Gerard Bodifée 0201
Question: The problem with Teilhard de Chardin, for instance, is that when scientists read books like his, they start to interpret it from the point of view of the process of linear time, while he was actually talking about something else. When he talked about the Omega point, he saw it more as the culmination of a human project, which will not show up in the records of scientific analysis. It is a human project which can be understood only from a religious framework.
Bodifée: Yes, I think I can agree with that. For starters, the Omega point, or every attempt to describe a sort of ultimate reality, must be taken off the timeline. It is something all-inclusive which embraces every moment in time, not as a progressive series of moments, but as a presence, a being there. And I think that Teilhard tries, in his fashion, to describe this as the ultimate point of convergence of all developmental lines. That is where everything comes together, and where the whole is realised. What appeals to me the most in his theology/cosmology is that, for him, the Omega Point has the status of a person. It is not an abstract universal truth in the form of a concept, but a person like you or me. And this is what we are now, but in incompletely, whereas at the Omega point, it has come to its fullness. A fullness of which all the individual selves incarnate on earth at that time will partake, in which all will be included, but all together, unified.
At the moment, however, you and I are still separate from one another. I am me, and you are you. And we are different from one another, we don’t understand each other, but we try to bridge the gap a bit by talking, thinking, and feeling. Teilhard has the insight that these separate selves will merge completely: all boundaries will disappear, total synthesis will have been attained: the one all-inclusive I. That is the Omega point. He connects this to Christ, the total Christ, who will by then have returned. It is a magnificent vision. But it is of course a vision which cannot be translated in scientific terms.
At the moment, however, you and I are still separate from one another. I am me, and you are you. And we are different from one another, we don’t understand each other, but we try to bridge the gap a bit by talking, thinking, and feeling. Teilhard has the insight that these separate selves will merge completely: all boundaries will disappear, total synthesis will have been attained: the one all-inclusive I. That is the Omega point. He connects this to Christ, the total Christ, who will by then have returned. It is a magnificent vision. But it is of course a vision which cannot be translated in scientific terms.
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