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p Among the various philosophical futurological theories a special place is occupied by Teilhardist views of the future of mankind. The steady increase in the number of supporters and followers of Teilhardism—a special trend in modern Catholicism, named after its founder, the French palaeontologist, anthropologist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955)—justifies an examination of the Teilhardist conception of the future.

p Whatever fashionable bourgeois ideas about the future one takes—whether it is the forecasts of Walt Rostow, Daniel Bell, Herman Kahn, Jean Fourastie or John Galbraith— these schemes, for all their differences and varying shades, are united by one characteristic feature: they all extrapolate into the future the world outlook, morality and social Utopias of bourgeois society, modified in the spirit of the “technotronic age”. Teilhardism also divorces scientific and technical progress from the social conditions of its realisation, turns it into the decisive factor for reaching a better future, and thereby shows its similarity to other bourgeois concepts of the future. Unlike most bourgeois ideologists, Teilhard did not construct his picture of mankind’s future on an extrapolation of the features of present-day bourgeois society. He tended rather towards the doctrine of a “third 122 way”, free from the defects of capitalism and socialism and cut out according to the abstract measurements of “true human nature”.

p In Teilhardism we find the tendency characteristic of modern Catholicism to show that Catholicism is not organically linked with the capitalist system and therefore cannot bear responsibility for the defects of that society, that it is capable of defending social ideals which do not contradict socialism. Expressing this tendency, one of the most famous Teilhardists, C. Cuenot, notes that socialism “contains nothing incompatible with Christianity, which is not structurally linked with capitalism".  [122•1  He writes: “In short, the social and economic infrastructure defined by Marxism, if it is technically more viable than the other systems, does not contradict Marxism in any way."  [122•2 

p Teilhardism is also different from other trends of Christian thought in that it treats the problems of mankind’s future in optimistic and humanistic tones. At the same time it claims to create a new, all-embracing system of humanism, in which there is a synthesis of both the earthly and the heavenly striving of man, love of man and love of God.

p The accents are changed substantially in this conception of humanism compared with the orthodox Christian interpretation of humanism. The pivotal point here is reliance not on divine mercy and the heavenly powers, but on joining the natural forces of man with the superhuman powers of God. The Teilhardists believe that this joining is possible only if there is rapprochement and collaboration between science and Christianity in understanding man and all his strivings. Moreover (and this is a most significant point) man is recognised as having a special position, which Christianity never credited him with before. As the pivot and highest stage of evolution man becomes the centre of the development of the cosmos (cosmogenesis), its main active force, and is therefore transformed into a co-participant in the divine act of transforming the world. Anthropocentrism blends into a single whole with Christocentrism, as a result of which, 123 the Teilhardists maintain, the artificially created and totally unjustified gulf between the followers of man and the followers of God is bridged.

p Thus, from the Teilhardist point of view turning to God does not mean renouncing the world. On the contrary, it means that each person should “become immersed" in the world, take an active part in transforming and creating the world, and devote to this all the clarity of his thought, all the passion of his love, all the force of his energy. This is the distinctive feature of Teilhardism, the basic object of which—man—appears as the connecting link between the material cosmos and the spiritual sphere, its peak and crowning point—the “Omega-point”, God.

p Maintaining and strengthening his faith in the value of a supernatural, Divine order, Teilhard at the same time strives to maintain and enrich all earthly human values in the single conception of the “human meaning" which lies at the basis of his humanism. This unconditional faith in the earthly strivings of man, faith in his better future, constitutes the dividing line which marks Teilhardism off to a considerable extent from orthodox Christianity and gives its followers grounds for speaking of its “profound optimism”.

p This optimism was far from being contemplative. Thus, Teilhard frequently made strong criticism of those who talk about “the collapse of civilisation or the imminent end of the world”. Such frames of mind are extremely widespread today in bourgeois philosophy and sociology, including Christian trends. He called them defeatist and said “this defeatism seems to be the most dangerous temptation of the present time".  [123•1 

p Of course, said Teilhard, modern mankind, which has been sucked into the whirlpool of social, scientific and technological change, is experiencing a crisis, but creative as well as destructive forces are operating in this critical situation. It is these creative forces which determine the trend towards the future, which was depicted by him in the image of’ planetised mankind”. This concept of “planetised mankind" opens up a new aspect of Teilhard’s “Omega-point”: it also appears as the new, perfect society, visible on the far horizon 124 of human history, a society in which human reason will have total sway over matter and social relationships.

p Extolling Teilhard’s optimism as “new”, “radical”, “ profound”, “extreme”, his followers mainly stress the fact that he does not confine himself to hoping for a better future, but urges people to act in the name of this future, to unite together with the aim of perfecting society. But they believe this perfection can become effective and stable only if it is inspired by Christian ideals.

p Thus, the optimistic tenor of the Teilhardist world outlook merges with its religious tenor and its optimism turns out to be religious optimism. The Austrian Catholic theologian and psychologist, E. Grünewald, calls (not without good grounds) the optimism peculiar to Teilhardist philosophising the expression of religious hope. He sees an original “evolutionistic imperative" as the most concentrated formula of this religious hope. The main components of this evolutionistic imperative, according to Grünewald, are four basic appeals: more truth, more love, more community and more independence.  [124•1 

p These abstract, humanistic appeals disseminated by the Teilhardists were intended by them to open up a new path to a better future. Naturally, this humanism is extremely abstract and outside history. However, the concept, ’in spite of all its mystical religiosity, abstract contemplative, supra-class and extra-class nature, contains clear notes of optimism and faith in man and his future. The Teilhardists see this faith in man and his future as a platform for the rapprochement of Teilhardist and Marxist thought. “Take the two extremes around you at this very moment: here is a Marxist and there a Christian, both convinced believers of their particular doctrine, but also both, one assumes, profoundly inspired by the same faith in Man.... Pushed to the end, the two trajectories will surely finish by coming together,"  [124•2  said Teilhard.

p But recognition of the positive significance of Marxism is combined in Teilhardism with appeals to “overcome” Marxism (mainly communism) by the Christianisation of 125 Marxist thought. Moreover, it is acknowledged that “the only way to vanquish communism is to present Christ as he should be: not as the opium (or derivative) but as the essential motor of a hominisation which can only be completed energetically in a world open at the summit".  [125•1 

p In these appeals to “conquer” Marxism, alongside the anti-communist motifs common to all bourgeois ideologists there are some specifically Teilhardist ones. The first is that the Marxist interpretation of religion as the opium of the people is rejected as inconsistent, and religion is elevated to the rank of the only guarantee of true humanisation. It is also maintained that Marxism is striving only for material progress arid ignores the spiritual aspect of man, as a result of which the latter is “enslaved in the fetters of the anarchy of thought”. A scheme for “improving” Marxism is constructed on the basis of this distortion of the essence of Marxism by adding to it “recognition of the role of the spiritual factor" (which, incidentally, it has never denied). The total inconsistency and reactionary nature of this social utopism reveals itself clearly in the fact that, unable to find real paths and forces for perfecting human society, Teilhard urges the augmentation of universal love which unites man with God and leads to the Godman ideal society on the far horizon of the future.

p Here too Teilhard presents his second recipe for the “Christianisation of Marxism": rejecting the Marxist criterion of the class division of society and replacing it by the elusive spirit of universal love which is proclaimed the only “pure energy" of anthropogenesis and cosmogenesis. “From this point of view,” he says, “the old Marxist division into producers and consumers has had its day—or at least it was only an inaccurate spproximation. What finally tends to separate people into two classes today is not class but spirit—the spirit of movement."  [125•2  Only he who grasps this spirit which coincides with the movement of man towards a God-man society, the Teilhardists maintain, can act today as the bearer of mankind’s true spiritual progress. This means, however, that the class division of society is 126 not simply denied by them, but replaced by the reactionary idea of the existence of the elect, the aristocrats of the spirit, who understand the real perspectives of the “ phenomenon of man”. Noting this feature as being extremely important for understanding the sociological concepts of Teilhardism, the French Jesuit E. Rideau writes: “...however, one observes that Teilhard is somewhat contaminated by the biological laws of selection and aristocratic hierarchy in his ideal of a social structure directed by the élites."  [126•1 

p What could be more Utopian and more reactionary than to replace the theory of the class struggle in an age of increasing antagonism between the world systems of capitalism and socialism by the concept of “biological selection" and aristocratic elitism which is scientifically and sociologically inconsistent!

p The Teilhardists present a third recipe for the “ perfection" of Marxism by Christianising it. This recipe is connected with the transformation of the Marxist perspective of humanism. Recognising the indisputable advantages of Marxist humanism (belief in the future of mankind, social progress, etc.), Teilhard at the same time maintained that this humanism is too “earthly”, impersonal, not sufficiently elevated in the sense of an ideal and “incapable of giving Man the stimulating (and indispensable) confidence to advance towards a supremely desirable objective ... because of its depersonalising collectivisation of individuals.”  [126•2  Therefore, Teilhard believes, it is essential to supplement Marxist humanism, striving forward, by Christian humanism, striving upward, and to create on this basis a new model of humanism which will inspire people with the Christian ideal of the future embodied in the concrete image of Christ.

p This “argument” is clearly totally unfounded. Marxists do not deny, of course, that religion is capable to a certain extent of inspiring man to attain this or that ideal. “ Religion gives man an ideal,” said Lenin in his conspectus on Feuerbach’s book Lectures on the Essence of Religion. “Man needs an ideal, but a human one corresponding to nature 127 and not a supernatural ideal....”  [127•1  The religious forms of humanism, including the Teilhardist one, present man with the ideal of an illusory future, that is, an unearthly, imaginary ideal with no real basis in reality.

p If the Teilhardist conception of the future were confined to a religious interpretation of the future of mankind, it would be unlikely to have aroused such widespread response in the hearts of Left-wing Catholics. Another essential feature of Teilhardism is its attempt to fuse the natural science and religious approach to all problems, including the future of society. Teilhard himself was not only a religious thinker, but also an eminent naturalist, an evolutionist specialising in the field of biology. But all his attempts to ground religious views of the future in the natural sciences were confined primarily to inventing a pseudo-scientific terminology with a biological ring about it to describe social processes. Teilhardism strives to approach the interpretation of social processes with biological yardsticks, from the angle of an exclusively biological examination of man, his place and role in society.

p The history of the future of human society is constructed by Teilhard on the knowledge of the biological and physiological characteristics of man and is presented as a “world physiology of the organism" which includes mankind united on a world-wide scale. It is on this basis that the term “the biology of civilisation" emerges and acquires prime significance in Teilhardism, a term which is supposed to mean that the only true path of progress which corresponds entirely to human nature must be the socialisation of all “natural human particles" of our planet into a single organism without any class, national or racial distinctions—the planetisation of mankind. This planetisation is regarded by Teilhard as the “direct continuation of the process of evolution”, as the highest stage of “biological synthesis”.

p This exclusively “biologising” approach to the problems of social development, which totally ignores the specific nature of the regularities of social life and is the main defect of Teilhardism, is elevated by his followers to the basic merit of the Teilhardist vision of the future since, in their 128 opinion, a generally meaningful norm of progress can be found “only in the biological aspect of human nature".  [128•1 

p But since the Teilhardist conception of the future of society is based on the data of concrete sciences—biology, anthropology and neuro-physiology—the Teilhardists claim that in respect of its actual content and principles of construction it is close to Marxism which advocates the scientific understanding of social progress. What is more, some of them assert, the advantages of the evolutionist study of social phenomena “enable Teilhard to go further than Marx in understanding the human being, spiritual and personal, fruit of the earth, but also centre of the universe".  [128•2 

p It is precisely this “further” which contains the crux of the matter: the more social phenomena are deprived of their specific character and the more readily they are interpreted in the spirit of hypostasised biologism, the more removed the authors of these conceptions are from MarxismLeninism as the only true methodology and theory of social progress. In the Teilhardist conception of progress, which views social development through the prism of biologism, all the injustice and shortcomings in social life which hamper the true flowering of the human personality, are seen as the result of ignorance or lack of understanding of the biological norms of social life, of everyday human life, and not as the result of the operation of definite social laws in a bourgeois class society developing in antagonistic contradictions. This biologisation of social life and social morality is regarded by the Teilhardists as a panacea for all social ills and as the absolute guarantee of the true humanisation of human life.

p Yet the biological approach by virtue of its very nature never has led and never can lead to a correct understanding of human relations in society and, consequently, to a correct deduction about the means of improving these mutual relations. At best it degenerates simply into fruitless sentimental dreaming about the perfecting of abstract “human nature" (which is also typical of the so-called Left Teilhardists), at worst it leads to reactionary apologetic concepts 129 of the permanent and immutable nature of the exploitative system.

p Such an abstract approach to the problem of the future, which excludes all analysis of the trends of modern social development and confines itself to preaching the “biological convergence" of mankind to a single planetary organism, turns into a highly abstract, vague picture of the future, which is less of an hypothesis than a mystic belief that the human race will eventually become God itself. Naturally, Teilhard mentions the class conflicts of our age, but only to reject them as a deviation from the path of the spiritual development and unity of mankind. He is indignant about the arms race, but does not make the slightest attempt to understand the causes and origins of this social phenomenon. All his thoughts are concentrated on an abstract appeal for the unity of the human race. It is on this abstract, mystical platform, divorced from the real struggle for a real improvement of human life, that Teilhardism constructs its concept of a better future for mankind.

p The main instrument for moving towards this aim is “socialisation” by which is meant the uniting of all human groups in a single social phenomenon. Teilhard regards socialisation, collectivisation and totalisation as the main stages and forms of uniting the thinking human mass into a single social organism, by means of which there is to be a constant increase in the solidarity of human groups and in the processes of integration and unification of increasingly broad communities with their eventual fusion in a single universal community.

p Teilhard understands socialisation as the generalisation of the human masses, based on the intensification, multiplication and perfecting of the forms of mutual connections between people. The characteristic features of this process, to his mind, are the following: the increasing mutual intertwining of the human masses, the constant strengthening of economic ties, intellectual and financial unions, the joining together of political regimes, the awakening of activity “in the crowd of individuals and in the crowd of peoples”, the increasing impossibility of isolated action and thinking.

p He sees totalisation as the process of the psychic union of isolated human particles into a single whole. Of course, 130 Teilhardism gives this concept a totally different meaning from Marxism which strives towards social homogeneity.

p The enrichment of the human consciousness in this process of people uniting in a single community will become effective, according to Teilhard, when it is governed not only by a rapprochement of minds but a rapprochement of hearts, the decisive role in which is to be played by man’s “eternal striving" for unity with God. This all-embracing striving for unity develops according to the extent to which a man is aware that he is being drawn towards the Almighty and All-loving God—Christ, whom Teilhard identifies with the “Omega-point”, void of anthropomorphical features and fulfilling the role of the “centre of centres”, the “conscious pole of the world”. In his conception anthropogenesis and planetisation as the supreme links in the evolution leading to the Omega-point are Christianised and culminate in pleromisation [from pleroma (Gr.)—fullness]—the embodiment of Christ in the evolutionising Universe.

p According to Teilhard, Christ plays a dual role in the pleromisation process. On the one hand, he moves evolution forward or, as the Omega-point, draws it to himself through amorisation (universal love) and acts as Christ the motive force of evolution (Christ evoluteur), but on the other hand, he realises himself in the process of evolution in’ cosmic nature and acts as Christ who is subject to evolution.  [130•1  This evolutionising Christ also appears in Teilhardism as a concrete form expressing the Christian ideal of the God-man stage which, it is claimed, is awaiting mankind in the dim and distant future. The more people are governed in their daily actions by the Christian principles of humility, loving one’s neighbour, etc., say the Teilhardists, the more quickly they will be able to advance along the path of spiritual progress.

p The Teilhardist view of the future of mankind which sees the sphere of consciousness, spiritual perfectionment, as the decisive factor for the progressive development of mankind, is unable by virtue of its idealism (biologism in the explanation of social phenomena is a manifestation of historical idealism) to show concrete ways and real social. 131 means of perfecting society. For all its apparent concreteness it is extremely abstract and Utopian.

The ideal of the future predicted by Marxism, however, is highly concrete in terms of its actual substance. It is concrete because it not only reveals the causes of the dehumanisation of the human personality in an exploitative society, but also shows real ways of reconstructing society on communist principles, and sketches real outlines of the future of mankind, in which all the sources of social riches—advances in production, technology, science and culture—are used to satisfy the reasonable demands of the harmoniously developed individual and of society as a whole. Marxists, moreover, in spite of the Teilhardist assertion that they are guilty of one-sided “technical humanism" which underestimates the development of the human personality, believe that “a great project—the building of communism—cannot be advanced without the harmonious development of man himself. Communism is inconceivable without a high level of culture, education, a sense of civic duty and inner maturity of people just as it is inconceivable without the appropriate material and technical basis."  [131•1