Teilhard de Chardin and the Environment

Teilhard de Chardin and the Environment Philippe Crabbé Abstract Teilhard de Chardin, a respected paleontologist and Catholic priest, while not being a professional theologian, has a strong influence on to-day’s ecological spirituality and, especially, on Christian creation theology,. While biological evolution was viewed with skepticism by his own Church of which he was a devoted member, he assigned a spiritual goal to biological evolution. Two of his mentors were John-Henry Newman and Henri Bergson. Teilhard was influenced by Newman’s perspective on natural religion which was decoupled from its intelligent design focus and by Bergson’s view that evolution had an inner component (‘environment’) as well as an outer one, both objects for observation and, allegedly, for science. Contrary to Bergson, Teilhard was a finalist; this is why Teilhard’s approach, while clearly interdisciplinary, is not systems science. The goal of evolution for Teilhard is the Cosmic Christ, a relatively recent term whose concept goes back to the early Christian Church. Teilhard developed a concept of interactive ‘environments’ which anticipated R. C. Lewontin’s adaptation of organisms to an environment which organisms are able to modify to their advantage through learning. While the ecological integrity concept did not exist at Teilhard’s time, the latter’s contribution may be viewed as a “deeply personal” and spiritual contribution to the concept’s “philosophical nature”. Introduction: Context Teilhard de Chardin’s book The human phenomenon whose manuscript was completed in 1938 was published posthumously in French in 1955, the year of his death. Aldo Leopold introduced the concept of ecological integrity in 1949 and defined it as “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” (Leopold 1949, pp. 224-225) As Karr, Larson and Chu (2021) emphasized ecological integrity “…is not about protecting the Earth but about protecting Earth's living systems”. Since these authors also underline the “deeply personal and highly philosophical nature” of Leopold’s essay, this preservation must include their evolutionary ability to generate heritable adaptive genetic diversity (evolvability; Kirschner and Gerhart 1998) or, at least, the ability to transmit through natural selection the learning which favors those organisms which are better able to adapt to a modified environment (Lewontin, 1983). Though Teilhard (for short) was not aware of Leopold’s concept nor of the ones of environmental quality as these were developed after the second worldwar only, he was mainly concerned with finding a spiritual meaning for biological evolution. One of my university teachers, a philosopher of science, said of Teilhard’s book: “It is neither science nor theology. Then what is it? Poetry?” The main objective of this chapter is to try to answer this question. The word “environment” was not widely used until well into the twentieth century. The word was not used by Darwin. Darwin talks rather of “geography” or of “the conditions of life” in the 1859 The Origin of Species (Darwin, 2012). Of course, it is unconceivable to speak of biological evolution without ever referring to an environment or a milieu. The term milieu was introduced by Lamarck in 1809, meaning: the set of actions carried out from outside on a living being (Centre national des ressources textuelles et lexicales). The divine milieu is the English translation of the French title of Teilhard’s book Le mileu divin whose manuscript was completed in 1927 was published posthumously in French in 1957 and in English in 1960 under its French title. This book, in which he develops his understanding of environment, does not relate to biology directly but rather to theology and mysticism. However, Teilhard seems to have had an understanding of environment quite similar to the one of Richard C. Lewontin in Biology. Teilhard’s work knows a revival today and has a great influence on Christian creation theology especially since Karl Rahner and John Haught placed evolution at the center of theirs own theology (Rahner 1966; Haught 2008). Teilhard was a French Jesuit priest who was interested in Geology since childhood. His spiritual life was intertwined with his brilliant career in Paleontology and Geology. As a Jesuit—a somewhat para-military religious order in which absolute obedience to superiors was required—Teilhard was repeatedly forbidden from publishing anything except strictly paleontological scientific papers from 1925 to his death in 1955 (King 1996, pp. 104-116 ). (King 1996) is a good biography. Therefore, all his non-strictly scientific papers are posthumous. Teilhard was kept at bay - with his consent - by the religious authorities first in China (1926-46) where he could continue his paleontological work and later in the United States (1951-55) because his influence among intellectuals in Paris (France) was felt to be too great (King 1966, p.212). Much of Teilhard’s life coincided with the anti-Modernist phase of the Catholic Church which began in earnest in 1907 (under Pope Pius X) Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907. and ended formally in 1967 (under Pope Paul VI). Secular and religious priests were required by Pius X to swear an oath against Modernism. Modernism was a theological current which embraced new scientific methods and philosophical ideas to dispute some fundamental beliefs of the Catholic Church (George Tyrrell in the United Kingdom and Alfred Loisy in France were two of its best known adherents; Kurz 1986). Some suspected that Teilhard belonged to this current but this suspicion was not proven since he was forbidden to publish. He was also too attached to his Church to make this suspicion credible (Speaight 1967, cited in Ockham 2013). Teilhard’s rehabilitation began in 1981 (by Pope John-Paul II) but earlier, since 1968, J. Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI) in his own theological work praised Teilhard for renewing Christology (quite a compliment from a prominent theologian to a non-professional one!)(Crabbé 2018, pp. 87-89; Ratzinger 1978). Biological evolution was accepted by the Catholic Church first, timidly, in 1950 (by Pius XII) who said that nothing forbids discussion “… as far as it enquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter” (encyclical Humani generis, 1950, p. 36). This was quite a bold statement in Catholic theology as in the 1930’s and even in the 1940’s, it was sometimes held that “God has formed the body of the first man from inorganic matter.” “…God produced Adam's body from inorganic matter, for that is the sense in which they [the words "immediate formation"] are ordinarily used by theologians” (Motherway 1944, p. 202) “ M. Hervé puts down as communis et vera the "doctrine of the Fathers and theologians that the body of the first man was formed by a special and immediate action of God from pre-existing matter, to the exclusion of all organic evolution and transformation of species." (ibid, p. 210) “According to this careful study, the four eminent theologians of the thirteenth century were unanimous in holding that God produced the body of the first man from inorganic matter by His own immediate operation” (ibid, p. 213). Biological evolution was officially accepted by the Church in 1996 only (by Pope John-Paul II in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences). Teilhard studied Theology in Hastings, England. His studies there were a consequence of the so-called 1904 French Combes laws on laicity which disallowed unauthorized teaching religious orders in France. Jesuit members either had to scatter in France and live there as laymen, or move abroad. The Jesuits trained their recruits in institutions located in nearby countries. Teilhard studied in Jersey, an island in the English Channel, where he obtained a B.A. equivalent before moving to Hastings, in anticipation of the consequences of the Combes laws. After his scholastics (B.A.) during which he studied Geology among other subjects, he went to Cairo to teach sciences in a high school as part of his Jesuit training. This is where he developed his attachment to the Eastern landscapes and cultures. After completing his studies in Theology, Teilhard went back to France in 1912 to study Paleontology at the Museum of Man in Paris (King, 1996, pp. 41-42). My intent in this chapter is not to review the immense literature on Teilhard de Chardin but, first, to emphasize some major intellectual influences on his methodology; second, to note that his mystical understanding of environment anticipates the one of Lewontin in Biology; and third, to provide an inkling of his major influence on current Christian creation theology. Some of Teilhard’s mentors Two of Teilhard’s mentors are of special significance for the methodology of his non-strictly paleontological work. These are Cardinal John-Henry Newman and the philosopher Henri Bergson. John-Henry Newman Newman was an Oxford University academic and English theologian, first an Anglican priest and later, in 1845, a Catholic priest and then, in 1879, a cardinal. He was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s. He became one of the more notable leaders of the Oxford Movement, drawn to the High-Church tradition of Anglicanism, i.e. the tradition closest to Catholicism. Newman welcomed Darwin’s theory of evolution while the Catholic Church rejected it (Newman 1868). J.A. Lyons (1982, pp. 24-25) mentions that Darwin’s theory of evolution was widely accepted in the U.K. and forced there a re-evaluation of the Christian doctrine within the scientific frameworks. A collection of essays, Lux Mundi, edited by the Anglican theologian C Gore in 1889, engaged constructively with evolutionary theory (Daniels 2015, p. 439). Newman was also strongly influenced by the Greek Fathers, i.e. the early Greek theologians, whom he could read in their original Greek language (Cowell 2005). The Fathers had an evolutionary perspective and preserved the cosmic dimension in their theology. They also held a belief in the fundamental unity of knowledge and in history as dynamic process (Cowell 2005). Teilhard acquired from Newman a strong interest in the Greek Fathers and could also read the latter in the original Greek, a skill he learned in high school (King 1996, p. 15). The Greek Fathers had a stronger influence on the early undivided Church and the Orthodox Church than they did on the Latin Church until the second Vatican Council held in the nineteen sixties. Roman reservations at Teilhard’s time towards all forms of ecumenism may have prevented Teilhard from engaging in a fruitful dialogue with Orthodox theologians and thinkers with whom he had a close affinity (Cowell 2005, p. 63). John Henry Newman’s thought on natural and revealed religion influenced Teilhard. Generally, natural theology is “an approach that looks for evidence of God in the natural world” (Haught 2008, p. 37). In contemporary philosophy, however, both “natural religion” and “natural theology” typically refer to the project of using all of the cognitive faculties that are “natural” to human beings—reason, sense-perception, introspection—to investigate religious or theological matters…. In general, natural religion aims to adhere to the same standards of rational investigation as other philosophical and scientific enterprises, and is subject to the same methods of evaluation and critique (Chignell et al 2020, 2nd par). Natural religion was a subject of intellectual concern in the United Kingdom at least since David Hume, Isaac Newton and Thomas Paley but the subject goes back to Antiquity (in France, it was called deisme). Natural theology has been the subject of the prestigious Gifford Lectures for a hundred years. For Newman, this natural knowledge of God is not the result of unaided reason but of reason aided by God, and so he speaks of natural religion as containing a revelation (Bible and Tradition), even though it is an incomplete revelation (Connolly 2005, p. 48). So Newman blurred the distinction between natural and revealed religion. For Newman, an essential element of natural religion is the existence of conscience. Conscience implies “a relation to an excellence it does not possess, and a tribunal over which it has no power” (2nd University sermon cited by Rosenberg 2007, p. 56). While conscience, ideally, enables philosophy to reach religious knowledge, in fact, the latter is rarely attained. Actually revealed religion provides what is lacking. Natural religion fails to recognize an object of worship. The perfect example of this failure is Saint Paul engaging the Athenians who were worshipping an unknown God (King James Bible, Acts 17:22-31). For Newman, the difference between natural religion and Christianity is that the former aspires towards a divine principle while the latter aspires towards a divine agent. Knowing a principle leads to a form of Gnosticism while aspiration to a divine agent requires some form of submission to a person, “training us to be subjects of a kingdom, not citizens of a stoic republic and enforcing obedience not so much on Reason as so much as on Faith” (2nd University sermon cited in Rosenberg 2007, p. 58). It is in light of revealed religion that one can discern the use and importance of natural religion. Revealed religion fills the deficiencies of natural religion. The primary experience of natural religion is a sense of sin. Newman is more interested in religious assent, listening to the secret voice of conscience, than in intellectual assent (Rosenberg 2007, passim). For the ancients (except the atomists), nature is a manifestation of the logos, reason, and is a cosmos, i.e. an ordained and harmonious whole, carrier of an intent. The concept of natural religion is taken up by Saint Augustine who talked of the “book of nature” against the Gnostics who considered matter as intrinsically evil. The word “book” meant a privileged means of communication for thought and “book of nature” pointed to nature as an object for understanding. This perspective was also the one of Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274) who considered, however, that sin had obscured the understanding of this book which must, therefore, be complemented by revelation (Moschetta 2012, pp. 21-35). To a certain extent, Teilhard practices natural theology as understood by Newman, since he starts from natural sciences—in which he was well-trained from high school on—to arrive at the notion of Cosmic Christ. However, Darwin rendered natural theology obsolete to a large extent because he did forego the intelligent design argument, i.e. Paley’s watchmaker argument If you happen to find a watch, the latter must have had a watchmaker. or the more recent teleological argument of fine tuning. Many theologians are also unenthusiastic about the design argument as being too rationalistic. Natural religion and the design argument were revived by some scientists in the context of contemporary cosmology, i.e. “the physical and cosmic conditions that made life possible in the first place” (Haught 2008, p. 38). However, contemporary theology has shied away from the design argument to enrich itself from an evolutionary perspective (e.g. process theology) that Teilhard and others before him anticipated (Haught 2008, pp. 36-47). This natural religion current is strong today in Christian creation theology to the extent that religion is expected to agree broadly with the findings of science, i.e. a nature common to all that can be reached by reason and nature’s observation (Moschetta 2015, pp. 1-3). Natural religion is to-day practiced by scientists mainly (Haught 2008, p. 37). It is the outcome of a theology of nature which is trying to contribute to: 1) the contemporary ecological movement of re-sacralisation of nature; and 2) a hermeneutics for reading the book of nature (Moschetta 2015, p. 2). As Teilhard did not limit himself either to science as defined by Galileo or to systematic theology, it is sometimes difficult to situate his non-strictly paleontological contributions with respect to these two disciplines. See (De Lubac 1962, Chap.7 and 15). Cardinal De Lubac had read pretty much all of Teilhard’s writings including his voluminous correspondence. For Teilhard as for Newton, science and theology were not completely separate subjects. Teilhard was neither a theologian nor a poet but a deeply religious person. Galileo had characterized the scientific method by: 1) The experimental method as the normative criterion for scientific knowledge of reality; 2) The legitimacy of the use of mathematical modeling to rigorously describe observable phenomena; and 3) The autonomy of science from philosophy and theology. The contemporary scientific method is characterized by three main features. First, it accepts the dynamic and evolutionary character of the world, contrary to the view at the end of the 19th century, when the world was still largely considered static with the exception of biological evolution. The static perspective had been adopted by scholastic philosophy as well. It is at the beginning of the 20th century only with the discovery of continental drift (Alfred Wegener, 1912) and of the expanding universe (Hubble, 1929) that the static perspective in the sciences progressively disappeared. Second, contemporary science accepts the open and unpredictable character of the world, in contrast to the deterministic Laplacian vision that was still dominant at end of the 19th century. Non-linear system theory and quantum mechanics introduced the non-deterministic perspective. Third, contemporary science accepts non-independence among the spatial and temporal points of reference (theory of relativity) and the doubt introduced about our perception of reality (quantum mechanics) (Moschetta, 2012, p. 39). The word “environment” was introduced in English by T. Carlyle in 1827 from the German Umgebung (Hildebrand, 2018) while the word “milieu” was introduced from the French in the early 1800’s, with its contemporary meaning attributed to J. B. Lamarck (Lamarck 1809, p. 367). In Darwinian theory, the environment is static or, if it changes, it changes very slowly at a geological scale. In any case, environmental changes are much slower than the ones at the biological scale of adaptation. For Lamarck, the scale of biological adaptation is much faster than for Darwin. Nonetheless, Darwin rightly concluded that the age of the earth must be much older than the one estimated by his contemporary geologist colleagues. Teilhard was aware of the conflicts between science and the theology he was trained in. In an unpublished note dated 1922, he wrote: “the more we bring the past to life again by the means of science, the less we can accommodate either Adam or the earthly paradise” (King 1996, p. 106; Teilhard de Chardin 1947). This note somehow got to Rome and to some French bishops who complained to Rome about Teilhard (Teilhard de Chardin 1947). His teaching licence (from the Vatican) at the Institut Catholique de Paris, where he taught geology, was permanently revoked in 1925. He was advised by Rome to leave Paris—where he was popular—and he chose to return to China. “He obeyed in a spirit of faith but without understanding”, said a friend (King 1996, p. 108). René d’Ouince (Teilhard de Chardin 1972, p. 5) He wrote to another one: “We are no longer in fact ‘catholic’; we are defending a system, a sect” (King 1996, p. 108). Letter to August Valensin, June 27, 1926. In 1927, the publication of the manuscript of his book Le milieu divin was forbidden by his superiors (King 1996, p. 116). Henri Bergson Bergson’s (1859-1941) Creative Evolution, published in 1907 in French under the title L’evolution créatrice, aimed at the educated general public for whom it was an immense success (Gayon 2008, p. 59). The book starts with the conviction that our deepest consciousness is about internal duration, inwardness, a feeling of universal life or vital impetus (élan vital in French). The first chapter of Creative Evolution starts thus not from science as generally understood but from the conscience of our own existence, from an interior observation that Bergson privileges. “The whole is of the same nature as the I, and one can reach the whole by deepening one’s conscience of self” (Vieillard-Baron 2008 p. 209, quoting Bergson) and “ What Biology will add to the understanding of a living being is the need to add to science of the present moment ‘the whole of a long history’” (Vieillard-Baron 2008 p. 210, quoting Bergson). The vital impetus is an outpouring of life assimilated to a spiritual power whose fall-outs are constituents of matter. It is through inwardness that “novelty” enters the material universe (Haught 2008, p. 95). Haught devotes his chap. 10, Cosmic evolution and divine action, to Alfred North Whitehead, Michael Polanyi, and Hans Jonas who, all attempted to introduce subjectivity into evolution as did Teilhard but not into science as Teilhard attempted to do. “Subjectivity is an objective fact of nature” (Haught 2008, p. 177). Bergson debates the finalist versus the mechanistic conception of evolution. The former conception is akin to metaphysical causality (final) while the latter is akin to scientific causality (efficient). Bergson claims that these causalities are equivalent as far as evolution is concerned in that everything is given in advance either as a goal or as initial conditions (Bergson 1962, c.1). According to Bergson (as for Darwin), there is no plan: evolution is unpredictable. There is only vital impetus. Bergson’s language is metaphoric. His detractors claim that it is actually metaphysical. Bergson defends himself in saying that his metaphysics is positive, i.e. based on facts and constantly confronted with experience (Gayon 2008, p. 61). Teilhard’s “hyper-physics” is quite similar to Bergson’s metaphysics. If Bergson privileged life-sciences, it is because these suggest a certain degree of indeterminacy, contingency, ability to choose at levels of organization far inferior to the most complex faculties of human psychism (Gayon 2008, p. 61). Bergson was rejected by the positivistic dogmatism of his scientist compatriots. Bergson interprets biological evolution as being creative and an indefinite process of divergence; for him, convergence is, therefore, non-adaptive. For Teilhard, evolution is convergent towards greater complexity and conscience, the latter replacing entropy as “essential physical function of the cosmos” (de Lubac 1962, p. 236, citing Teilhard). “Impossible to attempt a general scientific interpretation of the Universe without appearing to want to explain it till the end” (Teilhard de Chardin 1955, p. 22). My translation. Galleni, a zoologist, claims this is the basis of the hard core of Teilhard science research program and ”…it is a true Galilean law because it is grounded in observations and it is subject to experimental confirmation” (Galleni, in Delio 2013, 222). Viney, a philosopher, claims it is speculative philosophy à la Whitehead (Viney in Delio 2013, pp. 138-144). Though biologists rejected Creative Evolution, it was considered important enough to be read by the evolutionary biologists even in the 1930’s while the new theory of evolution (embedding genetics) was being elaborated. However, some of the protagonists, e.g. S.G. Wright, T. Dobzhanski, R. A. Fisher, were religious people. While acknowledging that Bergson’s biology was obsolete and, therefore, did not deserve detailed discussion, their own discussion occurred at an abstract metaphysical level (Gayon 2008, p. 84). Was Teilhard’s methodology systems science? One may wonder whether Teilhard’s science was not systems science in that he combined science in Galileo’s sense, religion and value (priority of thought) in an interdisciplinary fashion. Systems science hardly existed when Teilhard wrote The Human Phenomenon between 1938 and 1940 except for the concepts of emergence (Lewes, 1877) and holism (Smuts, 1926). Systems science, especially as related to biology, began in earnest in 1945 with Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, who asserted that the properties of an organism differ from those of its component cells (emergence). Systems science bears on emergent properties, the properties of wholes (holons), which are more than aggregates’ properties. Emergent properties constrain sub-systems in which they find their causes. Living systems are open to their environment and depend on their history (non-ergodicity). They also are teleological but not finalist in that their goals are not inherent to their systems but assigned to them by the system scientist. This was clearly not the case for Teilhard; he was a finalist. Teilhard’s Omega point: the Cosmic Christ “Cosmic Christ” has a universal and final primacy over creation. The latter assumes its full dimension in the setting of an evolution that is both spiritual and convergent. The expression “Cosmic Christ” goes back to the beginning of the 20th century but had antecedents in Germany (perhaps from Hegel) around 1830 (Lyons 1982, Introduction and Chap. 1). Its roots are found in the New Testament, i.e. the Revelation, and in the Greek Fathers. It was used by Teilhard’s French teachers in Hastings (Lyons 1982). Bergson’s vital impetus is the model for Christ in Teilhard’s work. The microscopic Gaïa effect According to R. C. Lewontin, the environment adapts to the organisms it contains (Lewontin 1983). This form of mutualism was dubbed the “microscopic Gaïa effect” by C. S. Holling. I heard him use this expression during a lecture. I never found the expression written anywhere. Organisms can modify their environment in a manner which is beneficial to them, e.g. through tool making, shelter building, traps laying, niche making, etc. These modifications are not transmitted through the genome but through learning which favors, through natural selection, those organisms which are better adapted to the use of the tool, shelter, etc. (Sterelny 2005). The microscopic Gaïa effect is independent of the macroscopic one (Lovelock and Margulis 1970). Le milieu divin whose manuscript Teilhard completed in 1927 anticipates this active perspective on the “milieu” though not in a biological context but rather in a more theological one. There are two environments according to Teilhard: one, conventionally external, outside me, which acts upon me, not necessarily benevolently, and to which I react; the other is internal, inside me, in which I lose myself but in which I discover my life and myself as givens. God occupies the two environments. In this assertion, God is everywhere (Panentheism) but is not everything (Pantheism). This assertion should be sufficient to dispel the accusation of pantheism lodged against Teilhard. by Catholic authorities (Byrne, in Delio 2014, p. 94). See Le Milieu Divin, pp. 101-2 as well. “What prevents you, then, from enfolding Him in your arms? Only one thing: your inability to see Him” (Teilhard de Chardin 1957, p. 14). The book is about “a way of teaching how to see” (Teilhard de Chardin 1957, p. 15). There are human activities and passivities which affect both environments. Humans act on the environment in the active part of their life but are also dominated by these environments in the passive part. Both activities and passivities may be for growth or for diminishment. Evil is found within both the internal and external environment. Eventually, diminishment will be transformed into growth (Christian utopia). Biological evolution at the core of Christian contemporary creation theology Teilhard is co-responsible for a Copernican revolution in Christian creation theology. This revolution is largely ecumenical with the exception of the evangelical fundamentalists. On all this see also (Daniels, 2014), He had predecessors in the United Kingdom before the First World War who tried to integrate Christology, i.e. theology around the person of Jesus, with evolution as he did. Among them were, Aubrey Moore who thought evolution would bring God closer after being nearly pushed out by Newtonian natural theology, and Charles Gore, editor of a collection of theological essays called Lux mundi built around the systemic concept of emergence and a progressive (Spencerian) view of evolution. On emergence, see (Goldstein, 1999) Karl Rahner (1904-1984), a theologian influential at the Council Vatican II, concurred with Teilhard’s project of making classical Christology compatible with evolution. The latter allows God to reveal himself to creation by his incarnation, to render creation capable of personal response through Jesus and of deification, beginning with Christ’s resurrection (Edwards 2014, pp. 53-66). Arthur Peacoke (1924–2006), a molecular biologist and Anglican priest, set the discussion on a rigorous scientific footing while maintaining the precursors’ concern with emergence. He also introduced randomness as a significant actor in the debate, dispensing with the need for suspending natural laws. Finally, he appeals to panentheism, i.e. the idea that God permeates the whole universe without identifying with the latter. Alongside Peacoke, one finds John C. Polkinghorne, Ian Barbour, both physicists; Celia Deane-Drummond, a plant physiologist; Jean-Marie. Moschetta, an aero- dynamicist; among others, all trained in theology. While, until the not too distant past, one interpreted the first chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Christian Bible, more or less literally, biological evolution and the expansion of the universe forced natural theology to abandon some of its traditional tenets, intelligent design among them. Theology is always tributary to a cosmology and to a culture. The Bible is a religious book and not a scientific treatise; at best, as a whole, it proposes an anthropology, i.e. something about the relations among humans, the balance of nature and God. In this sense, the story of creation is mythical (Tillich 2003, p. 132). Creation, being continuous, does not require a description of its origins. It simply affirms that God is the foundation of reality and that creation is an act of love on its part. Monogenism is no longer scientifically tenable. The transmission of original sin from a single couple to billions of humans is no longer theologically bearable either. What or who is responsible for this commotion? Answer: “Darwin’s dangerous idea” (Dennett 2014; Haught 2008, chap. 2). Biological evolution and twentieth century astrophysics and geology forced us to abandon a static, largely Ptolemean, cosmology and to take a geological long time view of History. Systems dynamics, including auto-poïetic systems, and quantum physics gave us the tools needed to explore this long time scale and to conceptualize its apparent discontinuities without invoking intelligent design. Philosophy largely abandoned the Aristotelian static perspective of the essences to focus on relationships and processes. If Teilhard is right, evolution is progress in complexity and conscience. The future will be brighter than the past. The beginning does not condition History. According to recent Christian theology, paradise lost because of evolution and an expanding universe will be found in the future as promised in the Bible as paradise regained. The latter confers a sense to History. Original imperfection is an intrinsic feature of matter which leaves open a role for evil. This is the dynamic reinterpretation of original sin; as Teilhard said, “in order to see how the latter [original sin] could be conceived and imagined, no longer as an isolated fact, but as a general condition affecting the totality of History” (Teilhard de Chardin 1947, p. 222). Death and suffering affected evolution long before the appearance of mankind which, therefore, cannot be held responsible for the former. This does not exclude a possible human responsibility for sin. In theology, the reintroduction of the concept of cosmic Christ allows a cosmic and universal reinterpretation of Christ’s role in the universe, freeing it from cultural imprisonment. This, in a nutshell, is the Copernican revolution: the future conditions the past and not the other way around. Conclusion Teilhard’s contributions (outside Paleontology) are not scientific in Galileo’s sense. In Biology, he was a finalist but not a systems scientist. His methodology is akin to natural theology as Newman understood it. (Haught 2023, c 13) comes to a similar conclusion that Teilhard mixes science and theology even though Haught leans more towards enlarging the purview of science as defined by Galileo in the section “Teilhard as a scientist” (pp. 107-111): “… the fairest way to read many of Teilhard’s major works—books such as the Phenomenon…— is to acknowledge that they are not purely scientific treatises but also forays into the theology of nature.” (p 108) However Haught omits the point about finalism in the section “Teilhard and ecology” (pp. 113-114). Though Teilhard could not rely on biological concepts such as ecological integrity and evolvability, Le milieu divin adopted an active version of milieu à la Lewontin but in a theological context rather than a biological one. His endorsement of a mutually beneficial relation between two environments, an inner one and an outer one, qualifies Teilhard’s contribution as a “deeply personal” one to the “highly philosophical nature” of Leopold’s concept. He is a disciple of Bergson in providing a multi-disciplinary synthesis for the educated public at large, like Creative Evolution was, by adopting a fact-based metaphysics or natural theology but parting ways with Bergson on the convergence of evolution. Teilhard was not a professional theologian but was instrumental in assigning a dynamic and anticipative perspective to contemporary Christian creation theology while placing evolution at its centre. The omega point role is not to reinstate an elusive pre-existing state but to promise one which never existed before. Teilhard attempted to extricate science from its materialistic 19th century support and substitute thereto a more spiritualist one as Bergson attempted to do. 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