ON THE NOTION OF CREATIVE TRANSFORMATION
Teilhard de Chardin
SCHOLASTICISM distinguishes, to my knowledge,
only two sorts of variations in being (movement).
1. Creation, that is to say 'productio
entis ex nihilo sui
et subjecti'. 1
2. Transformation, that is to say
'productio entis ex nihilo sui et potentia
subjecti'. 2
Thus for Scholasticism creation and
transformation are two absolutely heterogeneous and mutually exclusive
modes of movement within the
concrete reality of one and the same act.
This absolute separation of the two notions
means that we have to regard the formation of the world as being
effected in two completely distinct 'phases':
1 Initially, the placing outside nothingness (extra
nihilum) of a certain body of
potencies (the initial creative phase).
2. Next, an autonomous development
of these potencies, maintained by 'conservation' (the phase of
transformation by secondary causes).
3. Finally, new placings outside
nothingness (extra nihilum) each
time the historical development of the world shows us 'true
growths': the appearance of life, of a 'metaphysical species', of
each human soul.
This concept obviously comes up against all
sorts of historical improbabilities and intellectual incompatibilities.
a. It obliges us to see, between the
successive degrees of being (physical, organic, spiritual) which are
so obviously linked in their appearance,
no more than a logical connexion, a
purely intellectual plan which has artificially disposed beings in an
appearance of continuity.
b. In consequence, it makes it
impossible to explain the physical interdependence (in their
functioning) which we observe in
the various organs of the universe. And yet it is quite obvious that
thought must have a certain organic support, which is itself a
function of certain physico-chemical conditions.
c. Finally, it denies any absolute
value to the work of secondary causes: they no longer have any
organic effectiveness in causing the world to pass through the
different levels of being..
It appears to me that most of the difficulties
presented to Scholasticism by the historical evidence of evolution
derive from the failure to consider (in addition to creation and
eduction) a third sort of perfectly well-defined movement: creative
transformation.
Beside 'creatio
ex nihilo subjecti' and 'transformatio
ex potentia subjecti', 3 there
is room for an act sui generis which
makes use of
a pre-existent created being and builds it up into a
completely new being.
This act is
really creative, because it calls
for renewed intervention on the part of the First Cause.
And at the same time it depends
upon a subject (a subjacent)
—on something in a subject.
It is most remarkable that Scholasticism has no
word to designate this method of divine operation which:
a. is conceivable in
abstracto, and is therefore
entitled to a place at least in speculation,
b. is probably the only one which satisfies our
experience of the world.
We should, I believe, have to be blind not to
see this: In natura rerum (in
nature) the two categories of movement separated by Scholasticism (Creatio
et Eductio) are seen to be
constantly fused, combined, together.
There is not one moment when God creates, and
one moment when the secondary causes develop. There is always only one
creative action (identical with
conservation) which continually raises creatures towards
fuller-being, by means of their
secondary activity and their earlier advances.
Understood in this way, creation is not a
periodic intrusion of the First Cause: it is an act co-extensive with
the whole duration of the universe. God has
been creating ever since the
beginning of time, and,. seen from
within, his creation (even
his initial creation?) takes the
form of a transformation. Participated being is not introduced in
batches which are differentiated
later as a result of a non-creative modification: God is continually
breathing new being into us.
All along the curve followed by being in its
augmentations there are, of course, levels, particular points, at
which creative action becomes dominant (the appearance of life and of thought).
Strictly speaking, however, every
good movement is, in some of its
content, creative.
With creation continuing incessantly as' a
function of all that already exists, there is never,
properly speaking, any 'nihilum
subjecti' (nothingness of subjacent
matter) — apart from so
considering the universe in its total formation throughout the ages.
This notion of 'creative transformation' (or
creation by transformation) which I have just been analysing seems to
me to be impregnable in itself, and the only notion that fits in with
the world of our experience. What is more, it brings real
'emancipation': it puts an end to the paradox and the stumbling-block
of matter (i.e. our bewilderment when we consider the part played by
the brain in thought and by passion — eros
4
— in mysticism); and it transforms them both into a noble and
illuminated cult of that same matter.
If it is a fact, as it seems to me, that
'creative transformation' is a concept which as yet has no place in
Scholasticism, then I think that it should be introduced without
delay, and so prevent the orthodox theological
notion of creation from being any
longer stifled and distorted by the 'nihilum
subjecti' of one particular philosophy.
NOTES
1. 'Production of being out
of nothing (without pre-existence of self or subjacent)'. The classic
formula in Scholastic philosophy: 'Productio
rei ex nihilo sui et subjecti', means
that the created substance is drawn in its entirety (matter and
form) from nothingness. Nothing pre-exists: neither the thing itself
in its formal perfection, nor a matter from which and in which the
form could be produced (matter that would be the subject of a
transformation). God produces the universe without using anything
else, through his almighty will.
2. 'Production of being without
pre-existence of self from potency of the subjacent (i.e. by causing
a subjacent matter to pass from potency to act).'
3. See notes 1 and 2 above.
4. Eros,
the love which desires, as opposed to agape,
the love which gives.
Unpublished, no date. Probably written at the beginning of 1920. (From Christianity and Evolution, London, 1971)