rest of the continent. It's devastating for humans to be told they have all these rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, at the expense of the natural world. So what we need is a constitution for the North American continent. Where all the creatures would understand each other in a single community, the community of life. And this needs of course to be extended to the rest of the world. Now in this sense there is a great difficulty with Teilhard. There is something in Teilhard in what I may call extension of the philosophes of the 18th century almost. Of a certain type of French clarity and brilliance, insight, but lacking in a certain emotional rapport with the natural world. Rousseau mentions some of that. The area of enlightenment carries some of this and it was driven by the idea of progress. >> Progress. >> And Teilhard translated progress into spiritual progress, into human progress. To a certain extent, at the expense of the natural world. >> Mm-hm, mm-hm. And the- >> Let me read you another passage. It's a very important issue as regards Teilhard], and I think that we need to deal with this in a certain amount of concern. And particularly as we understand Teilhard, it's important to appreciate what he hoped for. He hoped for progress and for a type of overcoming the human condition. What I call the human condition is the acceptance that we have a limited existence. There's no sense in hoping for, to get to certain, that peace, perfect peace, perfect justice, perfect ease with life through mechanistic process. Teilhard's over fascinated with mechanism. >> And that isn't the story of the earth there's always chaos and struggle and violence. >> Yeah, there's the struggle and violence but there's the creativity, now he wanted the creativity >> That the artificial for the human is a part of the natural order. But when the two, that in case where the two are compared to each other, the artificial is always better. >> My goodness, yeah. >> In other words, like flying a plane and flying of a bird. Birdsong was into this, Birdsong is back with Teilhard. Birdsong is the greatest single influence on Teilhard and he did his creative evolution. Where he brought together the evolutionary ideas of Darwin together with a certain spirituality that it comes from the neoplatonist movement and also from the romanticism of the German world. And this creative evolution is again, one of the great works of the 20th century.
