Supposedly the point in time when the evolutionary development of human culture theoretically reaches such an advanced stage of humanization that personal consciousness will merge with God. The idea was put forward by 20th-century French Jesuit philosopher and paleoanthropologist Pierre Teilhard De Chardin in The Phenomenon of Man, a book which, because of the disapproval of the Roman Catholic Church, had to be published posthumously. His theory blended science and Christianity so closely that he saw human development resembling “nothing so much as a way of the Cross.” Teilhard coined words in order to express his ideas: “cosmogenesis” was the development of the world in which humankind was central and especially favored; “noogenesis” was the growth of the human mind, our emergence from the apes; “hominisation” and “ultra-hominisation” were the stages of our humanization toward a hyperpersonal consciousness and from there to a Godlike state.
Although in recent years Teilhard’s ideas remained purely of academic interest and had largely dropped from public consideration, there has been of late a resurgence of interest in connection with reports of near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences, and also UFO abductions. University of Connecticut psychology professor Kenneth Ring has been researching the psychology of people who report these experiences, has compared them with those who are merely interested, has found them to be of a distinct type, and suggests that they may be people pushing toward the omega point. Furthermore, he speculates that they may be giving a message to the world that we must change our lifestyle if we are to move toward the Omega Nirvana. From a Christian point of view, the main criticism of Teilhard’s thesis, before and after his book had been published, was that of blasphemy, with many objecting to the fusion of God and humankind at a real point in time on Earth. But today the objections tend to come from the scientific community, especially from those who study Darwinian theory. They say that the idea of an omega point gives an intention and a meaning to evolution, which is misleading, and furthermore that the preselected development and eventual apotheosis of the human makes Darwinism essentially homocentric, which it is not. To give evolution a purpose is a wrong reading of Darwinian theory, which is essentially a contingent one in which chance favors the development of each and every species including our own. There is no preordained design to evolution, it happened and still happens in response to the many changes in the environment and not to things that were predestined to happen, such as the progressive climb of humankind up the evolutionary ladder to reach the summit, the Omega Point.