What is the Meaning, Goal, Purpose, & End of the Evolving Cosmos?

Einstein Teilhard TillichBy Paul H. Carr, Rivier Institute for Senior Education, Nashua, NH.

Paper Available at http://mirrorofnature.org/TillichTeilhardZygon.pdf

The end of the world: the overthrow of equilibrium (heat death), will detach the mind, fulfilled at last, from its material matrix, so that it will henceforth rest with all its weight

on God-Omega (Teilbard de Chardin)"

”Kingdom of God” within history & as the “End (Goal) of History (Paul Tillich)”

"I want to know God's thoughts, the rest are details”

”In the beginning was the word (logos) and the word was God”John 1:1” “I want to know how God created this world. I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.”

Einstein often used "God" as a stand-in for "the laws of the universe". Or rather, his conception of God is the Spinozan God, an anthropomorphic deity who created the laws of the universe and then set it in motion, never touching it again. In this conception, the laws of physics are the "thoughts of God".

E = mc2

Energy E=mass, m,times Light velocity, c2

(1905)

Lemaitre inspired byHubble’s discovery of the expanding universe &Einstein’s theory of General Relativity published his Hot Big Bang theory in 1927

Emergence of “Cool” Cosmos from “Hot”13.8 Billion years ago.

Earth4

BEAUTY OF THE UNIVERSEFrom cooler temperatures 0.3 M yrs after the “Beginning,”

to Galaxies, 2 B years later.

Hubble Optical Deep Field Image of Galaxies 12 Billion Light Years away, about 2 Billion years after “the beginning.” (1996)

Image of the universe 0.3 Million years after “the beginning.” This image of temperature fluctuations was measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. The cooler regions “seeded” the stars and the galaxies. 5

Figure from “Cosmic Dawn” by Eric Chaisson

EMERGENCE OF LIFE ON EARTH

Carbon Dioxide, CO22

Prokaryote Cells Eukaryote Cells

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The discovery of fire enabled primates to cook food, resulting in smaller jaws, that made room for larger brains.

Teilhard, Peking, February 1934, "The Evolution of Chastity" in Toward the Future, London: Collins, 1975: 86-87.

The biblical creations stories in Genesis 1 and John 1 both anticipated modern cosmology.

There was a beginning, and God created light energy. Genesis 1:3, “And God said, let there be light.”

The Gospel of John 1 states in verses 1,4, and 5: “In the beginning was the Word (Logos) and the Word was God and with God…. In him (Jesus) was life; and the life was the light of humankind… And light shines in the darkness.”

The Word or Logos is the rational structure of the cosmos, which include such laws as the conservation of energy.

Was theologian John Haught’s assertion true?

•Roman Catholic process theologian John Haught presented the paper “Search for a God of Evolution…” at the American Academy of Religion in 2002.•He questioned if Tillich’s classical theology of becoming was radical enough to account for the becoming of the evolving-creating cosmos.•He asserted that Teilhard de Chardin’s evolutionary vision was more adequate.

TEILHARD S.J. (1881-1955) TILLICH (1886 -1965)

•Evolutionary progress *Dialectic of being & nonbeing

•towards God-Omega *”Kingdom of God” within history

& as the “End (Goal) of History.”

( God is the creative ground &

abyss of being.)

TEILHARD’S

OMEGA POINT

“THE PHENOMENON OF MAN”

Pg. 192, 287

"The end of the world: the wholesale introversion upon itself of the noosphere, which has simultaneously reached the uttermost limits of its complexity and its centrality.

The end of the world: the overthrow of equilibrium (heat death), will detach the mind, fulfilled at last, from its material matrix, so that it will henceforth rest with all its weight on God-Omega."

Teilhard de Chardin. Evolution from the Cosmos to the Diosphere.

Convergence towards Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega Point and God.

Tillich's concept of being includes becoming.

His structure of being includes the polarity of dynamics and form. There is no being without form. We human beings identify each other by the form of our bodies. Dynamics is the potentiality of being, that is, becoming.

DYNAMICS of my FORM

1935 1941 1972

Tillich's concept of being includes becoming. His structure of being includes the polarity of dynamics and form. There is no being without form. We human beings identify each other by the form of our bodies. Dynamics is the potentiality of being, that is, becoming. Tillich stated: "The dynamic character of being implies the tendency of everything to transcend itself and create new forms… Therefore, it is impossible to speak of being without also speaking of becoming. Becoming is just as genuine in the structure of being as is that which remains unchanged in the process of becoming.”

Tillich in a dialogue with process theologian Charles Hartschorne stated: "I am not disinclined to accept the process-character of being-itself."

”Deer” Sculpture,Form. Rivier University Exhibit, Memorial Hall, October 2017, by Samuel Fuller.

Teilhard de Chardin & Tillich• Both Teilhard and Tillich have made contributions to a theology of evolution. However, Tillich did not share Teilhard's optimistic vision of the future. • Tillich's "Kingdom of God" within history as well as "the End of History," in contrast to Teilhard's Omega Point, does not appear to contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which predicts that the universe will ultimately disintegrate. •Tillich's dynamic dialectic of being and nonbeing is a more descriptive metaphor for the five mass extinctions of evolutionary history than Teilhard's progress towards an Omega Point. • Haught's contrast/contact mode of relating science and religion would regard Teilhard's Omega Point as an expression of spiritual hope and purpose in contrast to a scientifically verifiable principle. The contrast/contact position is also consonant with Tillich's vertical dimension of religion and horizontal dimension of science.

From Cosmos to PsycheJohn Wheeler’s Participatory Universe

Human consciousness & eyes have emerged from the beginning of the Universe (U) to look back 13.8 B years &

ask, “How did we get here and why?” 23

"The universe - the totality of what is, which includes our subjective impressions as well as objective data- composes a narrative and contains a poem, which our own stories and poems echo." John Updike, 1932 – 2009, 1st page of Yerkes, 1999)

2002 Photo of John Updike &. Paul H. Carr, St John’s Episcopal Church Fair, Beverly Farms, MA.

Chapter 11. A Beautiful New Story

• The emergent evolutionary process produced homo sapiens, who see beauty in the natural world.

• I experience beauty in both science and religion.

• “If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing.”

Henri Poincare

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“This is salvationWhen we marvel

At the beautyOf created things

And praiseThe beautiful providence

Of their Creator.”

- Meister Eckart ( 1260 – 1327),

“The thirst for beauty that permeates our lives is an opening for transcendence…” Theologian Philip Hefner. Foreword, Beauty in Science and Spirit.”

“Beauty’s self and beauty’s giver…” Gerald Manley Hopkins 26

"Here is beauty – whatever those who have never looked at butterfly may say-

Beauty that rejoices and humbles,… beauty remote from all that is meant by words like random or

purposeless, utilitarian or materialistic, beauty in its impact is akin to the authentic encounter with God.“

Naturalist priest Charles Raven

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Concluding Chapter 11, “A Beautiful New Story” of my book BEAUTY IN SCIENCE AND SPIRIT

"The teleology (goal) of the Universe is the production of beauty." Alfred N. Whitehead (1933).

Process thought and theology asserts that the universe is not static but an evolving and continuing creation, whose intricacies result in continuing scientific discoveries. "The universe is not a place where evolution happens. It is evolution happening (Rue 2000)." Let us pray for the wisdom to use the power of scientific knowledge as responsible co-creators and not as destroyers of our earth through the unintended consequences of our technology. As created and creating creatures, we can profit from religious wisdom. In it, there is hope that the continuing creation is converging toward its ultimate consummation in beauty.

THE PROCESS VISION Because everything is related;Because the decision of each event matters for all events;Because freedom is a reality; The greatest power is not coercive force,But patient, creative, persuading, redeeming, gracious love.This is God's power,Which continually works to lure the whole creation: To bring enriching diversity and intensity out of struggle;To overcome destructive conflict with greater harmonies;To redeem the evil wrought in death and Disaster with new life.

Process Theologian JOHN HAUGHT’S 4 WAYS OF

RELATING SCIENCE & RELIGION

Conflict: science and religion are irreconcilable, such as creationism vs. scientism.

Contrast: no genuine conflict as they are independent and deal with different questions.

Contact: dialogue, interaction, and possible consonance.

Confirmation: religion supports and nourishes the scientific

enterprise.

R S C I E N C E L I G I O N Tillich saw religion as part of the vertical dimension of depth, ultimate concern, meaning, and purpose. He regarded science, as part of the horizontal dimension of relationships between finite objects. Tillich states: "Science lives and works in another dimension and therefore cannot interfere with the religious symbols ofcreation, fulfillment, forgiveness, and incarnation, nor can religion interfere with scientific statements.” “Dimensions cross without destroying each other; there is no conflict between dimensions.”

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CREATION, COSMOS, CLIMATE, & THEOLOGICAL MEANING

Mondays, 10:45 – 12:15, 2017 Rivier Institute for Senior Education

10/23. Did our cosmos emerge from divine conscious creativity?

11/6 What are we doing to our climate? What is it doing to us?

11/13 Theologian Paul Tillich: Climate Prophesy versus Profit: Paper

11/27. Theological Meaning & End (Goal) of the Evolving-Creative Cosmos: Haught, Tillich, de Teilhard de Chardin.

My paper “A Theology for Evolution: Haught, Tillich, & Teilhard de Chardin” is available at http://www.mirrorofnature.org/TillichTeilhardZygon.pdf