“But evolution is all and only about physical considerations”
Spirited: This is true only for dogmatic reductive materialists (physicalists). Darwinism is indispensable to such people because it is the only materialist explanation for the workings of nature that they have. Since they are physicalists, then Darwinism is “all and only about physical considerations.”
Today many spiritual Transhumanists, evolutionary Christians, Cultural Creative’s, New Age Progressives, Integral Spiritualists, Interspiritualists and/or Transtraditional Spiritualists are adherents of Teilhard’s spiritual evolutionary concept.
Teilhard claims that after millions of years of evolution, a natural (immanent) god has finally emerged out of matter. Whereas Christianity dedivinized nature Teilhards’ idea redivinizes it.
Teilhards’ idea is merely a reprisal of the Babylonian evolutionary cosmogony ‘Enuma Elish’ and Egypts’ ‘The Evolutions of Ra...’ These most ancient evolutionary cosmogonies speak of pre-existing matter (watery chaos, abyss, void, Nu) and of a Sun-God, i.e., Ra, evolving out of it over time.
The respected traditionalist metaphysician Rene Guenon (1886-1951) explains the meaning of ‘the evolutions of Ra’ in his brilliant critical analysis of Theosophy and Spiritism entitled, “The Spiritist Fallacy.”
Guenon writes that within early Theosophist and spiritist (mediums/channelers) circles in Christendom use of the word ‘progress’ or ‘progressivist’ preceded the use of the word ‘evolution.’
The roots of Theosophy, hence of evolution, stretch back to the ancient Upanishads of India, to ancient Greece, and at their furthest reach, to Babylonia and Egypt.
In its Darwinian version, evolution describes the progress of life as it inhabits in succession the bodies of different kinds of lifeforms (macroevolution)over the course of millions and even billions of years.
Though Teilhards’ spiritual concept springboards off of Darwins’ idea it is actually a modern retelling of the Babylonian and Egyptian concept which describes the progress (transmigration) of soul as it inhabits in succession the bodies of different beings (macroevolution)over the course of millions and billions of years.
Guenon adds that eventually the word evolution became preferred, especially by empirical realists and materialists like Karl Marx because it had a more ‘scientific’ allure:
“This kind of ‘verbalism’...provides the illusion of thought for those incapable of really thinking...” said Guenon. (ibid, p. 231)
betty to Ha Ha: You mentioned that you consider the question of “at what point humans got souls” is “above your pay grade.” But God freely tells you this — in Genesis 1.
Spirited: Now either Teilhard’s idea is responsible for your soul or the supernatural Triune God is. If the former you are made in the image of nothing. If the latter you are a tripartite being, the spiritual image-bearer of the Triune God.
Teilhard’s Omega Point strikes me as the point at which the Triune God of Christian orthodoxy is dissolved into the pantheism of Advaita-Vedanta (Hindu) philosophy. At which point, all notions of personality — divine and human — are utterly erased.
Just a thought, FWIW.
Leave it to the Jesuits to come up with an idea like this.
Thank you so very much, dear sister in Christ, for your fascinating, informative essay/post!
Experience has shown that many of the workings of nature (some previously thought to require supernatural intervention) do, in fact, have a materialist explanation. Given the centuries of sucess of scientists looking for such explanations, it's understandable that they'd keep looking. They don't have to be "dogmatic" or "reductive" (or even "materialist")--they just have to assume that the universe operates according to discoverable laws, and then try to discover them.
As for all those other people: it's not the fault of a theory about the evolution of bodies that some philosophers convince themselves it can be applied to the evolution of souls or the divine as well.