Lessons for Our Time

We recently concluded our annual conference on the theme “Religion in an Age of Science,” in which all the speakers agreed that religion can no longer remain credible without the insights of science. The new cosmic story redefines religion as a temporal process, an awakening to more conscious life and deeper connectedness, thus abandoning religion as a reliance on certainty, timelessness, and eternal truths. 

Shortly after the conference, an undergraduate student, a freshman, submitted his final paper for my course on “Faith, Reason, and Culture,” summarizing the main points we discussed throughout the semester. What struck me was that this young man brought the intellectual and philosophical discussions of the conference into a concrete framework of thought and action. I would like to share some of his insights here, as they illuminate the evolutionary vision of Teilhard de Chardin and our role in an evolving universe. 

1. Teilhard de Chardin saw the cosmos as an unfolding process in which everything is evolving toward greater complexity and unity. He called this the movement toward the Omega Point, a future of wholeness in love. He said love is the driving force behind the movement of all things. 
2. Understanding this process changes our sense of purpose. Instead of thinking that my goal is to find a destination, I now see I am part of something still in motion. My actions, relationships, and decisions all contribute to this ongoing story. 
3. I am not just living in the world; I am part of its growth. Evolution is not just a biological fact; it is also spiritual and moral.  
4. God is not far away or confined to some distant heaven but is right here within all things. Instead of reaching out toward something external, I am learning to pay attention to what is within and around me; my deepest self is in constant relationship with the sacred.
5. God is not found in perfection but in presence, especially among those who are most excluded. 
6. I have stopped thinking of religion as a checklist of beliefs, and I have begun to see it as an experience of connections. God is not a distant observer but the very depth of life.
7. This new sense of divine presence helps me see my responsibility to the Earth. Before, I thought of environmental care as important but mostly concerned with scientific or political matters. Reading Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ has shown me that care for the earth is also a spiritual issue. The environment, the poor, and our hearts are all connected. If we destroy nature, we also harm the most vulnerable people and dull our own sense of wonder and responsibility. Ecology is about honoring the sacredness of all life. The Earth is not just a backdrop for human activity; it is our shared home, woven with spirit and story. Pope Francis says the Earth “cries out” under the weight of greed and neglect, and it is our task to listen and respond.
8. Humanity is not something we are born into – it is something we grow into. If God is love and if being in God’s image means being able to love, then personhood is not limited to where we come from, but how we love.
9. We are part of something bigger, deeper, and more mysterious than we often realize. What I know is that the world is unfinished. What I must do is participate in its healing with humility and love.
10. What I may hope for is that through love and awareness, we are moving toward something better. This is not abstract to me. It means making time for silence and reflection, so I can hear myself and know myself better. It means choosing kindness even when it is hard. It means seeing value in the Earth and in each person I meet. 
11. Faith is no longer about being certain. It is about being open to thought and mystery. 
12. Reason is not about having the final answer – it is about asking better questions. 

What I have come to realize is that younger generations are already primed for second axial religion. By second axial religion, I mean the search for ultimate meaning or having ultimate concern that is based on community, ecology, interconnectedness, science and technology. Older generations have been brought up on axial religion, which emphasizes individuality, autonomy, freedom, thought, and transcendence. Monotheism, and its political and social correlates, is rooted in axial religion. Axial persons think in binary relationships: God and world, eternity and time, heaven and earth, spirit and matter, saved and sinner. The word “God” points to a perfect, eternal Being who exists outside time but operates in time; a God who is related to the world but is essentially unaffected by the world. Generations born in the age of computer technology, postmodernism, and ecology, signify a new consciousness of interconnectedness, community, global consciousness, and social justice. Teilhard de Chardin was a first axial person who anticipated religion in the second axial period. 

Second axial religion goes beyond first axial concerns primarily because time and space are dynamic aspects of an energetically-driven universe. We live in a universe of radical uncertainty, one which is intrinsically connected and consciously active. Physicist Lee Smolin in his book Time Reborn states that time is the most real aspect of our perception of the world. Everything that is true and real takes place in each particular moment which opens up to a succession of moments. Space is an emergent property of the universe. The future, therefore, is not totally predictable and is open to infinite possibilities. 

What we have to put to rest, Smolin states, is the idea that what is bound in time is an illusion and what is timeless is real. In the first axial age, with its ancient cosmology, God dwelt above the stars and angels as Creator and sustainer of the universe. Now we must overcome the idea that anything is, or can be, timeless. We need to see everything in nature, including ourselves, our technologies and, in a particular way, God, as time-bound and part of a larger, ever-evolving system. This is what Teilhard de Chardin realized by stating the Absolute is found within matter and not apart from it, a new and vital presence of God, not a God draping the world with power, but a God integral to the world’s becoming. God and world are in the process of becoming something more together because the universe is grounded in a center of divine love. In his essay on The Heart of Matter, he wrote: “I see in the world a mysterious product of completion and fulfillment for the Absolute Being himself” (Heart of Matter, 54). 

One of the greatest challenges for first axial religious believers is overcoming the timeless, eternal God of perfection and reconceiving God as a presence of unconditional love. Love is the indestructible energy of cosmic life. Once we grasp our true reality, hope looms before us. As Saint Paul wrote: “There are three things that last: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.”