2021/10/19

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - Wikipedia

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - Wikipedia

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Teilhard de Chardin(1).jpg
Born1 May 1881
Died10 April 1955 (aged 73)
Alma materUniversity of Paris
Notable work
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
School
Main interests
Notable ideas
Influences
Influenced

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (French: [pjɛʁ tɛjaʁ də ʃaʁdɛ̃] (About this soundlisten ); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologisttheologian, philosopher and teacher. He was Darwinian in outlook and the author of several influential theological and philosophical books.

He took part in the discovery of Peking Man. He conceived the vitalist idea of the Omega Point. With Vladimir Vernadsky he developed the concept of the noosphere.

In 1962, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith condemned several of Teilhard's works based on their alleged ambiguities and doctrinal errors. Some eminent Catholic figures, including Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, have made positive comments on some of his ideas since. The response to his writings by scientists has been mostly critical.

Life[edit]

Early years[edit]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was born in the Château of Sarcenat, Orcines, some four km (2.5 mi) north-west of Clermont-FerrandAuvergneFrench Third Republic, on 1 May 1881, as the fourth of eleven children of librarian Emmanuel Teilhard de Chardin (1844–1932) and Berthe-Adèle, née de Dompierre d'Hornoys of Picardy, a great-grandniece of Voltaire. He inherited the double surname from his father, who was descended on the Teilhard side from an ancient family of magistrates from Auvergne originating in Murat, Cantal, ennobled under Louis XVIII of France.[1][2]

His father, a graduate of the Ecole Nationale des Chartes, served as a regional librarian and was a keen naturalist. He collected rocks, insects and plants and encouraged nature studies in the family. Pierre Teilhard's spirituality was awakened by his mother. When he was twelve, he went to the Jesuit college of Mongré in Villefranche-sur-Saône, where he completed the Baccalauréat in philosophy and mathematics. In 1899, he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Aix-en-Provence.[3] In October 1900, he began his junior studies at the Collégiale Saint-Michel de Laval. On 25 March 1901, he made his first vows. In 1902, Teilhard completed a licentiate in literature at the University of Caen.

That same year the Emile Combes premiership took over from Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau in pursuit of an anti-clerical agenda. As a result, religious associations had to submit their properties to state control, which obliged the Jesuits to go into exile in the United Kingdom. Theilhard continued his philosophical studies on the island of Jersey until 1905. Strong in Science subjects, he was despatched to teach physics at the Collège de la Sainte Famille in CairoKhedivate of Egypt until 1908. From there he wrote in a letter: "[I]t is the dazzling of the East foreseen and drunk greedily ... in its lights, its vegetation, its fauna and its deserts."[4]

For the next four years he was a Scholastic at Ore Place in Hastings, East Sussex where he acquired his theological formation.[3] There he synthesized his scientific, philosophical and theological knowledge in the light of evolution. At that time he read Creative Evolution by Henri Bergson, about which he wrote that "the only effect that brilliant book had upon me was to provide fuel at just the right moment, and very briefly, for a fire that was already consuming my heart and mind."[5] Bergson's ideas were influential on his views on matter, life, and energy. On 24 August 1911, aged 30, he was ordained priest.[3]

Academic career[edit]

Paleontology[edit]

From 1912 to 1914, Teilhard worked in the paleontology laboratory of the National Museum of Natural History, France, studying the mammals of the middle Tertiary period. Later he studied elsewhere in Europe. In June 1912 he formed part of the original digging team, with Arthur Smith Woodward and Charles Dawson, at the Piltdown site, after the discovery of the first fragments of the fraudulent "Piltdown Man". Some have suggested he participated in the hoax.[6][7] Marcellin Boule, a specialist in Neanderthal studies, who as early as 1915 had recognized the non-hominid origins of the Piltdown finds, gradually guided Teilhard towards human paleontology. At the museum's Institute of Human Paleontology, he became a friend of Henri Breuil and in 1913 took part with him in excavations at the prehistoric painted Cave of El Castillo in northwest Spain.

Service in World War I[edit]

Mobilized in December 1914, Teilhard served in World War I as a stretcher-bearer in the 8th Moroccan Rifles. For his valor, he received several citations, including the Médaille militaire and the Legion of Honor.

During the war, he developed his reflections in his diaries and in letters to his cousin, Marguerite Teillard-Chambon, who later published a collection of them. (See section below)[8][9] He later wrote: "...the war was a meeting ... with the Absolute." In 1916, he wrote his first essay: La Vie Cosmique (Cosmic life), where his scientific and philosophical thought was revealed just as his mystical life. While on leave from the military he pronounced his solemn vows as a Jesuit in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon on 26 May 1918. In August 1919, in Jersey, he wrote Puissance spirituelle de la Matière (The Spiritual Power of Matter).

At the University of Paris, Teilhard pursued three unit degrees of natural science: geologybotany, and zoology. His thesis treated the mammals of the French lower Eocene and their stratigraphy. After 1920, he lectured in geology at the Catholic Institute of Paris and after earning a science doctorate in 1922 became an assistant professor there.

Research in China[edit]

In 1923 he traveled to China with Father Émile Licent, who was in charge of a significant laboratory collaboration between the National Museum of Natural History and Marcellin Boule's laboratory in Tianjin. Licent carried out considerable basic work in connection with missionaries who accumulated observations of a scientific nature in their spare time.

Teilhard wrote several essays, including La Messe sur le Monde (the Mass on the World), in the Ordos Desert. In the following year, he continued lecturing at the Catholic Institute and participated in a cycle of conferences for the students of the Engineers' Schools. Two theological essays on original sin were sent to a theologian at his request on a purely personal basis:

  • July 1920: Chute, Rédemption et Géocentrie (Fall, Redemption and Geocentry)
  • Spring 1922: Notes sur quelques représentations historiques possibles du Péché originel (Note on Some Possible Historical Representations of Original Sin) (Works, Tome X)

The Church required him to give up his lecturing at the Catholic Institute in order to continue his geological research in China.

Teilhard traveled again to China in April 1926. He would remain there for about twenty years, with many voyages throughout the world. He settled until 1932 in Tianjin with Émile Licent, then in Beijing. Teilhard made five geological research expeditions in China between 1926 and 1935. They enabled him to establish a general geological map of China.

That same year, Teilhard's superiors in the Jesuit Order forbade him to teach any longer.

In 1926–27, after a missed campaign in Gansu, Teilhard traveled in the Sanggan River Valley near Kalgan (Zhangjiakou) and made a tour in Eastern Mongolia. He wrote Le Milieu Divin (The Divine Milieu). Teilhard prepared the first pages of his main work Le Phénomène Humain (The Phenomenon of Man). The Holy See refused the Imprimatur for Le Milieu Divin in 1927.

Sketch of "The Lately Discovered Peking Man" published in The Sphere.

He joined the ongoing excavations of the Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian as an advisor in 1926 and continued in the role for the Cenozoic Research Laboratory of the China Geological Survey following its founding in 1928. Teilhard resided in Manchuria with Emile Licent, staying in western Shanxi and northern Shaanxi with the Chinese paleontologist Yang Zhongjian and with Davidson Black, Chairman of the China Geological Survey.

After a tour in Manchuria in the area of Greater Khingan with Chinese geologists, Teilhard joined the team of American Expedition Center-Asia in the Gobi Desert, organized in June and July by the American Museum of Natural History with Roy Chapman Andrews. Henri Breuil and Teilhard discovered that the Peking Man, the nearest relative of Anthropopithecus from Java, was a faber (worker of stones and controller of fire). Teilhard wrote L'Esprit de la Terre (The Spirit of the Earth).

Teilhard took part as a scientist in the Croisière Jaune (Yellow Cruise) financed by André Citroën in Central Asia. Northwest of Beijing in Kalgan, he joined the Chinese group who joined the second part of the team, the Pamir group, in Aksu City. He remained with his colleagues for several months in Ürümqi, capital of Xinjiang.

In 1933, Rome ordered him to give up his post in Paris. Teilhard subsequently undertook several explorations in the south of China. He traveled in the valleys of the Yangtze and Sichuan in 1934, then, the following year, in Guangxi and Guangdong. The relationship with Marcellin Boule was disrupted; the museum cut its financing on the grounds that Teilhard worked more for the Chinese Geological Service than for the museum.[citation needed]

During all these years, Teilhard contributed considerably to the constitution of an international network of research in human paleontology related to the whole of eastern and southeastern Asia. He would be particularly associated in this task with two friends, Davidson Black and the Scot George Brown Barbour. Often he would visit France or the United States, only to leave these countries for further expeditions.

World travels[edit]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1947)

From 1927 to 1928, Teilhard based himself in Paris. He journeyed to Leuven, Belgium, and to Cantal and Ariège, France. Between several articles in reviews, he met new people such as Paul Valéry and Bruno de Solages, who were to help him in issues with the Catholic Church.

Answering an invitation from Henry de Monfreid, Teilhard undertook a journey of two months in Obock, in Harar in the Ethiopian Empire, and in Somalia with his colleague Pierre Lamarre, a geologist, before embarking in Djibouti to return to Tianjin. While in China, Teilhard developed a deep and personal friendship with Lucile Swan.[10]

During 1930–1931, Teilhard stayed in France and in the United States. During a conference in Paris, Teilhard stated: "For the observers of the Future, the greatest event will be the sudden appearance of a collective humane conscience and a human work to make." From 1932 to 1933, he began to meet people to clarify issues with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding Le Milieu divin and L'Esprit de la Terre. He met Helmut de Terra, a German geologist in the International Geology Congress in Washington, D.C.

Teilhard participated in the 1935 YaleCambridge expedition in northern and central India with the geologist Helmut de Terra and Patterson, who verified their assumptions on Indian Paleolithic civilisations in Kashmir and the Salt Range Valley. He then made a short stay in Java, on the invitation of Dutch paleontologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald to the site of Java Man. A second cranium, more complete, was discovered. Professor von Koenigswald had also found a tooth in a Chinese apothecary shop in 1934 that he believed belonged to a three-meter-tall apeGigantopithecus, which lived between one hundred thousand and around a million years ago. Fossilized teeth and bone (dragon bones) are often ground into powder and used in some branches of traditional Chinese medicine.[11]

In 1937, Teilhard wrote Le Phénomène spirituel (The Phenomenon of the Spirit) on board the boat Empress of Japan, where he met the Sylvia BrettRanee of Sarawak[12] The ship conveyed him to the United States. He received the Mendel Medal granted by Villanova University during the Congress of Philadelphia, in recognition of his works on human paleontology. He made a speech about evolution, the origins and the destiny of man. The New York Times dated 19 March 1937 presented Teilhard as the Jesuit who held that man descended from monkeys. Some days later, he was to be granted the Doctor Honoris Causa distinction from Boston College. Upon arrival in that city, he was told that the award had been cancelled.[citation needed]

Rome banned his work L’Énergie Humaine in 1939. By this point Teilhard was based again in France, where he was immobilized by malaria. During his return voyage to Beijing he wrote L'Energie spirituelle de la Souffrance (Spiritual Energy of Suffering) (Complete Works, tome VII).

In 1941, Teilhard submitted to Rome his most important work, Le Phénomène Humain. By 1947, Rome forbade him to write or teach on philosophical subjects. The next year, Teilhard was called to Rome by the Superior General of the Jesuits who hoped to acquire permission from the Holy See for the publication of Le Phénomène Humain. However, the prohibition to publish it that was previously issued in 1944 was again renewed. Teilhard was also forbidden to take a teaching post in the Collège de France. Another setback came in 1949, when permission to publish Le Groupe Zoologique was refused.

Teilhard was nominated to the French Academy of Sciences in 1950. He was forbidden by his Superiors to attend the International Congress of Paleontology in 1955. The Supreme Authority of the Holy Office, in a decree dated 15 November 1957, forbade the works of de Chardin to be retained in libraries, including those of religious institutes. His books were not to be sold in Catholic bookshops and were not to be translated into other languages.

Further resistance to Teilhard's work arose elsewhere. In April 1958, all Jesuit publications in Spain ("Razón y Fe", "Sal Terrae","Estudios de Deusto", etc.) carried a notice from the Spanish Provincial of the Jesuits that Teilhard's works had been published in Spanish without previous ecclesiastical examination and in defiance of the decrees of the Holy See. A decree of the Holy Office dated 30 June 1962, under the authority of Pope John XXIII, warned:

[I]t is obvious that in philosophical and theological matters, the said works [Teilhard's] are replete with ambiguities or rather with serious errors which offend Catholic doctrine. That is why... the Rev. Fathers of the Holy Office urge all Ordinaries, Superiors, and Rectors... to effectively protect, especially the minds of the young, against the dangers of the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and his followers.[13]

The Diocese of Rome on 30 September 1963 required Catholic booksellers in Rome to withdraw his works as well as those that supported his views.[14]

Death[edit]

Grave at the cemetery of the former Jesuit novitiate in Hyde Park, New York

Teilhard died in New York City, where he was in residence at the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius LoyolaPark Avenue. On 15 March 1955, at the house of his diplomat cousin Jean de Lagarde, Teilhard told friends he hoped he would die on Easter Sunday.[15] On the evening of Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955, during an animated discussion at the apartment of Rhoda de Terra, his personal assistant since 1949, Teilhard suffered a heart attack and died.[15] He was buried in the cemetery for the New York Province of the Jesuits at the Jesuit novitiate, St. Andrew-on-Hudson, in Hyde Park, New York. With the moving of the novitiate, the property was sold to the Culinary Institute of America in 1970.

Teachings[edit]

Teilhard de Chardin wrote two comprehensive works, The Phenomenon of Man and The Divine Milieu.[16]

His posthumously published book, The Phenomenon of Man, set forth a sweeping account of the unfolding of the cosmos and the evolution of matter to humanity, to ultimately a reunion with Christ. In the book, Teilhard abandoned literal interpretations of creation in the Book of Genesis in favor of allegorical and theological interpretations. The unfolding of the material cosmos is described from primordial particles to the development of life, human beings and the noosphere, and finally to his vision of the Omega Point in the future, which is "pulling" all creation towards it. He was a leading proponent of orthogenesis, the idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal-driven way. Teilhard argued in Darwinian terms with respect to biology, and supported the synthetic model of evolution, but argued in Lamarckian terms for the development of culture, primarily through the vehicle of education.[17] Teilhard made a total commitment to the evolutionary process in the 1920s as the core of his spirituality, at a time when other religious thinkers felt evolutionary thinking challenged the structure of conventional Christian faith. He committed himself to what the evidence showed.[18]

Teilhard made sense of the universe by assuming it had a vitalist evolutionary process.[19][20] He interprets complexity as the axis of evolution of matter into a geosphere, a biosphere, into consciousness (in man), and then to supreme consciousness (the Omega Point). Jean Houston's story of meeting Teilhard illustrates this point.[21]

Teilhard's unique relationship to both paleontology and Catholicism allowed him to develop a highly progressive, cosmic theology which took into account his evolutionary studies. Teilhard recognized the importance of bringing the Church into the modern world, and approached evolution as a way of providing ontological meaning for Christianity, particularly creation theology. For Teilhard, evolution was "the natural landscape where the history of salvation is situated."[22]

Teilhard's cosmic theology is largely predicated on his interpretation of Pauline scripture, particularly Colossians 1:15-17 (especially verse 1:17b) and 1 Corinthians 15:28. He drew on the Christocentrism of these two Pauline passages to construct a cosmic theology which recognizes the absolute primacy of Christ. He understood creation to be "a teleological process towards union with the Godhead, effected through the incarnation and redemption of Christ, 'in whom all things hold together' (Col. 1:17)."[23] He further posited that creation would not be complete until each "participated being is totally united with God through Christ in the Pleroma, when God will be 'all in all' (1Cor. 15:28)."[23]

Teilhard's life work was predicated on his conviction that human spiritual development is moved by the same universal laws as material development. He wrote, "...everything is the sum of the past" and "...nothing is comprehensible except through its history. 'Nature' is the equivalent of 'becoming', self-creation: this is the view to which experience irresistibly leads us. ... There is nothing, not even the human soul, the highest spiritual manifestation we know of, that does not come within this universal law."[24] The Phenomenon of Man represents Teilhard's attempt at reconciling his religious faith with his academic interests as a paleontologist.[25] One particularly poignant observation in Teilhard's book entails the notion that evolution is becoming an increasingly optional process.[25] Teilhard points to the societal problems of isolation and marginalization as huge inhibitors of evolution, especially since evolution requires a unification of consciousness. He states that "no evolutionary future awaits anyone except in association with everyone else."[25] Teilhard argued that the human condition necessarily leads to the psychic unity of humankind, though he stressed that this unity can only be voluntary; this voluntary psychic unity he termed "unanimization". Teilhard also states that "evolution is an ascent toward consciousness", giving encephalization as an example of early stages, and therefore, signifies a continuous upsurge toward the Omega Point[25] which, for all intents and purposes, is God.

Teilhard also used his perceived correlation between spiritual and material to describe Christ, arguing that Christ not only has a mystical dimension but also takes on a physical dimension as he becomes the organizing principle of the universe—that is, the one who "holds together" the universe (Col. 1:17b). For Teilhard, Christ forms not only the eschatological end toward which his mystical/ecclesial body is oriented, but he also "operates physically in order to regulate all things"[26] becoming "the one from whom all creation receives its stability."[27] In other words, as the one who holds all things together, "Christ exercises a supremacy over the universe which is physical, not simply juridical. He is the unifying center of the universe and its goal. The function of holding all things together indicates that Christ is not only man and God; he also possesses a third aspect—indeed, a third nature—which is cosmic."[28] In this way, the Pauline description of the Body of Christ is not simply a mystical or ecclesial concept for Teilhard; it is cosmic. This cosmic Body of Christ "extend[s] throughout the universe and compris[es] all things that attain their fulfillment in Christ [so that] ... the Body of Christ is the one single thing that is being made in creation."[29] Teilhard describes this cosmic amassing of Christ as "Christogenesis". According to Teilhard, the universe is engaged in Christogenesis as it evolves toward its full realization at Omega, a point which coincides with the fully realized Christ.[23] It is at this point that God will be "all in all" (1Cor. 15:28c).

Our century is probably more religious than any other. How could it fail to be, with such problems to be solved? The only trouble is that it has not yet found a God it can adore.[25]

Tielhard has been criticized as incorporating common notions of Social Darwinism and scientific racism into his work, along with support for eugenics, though he has also been defended by theologian John Haught.[30][31][32]

Relationship with the Catholic Church[edit]

In 1925, Teilhard was ordered by the Superior General of the Society of JesusWłodzimierz Ledóchowski, to leave his teaching position in France and to sign a statement withdrawing his controversial statements regarding the doctrine of original sin. Rather than leave the Society of Jesus, Teilhard signed the statement and left for China.[citation needed]

This was the first of a series of condemnations by a range of ecclesiastical officials that would continue until after Teilhard's death. The climax of these condemnations was a 1962 monitum (warning) of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith cautioning on Teilhard's works. It said:[33]

Several works of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, some of which were posthumously published, are being edited and are gaining a good deal of success. Prescinding from a judgement about those points that concern the positive sciences, it is sufficiently clear that the above-mentioned works abound in such ambiguities and indeed even serious errors, as to offend Catholic doctrine. For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers.

The Holy Office did not, however, place any of Teilhard's writings on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books), which existed during Teilhard's lifetime and at the time of the 1962 decree.

Shortly thereafter, prominent clerics mounted a strong theological defense of Teilhard's works. Henri de Lubac (later a Cardinal) wrote three comprehensive books on the theology of Teilhard de Chardin in the 1960s.[34] While de Lubac mentioned that Teilhard was less than precise in some of his concepts, he affirmed the orthodoxy of Teilhard de Chardin and responded to Teilhard's critics: "We need not concern ourselves with a number of detractors of Teilhard, in whom emotion has blunted intelligence".[35] Later that decade Joseph Ratzinger, a German theologian who became Pope Benedict XVI, spoke glowingly of Teilhard's Christology in Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity:[36]

It must be regarded as an important service of Teilhard de Chardin's that he rethought these ideas from the angle of the modern view of the world and, in spite of a not entirely unobjectionable tendency toward the biological approach, nevertheless on the whole grasped them correctly and in any case made them accessible once again.

Over the next several decades prominent theologians and prelates, including leading cardinals all wrote approvingly of Teilhard's ideas. In 1981, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, wrote on the front page of the Vatican newspaper, l'Osservatore Romano:

What our contemporaries will undoubtedly remember, beyond the difficulties of conception and deficiencies of expression in this audacious attempt to reach a synthesis, is the testimony of the coherent life of a man possessed by Christ in the depths of his soul. He was concerned with honoring both faith and reason, and anticipated the response to John Paul II's appeal: "Be not afraid, open, open wide to Christ the doors of the immense domains of culture, civilization, and progress".[37]

On 20 July 1981, the Holy See stated that, after consultation of Cardinal Casaroli and Cardinal Franjo Šeper, the letter did not change the position of the warning issued by the Holy Office on 30 June 1962, which pointed out that Teilhard's work contained ambiguities and grave doctrinal errors.[38]

Cardinal Ratzinger in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy incorporates Teilhard's vision as a touchstone of the Catholic Mass:[39]

And so we can now say that the goal of worship and the goal of creation as a whole are one and the same—divinization, a world of freedom and love. But this means that the historical makes its appearance in the cosmic. The cosmos is not a kind of closed building, a stationary container in which history may by chance take place. It is itself movement, from its one beginning to its one end. In a sense, creation is history. Against the background of the modern evolutionary world view, Teilhard de Chardin depicted the cosmos as a process of ascent, a series of unions. From very simple beginnings the path leads to ever greater and more complex unities, in which multiplicity is not abolished but merged into a growing synthesis, leading to the "Noosphere" in which spirit and its understanding embrace the whole and are blended into a kind of living organism. Invoking the epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, Teilhard looks on Christ as the energy that strives toward the Noosphere and finally incorporates everything in its "fullness". From here Teilhard went on to give a new meaning to Christian worship: the transubstantiated Host is the anticipation of the transformation and divinization of matter in the christological "fullness". In his view, the Eucharist provides the movement of the cosmos with its direction; it anticipates its goal and at the same time urges it on.

Cardinal Avery Dulles said in 2004:[40]

In his own poetic style, the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin liked to meditate on the Eucharist as the first fruits of the new creation. In an essay called The Monstrance he describes how, kneeling in prayer, he had a sensation that the Host was beginning to grow until at last, through its mysterious expansion, "the whole world had become incandescent, had itself become like a single giant Host". Although it would probably be incorrect to imagine that the universe will eventually be transubstantiated, Teilhard correctly identified the connection between the Eucharist and the final glorification of the cosmos.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn wrote in 2007:[41]

Hardly anyone else has tried to bring together the knowledge of Christ and the idea of evolution as the scientist (paleontologist) and theologian Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., has done. ... His fascinating vision ... has represented a great hope, the hope that faith in Christ and a scientific approach to the world can be brought together. ... These brief references to Teilhard cannot do justice to his efforts. The fascination which Teilhard de Chardin exercised for an entire generation stemmed from his radical manner of looking at science and Christian faith together.

In July 2009, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said, "By now, no one would dream of saying that [Teilhard] is a heterodox author who shouldn't be studied."[42]

Pope Francis refers to Teilhard's eschatological contribution in his encyclical Laudato si'.[43]

The philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand criticized severely the work of Teilhard. According to Hildebrand, in a conversation after a lecture by Teilhard: "He (Teilhard) ignored completely the decisive difference between nature and supernature. After a lively discussion in which I ventured a criticism of his ideas, I had an opportunity to speak to Teilhard privately. When our talk touched on St. Augustine, he exclaimed violently: 'Don’t mention that unfortunate man; he spoiled everything by introducing the supernatural.'"[44] Von Hildebrand writes that Teilhardism is incompatible with Christianity, substitutes efficiency for sanctity, dehumanizes man, and describes love as merely cosmic energy.

Evaluations by scientists[edit]

Julian Huxley, the evolutionary biologist, in the preface to the 1955 edition of The Phenomenon of Man, praised the thought of Teilhard de Chardin for looking at the way in which human development needs to be examined within a larger integrated universal sense of evolution, though admitting he could not follow Teilhard all the way.[45] Theodosius Dobzhansky, writing in 1973, drew upon Teilhard's insistence that evolutionary theory provides the core of how man understands his relationship to nature, calling him "one of the great thinkers of our age".[46]

According to Daniel Dennett (1995), "it has become clear to the point of unanimity among scientists that Teilhard offered nothing serious in the way of an alternative to orthodoxy; the ideas that were peculiarly his were confused, and the rest was just bombastic redescription of orthodoxy."[47] Steven Rose wrote[year needed] that "Teilhard is revered as a mystic of genius by some, but among most biologists is seen as little more than a charlatan."[48]

In 1961, British immunologist and Nobel laureate Peter Medawar wrote a scornful review of The Phenomenon Of Man for the journal Mind: "the greater part of it [...] is nonsense, tricked out with a variety of metaphysical conceits, and its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself".[49] Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins called Medawar's review "devastating" and The Phenomenon of Man "the quintessence of bad poetic science".[50]

George Gaylord Simpson felt that if Teilhard were right, the lifework "of Huxley, Dobzhansky, and hundreds of others was not only wrong, but meaningless", and was mystified by their public support for him.[51] He considered Teilhard a friend and his work in paleontology extensive and important, but expressed strongly adverse views of his contributions as scientific theorist and philosopher.[52]

In 2019, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson praised Teilhard's book The Phenomenon of Man as "scientifically prophetic in many ways", and considers his own work as an updated version of it, commenting that[53] "[m]odern evolutionary theory shows that what Teilhard meant by the Omega Point is achievable in the foreseeable future."

Legacy[edit]

Brian Swimme wrote "Teilhard was one of the first scientists to realize that the human and the universe are inseparable. The only universe we know about is a universe that brought forth the human."[54]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is honored with a feast day on the Calendar of saints of the Episcopal Church on 10 April.[55] George Gaylord Simpson named the most primitive and ancient genus of true primate, the Eocene genus Teilhardina.

Teilhard and his work continue to influence the arts and culture. Characters based on Teilhard appear in several novels, including Jean Telemond in Morris West's The Shoes of the Fisherman[56] (mentioned by name and quoted by Oskar Werner playing Fr. Telemond in the movie version of the novel). In Dan Simmons' 1989–97 Hyperion Cantos, Teilhard de Chardin has been canonized a saint in the far future. His work inspires the anthropologist priest character, Paul Duré. When Duré becomes Pope, he takes Teilhard I as his regnal name.[57] Teilhard appears as a minor character in the play Fake by Eric Simonson, staged by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2009, involving a fictional solution to the infamous Piltdown Man hoax.

References range from occasional quotations—an auto mechanic quotes Teilhard in Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly[58]—to serving as the philosophical underpinning of the plot, as Teilhard's work does in Julian May's 1987–94 Galactic Milieu Series.[59] Teilhard also plays a major role in Annie Dillard's 1999 For the Time Being.[60] Teilhard is mentioned by name and the Omega Point briefly explained in Arthur C. Clarke's and Stephen Baxter's The Light of Other Days.[61] The title of the short-story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor is a reference to Teilhard's work. The American novelist Don DeLillo's 2010 novel Point Omega borrows its title and some of its ideas from Teilhard de Chardin.[62] Robert Wright, in his book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, compares his own naturalistic thesis that biological and cultural evolution are directional and, possibly, purposeful, with Teilhard's ideas.

Teilhard's work also inspired philosophical ruminations by Italian laureate architect Paolo Soleri and Mexican writer Margarita Casasús Altamirano, artworks such as French painter Alfred Manessier's L'Offrande de la terre ou Hommage à Teilhard de Chardin and American sculptor Frederick Hart's acrylic sculpture The Divine Milieu: Homage to Teilhard de Chardin.[63] A sculpture of the Omega Point by Henry Setter, with a quote from Teilhard de Chardin, can be found at the entrance to the Roesch Library at the University of Dayton.[64] The Spanish painter Salvador Dalí was fascinated by Teilhard de Chardin and the Omega Point theory. His 1959 painting The Ecumenical Council is said to represent the "interconnectedness" of the Omega Point.[65]

Edmund Rubbra's 1968 Symphony No. 8 is titled Hommage à Teilhard de Chardin.

The Embracing Universe an oratorio for choir and 7 instruments composed by Justin Grounds to a libretto by Fred LaHaye saw its first performance in 2019. It is based on the life and thought of Teilhard de Chardin.[66]

Several college campuses honor Teilhard. A building at the University of Manchester is named after him, as are residence dormitories at Gonzaga University and Seattle University.

The De Chardin Project, a play celebrating Teilhard's life, ran from 20 November to 14 December 2014 in Toronto, Canada.[67] The Evolution of Teilhard de Chardin, a documentary film on Teilhard's life, was scheduled for release in 2015.[67]

Founded in 1978, George Addair based much of Omega Vector on Teilhard's work.

The American physicist Frank J. Tipler has further developed Teilhard's Omega Point concept in two controversial books, The Physics of Immortality and the more theologically based Physics of Christianity.[68] While keeping the central premise of Teilhard's Omega Point (i.e. a universe evolving towards a maximum state of complexity and consciousness) Tipler has supplanted some of the more mystical/ theological elements of the OPT with his own scientific and mathematical observations (as well as some elements borrowed from Freeman Dyson's eternal intelligence theory).[69][70]

In 1972, the Uruguayan priest Juan Luis Segundo, in his five-volume series A Theology for Artisans of a New Humanity, wrote that Teilhard "noticed the profound analogies existing between the conceptual elements used by the natural sciences — all of them being based on the hypothesis of a general evolution of the universe."[71]

Influence of his cousin, Marguerite[edit]

Marguerite Teillard-Chambon [fr], (alias Claude Aragonnès) was a French writer who edited and had published three volumes of correspondence with her cousin, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "La genèse d'une pensée" ("The Making of a Mind") being the last, after her own death in 1959.[9] She furnished each with an introduction. Marguerite, a year older than Teilhard, was considered among those who knew and understood him best. They had shared a childhood in Auvergne; she it was who encouraged him to undertake a doctorate in science at the Sorbonne; she eased his entry into the Catholic Institute, through her connection to Emmanuel de Margerie and she introduced him to the intellectual life of Paris. Throughout the First World War, she corresponded with him, acting as a "midwife" to his thinking, helping his thought to emerge and honing it. In September 1959 she participated in a gathering organised at Saint-Babel, near Issoire, devoted to Teilhard's philosophical contribution. On the way home to Chambon-sur-Lac, she was fatally injured in a road traffic accident. Her sister, Alice, completed the final preparations for the publication of the final volume of her cousin Teilhard's wartime letters.[72][73][74]

Influence on the New Age movement[edit]

Teilhard has had a profound influence on the New Age movements and has been described as "perhaps the man most responsible for the spiritualization of evolution in a global and cosmic context".[75]

Teilhard's words about likening the discovery of the power of love to the second time man will have discovered the power of fire, were quoted in the sermon of the Most Reverend Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, during the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on 20 May 2018.[76]

Bibliography[edit]

The dates in parentheses are the dates of first publication in French and English. Most of these works were written years earlier, but Teilhard's ecclesiastical order forbade him to publish them because of their controversial nature. The essay collections are organized by subject rather than date, thus each one typically spans many years.

  • Le Phénomène Humain (1955), written 1938–40, scientific exposition of Teilhard's theory of evolution.
  • Letters From a Traveler (1956; English translation 1962), written 1923–55.
  • Le Groupe Zoologique Humain (1956), written 1949, more detailed presentation of Teilhard's theories.
    • Man's Place in Nature (English translation 1966).
  • Le Milieu Divin (1957), spiritual book written 1926–27, in which the author seeks to offer a way for everyday life, i.e. the secular, to be divinized.
  • L'Avenir de l'Homme (1959) essays written 1920–52, on the evolution of consciousness (noosphere).
  • Hymn of the Universe (1961; English translation 1965) Harper and Row: ISBN 0-06-131910-4, mystical/spiritual essays and thoughts written 1916–55.
  • L'Energie Humaine (1962), essays written 1931–39, on morality and love.
  • L'Activation de l'Energie (1963), sequel to Human Energy, essays written 1939–55 but not planned for publication, about the universality and irreversibility of human action.
  • Je M'Explique (1966) Jean-Pierre Demoulin, editor ISBN 0-685-36593-X, "The Essential Teilhard" — selected passages from his works.
  • Christianity and Evolution, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602818-2.
  • The Heart of the Matter, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602758-5.
  • Toward the Future, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602819-0.
  • The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier-Priest 1914–1919, Collins (1965), Letters written during wartime.
  • Writings in Time of War, Collins (1968) composed of spiritual essays written during wartime. One of the few books of Teilhard to receive an imprimatur.
  • Vision of the Past, Collins (1966) composed of mostly scientific essays published in the French science journal Etudes.
  • The Appearance of Man, Collins (1965) composed of mostly scientific writings published in the French science journal Etudes.
  • Letters to Two Friends 1926–1952, Fontana (1968). Composed of personal letters on varied subjects including his understanding of death. See Letters to Two Friends 1926–1952Helen Weaver (translation). 1968. ISBN 9780853911432OCLC 30268456.
  • Letters to Léontine Zanta, Collins (1969).
  • Correspondence / Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Maurice Blondel, Herder and Herder (1967) This correspondence also has both the imprimatur and nihil obstat.
  • de Chardin, P T (1952). "On the zoological position and the evolutionary significance of Australopithecines". Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences (published March 1952). 14 (5): 208–10. doi:10.1111/j.2164-0947.1952.tb01101.xPMID 14931535.
  • de Terra, H; de Chardin, PT; Paterson, TT (1936). "Joint geological and prehistoric studies of the Late Cenozoic in India". Science (published 6 March 1936). 83 (2149): 233–236. Bibcode:1936Sci....83..233Ddoi:10.1126/science.83.2149.233-aPMID 17809311.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

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  2. ^ Aczel, Amir (2008). The Jesuit and the Skull. Penguin Publishing Group. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-4406-3735-3.
  3. Jump up to:a b c Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre (2001). L'expérience de Dieu avec Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (in French). Les Editions Fides.
  4. ^ Letters from Egypt (1905–1908) — Éditions Aubier
  5. ^ Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre (1979). Hague, René (ed.). The Heart of Matter. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 25.
  6. ^ "Teilhard and the Pildown "Hoax""www.clarku.edu. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  7. ^ Wayman, Erin. "How to Solve Human Evolution's Greatest Hoax"Smithsonian. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  8. ^ Genèse d'une pensée (English: "The Making of a Mind")
  9. Jump up to:a b Teilhard de Chardin (1965). The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier-Priest 1914–1919. London: Collins.
  10. ^ Aczel, Amir (4 November 2008). The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man. Riverhead Trade. p. 320ISBN 978-1-594489-56-3.
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  12. ^ Letters from a Traveller, p.229
  13. ^ AAS, 6 August 1962
  14. ^ The text of this decree was published in daily L’Aurore of Paris, dated 2 October 1963, and was reproduced in Nouvelles De Chrétienté, 10 October 1963, p. 35.
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  18. ^ Berry, Thomas (1982) "Teilard de Chardin in the Age of Ecology" (Studies of Teihard de Chardin)
  19. ^ Sebastian Normandin; Charles T. Wolfe (15 June 2013). Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800-2010. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 10. ISBN 978-94-007-2445-7vitalism finds occasional expression in the neo-Thomist philosophies associated with Catholicism. Indeed, Catholic philosophy was heavily influenced by bergson in the early twentieth century, and there is a direct link between Bergson's neo-vitalism and the nascent neo-Thomism of thinkers like Jacques Maritain, which led to various idealist interpretations of biology which labeled themselves 'vitalistic', such as those of Edouard Le Roy (influenced by Teilhard de Chardin).
  20. ^ "(Review of) Howard, Damian.Being Human in Islam: The Impact of the Evolutionary Worldview" (PDF)Teilhard Perspective44 (2): 12. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2018. Retrieved 24 January 2017the strong influence of Henri Bergson, via the writings of Muhammed Iqbal, who is seen to represent a Romantic, Naturphilosophie school of "vitalist cosmic progressivism," in contrast to Western mechanical materialism. And Teilhard, much akin to the French Bergson, along with Karl Rahner, are rightly noted as latter exemplars of this life-affirmative option.
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  28. ^ Lyons (1982). The Cosmic Christ in Origen and Teilhard de Chardin. p. 153.
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  30. ^ Pierre Tielhard De Chardin's Legacy of Eugenics and Racism Can't Be Ignored
  31. ^ Trashing Tielhard
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  35. ^ Cardinal Henri Cardinal de Lubac – The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin, Image Books (1968)
  36. ^ Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal; Pope Benedict XVI; Benedict; J. R. Foster; Michael J. Miller (4 June 2010). Introduction To Christianity, 2nd Edition (Kindle Locations 2840-2865). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.
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  39. ^ – Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal; Pope Benedict XVI (11 June 2009). The Spirit of the Liturgy (Kindle Locations 260–270). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.
  40. ^ A Eucharistic Church: The Vision of John Paul II – McGinley Lecture, University, 10 November 2004
  41. ^ Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith, Ignatian Press (2007)
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  44. ^ Von Hildebrand, Dietrich (1993). Trojan Horse in the City of God. Sophia Inst Pr. ISBN 978-0918477187.
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  46. ^ Dobzhansky, Theodosius (March 1973). "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution". American Biology Teacher35 (3): 125–129. Reprinted in J. Peter Zetterberg (ed.), Evolution versus Creationism (1983), ORYX Press.
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  52. ^ Léo F. Laporte (13 August 2013). George Gaylord Simpson: Paleontologist and Evolutionist. Columbia University Press. pp. 191ff. ISBN 978-0-231-50545-1.
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  62. ^ DeLillo, Don (2010). Point Omega. Scribner.
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Further reading[edit]

  • Amir AczelThe Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution and the Search for Peking Man (Riverhead Hardcover, 2007)
  • Pope Benedict XVIThe Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatian Press 2000)
  • Pope Benedict XVIIntroduction to Christianity (Ignatius Press, Revised edition, 2004)
  • John Cowburn, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Selective Summary of His Life (Mosaic Press 2013)
  • Claude CuenotScience and Faith in Teilhard de Chardin (Garstone Press, 1967)
  • Andre Dupleix15 Days of Prayer with Teilhard de Chardin (New City Press, 2008)
  • Enablers, T.C., 2015. 'Hominising – Realising Human Potential'. Available: http://www.laceweb.org.au/rhp.htm
  • Robert Faricy, Teilhard de Chardin's Theology of Christian in the World(Sheed and Ward 1968)
  • Robert Faricy, The Spirituality of Teilhard de Chardin (Collins 1981, Harper & Row 1981)
  • Robert Faricy and Lucy Rooney, Praying with Teilhard de Chardin(Queenship 1996)
  • David Grumett, Teilhard de Chardin: Theology, Humanity and Cosmos(Peeters 2005)
  • Dietrich von HildebrandTeilhard de Chardin: A False Prophet(Franciscan Herald Press 1970)
  • Dietrich von HildebrandTrojan Horse in the City of God
  • Dietrich von HildebrandDevastated Vineyard
  • Thomas M. King, Teilhard's Mass; Approaches to "The Mass on the World" (Paulist Press, 2005)
  • Ursula KingSpirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Teilhard de Chardin[1][permanent dead link](Orbis Books, 1996)
  • Richard W. Kropf, Teilhard, Scripture and Revelation: A Study of Teilhard de Chardin's Reinterpretation of Pauline Themes (Associated University Press, 1980)
  • David H. Lane, The Phenomenon of Teilhard: Prophet for a New Age(Mercer University Press)
  • Lubac, Henri deThe Religion of Teilhard de Chardin (Image Books, 1968)
  • Lubac, Henri deThe Faith of Teilhard de Chardin (Burnes and Oates, 1965)
  • Lubac, Henri deThe Eternal Feminine: A Study of the Text of Teilhard de Chardin (Collins, 1971)
  • Lubac, Henri deTeilhard Explained (Paulist Press, 1968)
  • Mary and Ellen Lukas, Teilhard (Doubleday, 1977)
  • Jean Maalouf Teilhard de Chardin, Reconciliation in Christ (New City Press, 2002)
  • George A. MaloneyThe Cosmic Christ: From Paul to Teilhard (Sheed and Ward, 1968)
  • Mooney, Christopher, Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery of Christ(Image Books, 1968)
  • Murray, Michael H. The Thought of Teilhard de Chardin (Seabury Press, N.Y., 1966)
  • Robert J. O'ConnellTeilhard's Vision of the Past: The Making of a Method, (Fordham University Press, 1982)
  • Noel Keith Roberts, From Piltdown Man to Point Omega: the evolutionary theory of Teilhard de Chardin (New York, Peter Lang, 2000)
  • James F. Salmon, 'Pierre Teilhard de Chardin' in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)
  • Louis M. Savory, Teilhard de Chardin – The Divine Milieu Explained: A Spirituality for the 21st Century (Paulist Press, 2007)
  • Robert SpeaightThe Life of Teilhard de Chardin (Harper and Row, 1967)
  • K.D. Sethna, Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo - a focus on fundamentals, Bharatiya Vidya Prakasan, Varanasi (1973)
  • K. D. Sethna, The Spirituality of the Future: A search apropos of R. C. Zaehner's study in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard De Chardin. Fairleigh Dickinson University 1981.
  • Helmut de TerraMemories of Teilhard de Chardin (Harper and Row and Wm Collins Sons & Co., 1964)
  • Paul Churchland, "Man and Cosmos"

External links[edit]

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The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution by Ilia Delio | Goodreads

The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love by Ilia Delio | Goodreads





The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love

by
Ilia Delio
4.30 · Rating details · 218 ratings · 34 reviews
This title explores the meaning of Christian theology in light of the scientific discoveries of our age. Like Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry, Delio opens out eyes to the omni-active, all-powerful, all-intelligent Love that forms and guides the interrelatedness and interbeing of everything and everyone - ourselves included.
Paperback, 230 pages
Published February 21st 2013 by Orbis Books
===

The award-winning author of Christ in Evolution and The Emergent Christ breaks new ground with this capstone in a trilogy that opens our eyes to the everywhere active, all powerful, all intelligent Love that guides and directs our new awareness of interrelatedness and interbeing.

She writes: We all have a part to play in this unfolding Love; we are wholes within wholes; persons within persons; religions within religions. We are one body and we seek one mind and heart so that the whole may become more whole, more personal and unified in love. This is our Christian vocation, to live in the Christ who is rising up from the ashes of death to become for us the God of the future.
===

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5.0 out of 5 stars This is a fantastic book far beyond my expectations
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Illia Delio, as a scientist and religious, has a wonderful grasp of the energy in the on going expansion of the universe, filled with intelligence. She writes with a fluency that makes a difficult subject intelligible to non scientists and the quotes she uses from respected scientists, and especially Theilhard de Chardin, scientist, archaeologist and mystic are breath taking in their insight. I have found it quite thrilling.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking and mind opening
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A challenging book that invites the reader into a dialogue and a journey of re-visioning faith
in the light of the new Scientific insights into evoloution and our own human story. It opens the
reader to many questions and into an exciting journey of understanding God, humanity, Universe
in an inter-connected way. I recommend it to anyone willing to allow their faith to be stretched and
deepened in a new way.
8 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 May 2015
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Unbearably good
3 people found this helpful
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Susan
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and thought provoking a must read for anyone concerned ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2015
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Interesting and thought provoking a must read for anyone concerned with reconciling the knowledge of science with the traditional wisdom of religious/spiritual texts.
4 people found this helpful
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Mrs G Shilkoff
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 October 2014
Verified Purchase
Very wordy but worth sticking with and pondering what it says.
3 people found this helpful


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Oct 27, 2013Ron rated it it was amazing
Shelves: theology, science, non-fiction, spirituality, philosophy, religion
This book explores Teilhard de Chardin's idea of evolution being God in action through love in the universe. These are complex ideas but even someone not familiar with Teilhard will be able to understand it. DeLio is a scientist as well as a mystical theologian with a gift for bringing a lot of different approaches to this idea in comprehensible way. What is especially compelling is the way Teihard's ideas bring a holistic approach to science and a truly spiritual understanding of the reality and materiality of the world. These ideas offer a true alternative to further blind technological manipulation of the world in order to solve humankind's and the planet's problems - most of which have been caused by the blind technical manipulation of things. If you are interested in the spirituality of science, mysticism alternative understandings of how the universe grows/works, I think you will find this fascinating.

I've been asked if this book stands alone or if one needs to read the other two of the trilogy. Simple answer: it stands alone. I would have responded directly but the site would not let that happen for some reason. (less)
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May 07, 2017Ali M. rated it it was amazing
Shelves: soul-food, brain-food
The theological implications of evolution have always intrigued me, but Ilia Delio, standing on the shoulders of Jesuit philosopher and paleontologist/geologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, paints with a broader brush than anyone I've read on the subject before. Breathtaking insights abound in this book. Strange ones do, as well—Delio even drops a few references to cyberpunk culture in her rumination on technology and "noogenesis"—there's no niche corner of this topic she's not interested in. She sees a powerful spiritual arc in the grand cosmological drama that science is uncovering, and traces it beautifully for any reader who is equally interested in reconciling these two spheres of understanding, which are too often pitted against each other. "Theological education," she says, "should include Big Bang cosmology, quantum physics, systems biology, and consciousness studies as well as tradition and Scripture." If only... (less)
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Sep 03, 2013Sharon Halsey-Hoover rated it it was amazing
This was one of the most powerful books that I have read...it impacted me greatly. I realized after reading it that it was the third in a trilogy so I am now reading the first in the trilogy, Christ in Evolution. I am finding it to be almost as amazing.
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Apr 11, 2016Jim Nail rated it really liked it
Indeed, not an easy read, but easier to read than Teilhard de Chardin himself. This book meant a lot to me. I read it twice.
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Apr 17, 2014Rick Barr rated it really liked it
I love this book! Ilia Delio is able to embrace here Roman Catholic tradition while at the same time opening up all the windows, unlocking the doors and inviting all of creation in. Building on an evolutionary perspective championed by De Chardin, Delio invites her readers to see Christ, the church, our world, indeed, even the whole cosmos as drenched in the loving, creative presence that we call God. It was a joy to read and worthy of deep contemplation during this Easter season.
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Dec 21, 2016David rated it it was ok
I really appreciate the goals of a book like this, and I wanted to love it. But I just found myself not quite able to resonate with Delio's attempt to wed God with evolution. Evolution happened. That's science. God is love. That's an assertion of faith. Can these be integrated? I'm left feeling pretty dissatisfied. Judging by the other reviews, however, I'm the outlier. (less)
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Sep 08, 2015Adam Ross rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: science, philosophy, theology
A breathtaking book that explores and updates the work of Teilhard de Chardin and provides a view of evolution that takes it out of the realm of mechanistic materialism and shows how spirituality and religion are inherent to evolutionary theory.
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Aug 18, 2015Connie Hintz rated it really liked it
Great introduction to the thought of Teillhard de Chardin. Fascinating, but not easy reading.
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Nov 27, 2017Aidan Owen rated it it was amazing
Shelves: spirituality, mysticism, science, 2017, contemplative-ecology
Without question the best book I've read this year, and one of the best I've ever read, in terms of changing the way I see and experience the world and my faith. There are chapters in this book where I underlined almost every sentence. Beware: it is a dense book. I had to go back and reread a few chapters to make sure I'd gotten the points Delio was making. Even so, I'm sure I'll return to this book again and again.

Delio's project is to bring together the scientific insights behind evolution with Christian theology and self-understanding. Her conclusion is that for Christianity to have anything meaningful to contribute to human and earthly flourishing today, it absolutely has to reframe itself in the context of the unfolding of the cosmos in evolution. At the same time, she is firm that Christianity, reframed in the light of evolutionary self-understanding, has essential contributions to make to human societies that are ever more distanced from material reality.

Just a few of the many passages worth contemplating:

'The fecund relationality of God renders creation neither chance nor necessity; it is God's destiny. God does what God is--what is true to God's nature and thus what is divine--love. Because God is love, God is entirely free, and in this freedom God is entirely Godself. God loves the world with the very same love which God is. God is not divine substance governing creation but the radical subject of everything that exists, the depth and wholeness of nature itself that reveals itself in its hiddenness. God's love fills up each being as "this" (and not "that"), but the limits of any being cannot contain God; thus, the excess of God's love spills over as "transcendence," more than any being can grasp. Transcendence is the fecundity of love and the "yearning" dimension of everything that exists. The excess of love draws each element and creature toward greater union and more being. God, therefore, can never be behind creation, as if God does something then steps away to observe it from a distance. Rather, God-Omega-Love is the power of everything that exists and, as the excess of love, the future who holds open in the very present moment the radical possibilities of love.' (71)

Or

'To be free in love, however, we must know ourselves as being loved, and this means accepting ourselves as lovable. Jesus was free in love because he lived in truth and authenticity of being. We discover our true selves in love when we realize we are not alone and therefore have no need to defend our isolated egos. The lovability of our lives is our particular inscape, our "thisness," not simply our genome or phenotypes, but the unique constituency of relationships that makes each "I" a living "Thou" with a distinct personality. To realize our human capacity to love is the beginning of divinization because in the beauty of our "I" is the living Thou waiting to be called upon as God.' (133)

Or

'Homo sapiens are the last arrival in the evolutionary story, the most complex and intelligent species and, yet, the most unnatural species alive. We separate ourselves from the whole and refuse to be part of the whole; we kill and maim our own species, as well as other species. We lock ourselves up in artificial environments with artificial lighting and sit behind artificial computer screens, sometimes creating artificial lives online because our own lives are so boring and empty. We boast of our intelligence as human creatures but we have lost the human center that feels for another, that weeps for the poor and oppressed, that has a righteous anger in the face of injustice, that forgives our enemies and shows mercy to the wounded. Being creatures created for wholeness in love we are the most loveless of creatures filled with fear, jealousy, anger, hurt, resistance, and rivalry. A center empty of love is ripe for extinction because there is nothing to live for.' (181) (less)
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Jan 21, 2021Andrew Blok added it
I grabbed this book from the library after hearing Delio on podcast The Bible for Normal People. Her discussion of the connectedness of the cosmos and its tendency toward greater unity, complexity and love was full of ideas that I'd never considered and sparked a lot of interest and excitement in me. I put her book on hold and, after passing it back and forth with another patron a couple of times, finally got it read.

I have to say: if I was hoping to be clear on the ideas she'd brought up on the podcast, those hopes haven't been entirely fulfilled. It's probably due to my inexperience with philosophical texts and that the way she talks about Christianity is so very different from the ways I'm used to.

Part of Delio's point in this book is that Christianity today relies on a conception of God that was cemented at a time and in texts that assumed the universe was a static place that played by the rules of a machine, like a clock. She tracks a revolution of Christian thought and practice that occurred when ideas like heliocentrism and Newtonian physics came on the scene. Understandings of God changed because of change in understandings of the universe God was understood to have created. Delio suggests (relying on the work of other thinkers before her) that the arrival of evolution and quantum physics marks another fundamental shift that should change our understanding of God, the universe and humans' place in it. It is a big shift and the challenge of wrapping my mind around it felt like confirmation of its bigness.

It's not the most accessible book (though I am not the most expert reader) and some of my confusion surely stems from my unfamiliarity with the thought that came before. At the same time, it feels challenging in that it dares to suggest big things about God and Christianity and humanity that do feel as ground-shifting as they are promised to be. (less)
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Aug 07, 2021Alex Long rated it it was amazing
Historically, Christian theology has interacted with generally accepted scientific worldviews- first Greek Hellenism, then a Newtonian mechanistic understanding. Here, Ilia Delio tries to move the conversation forward by engaging with contemporary evolutionary and quantum ways of understanding reality and seeing how these change our anthropology of humans/ individual selves, God, and love.
I particularly appreciated her analysis at the beginning of how our religious thinking is super influenced by Hellenistic and Newtonian assumptions. Often when people talk about the so-called tension between science and religion, they're engaging uncritically in an outdated mechanistic context that misses the points of both endeavors.
I also really liked Delio's explanation of the early monastic view of contemplative education, knowledge gained from multiple disciplines rooted in love that reveals the interconnected wholeness of all things, as a way of critiquing our current university system that's all about specializations disconnected from other disciplines that results in feelings of dislocation. (less)
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Nov 17, 2018John Laliberte rated it it was amazing
Shelves: theology
How do you describe what Sr. Delio has for us?

Amazing is a good start. For anyone who is interested in exploring the power of both God and the human spirit, heart and passion in the context of evolution, this is a great book. If you are content with the current Church, world view and powerlessness we seem to be slogging through, don’t bother to read this book.

Sr. Delio challenges us to look deeper and more broadly of what our Christian faith is all about. Life and death seem to be bookends, but our loving Sister takes us on a journey of what our future can hold for us, if we have faith in the power of Love – Love, as revealed by Jesus and his life.

One thing is for sure, we are not finished on this journey of discovery of what “The unbearable Wholeness of Being” is. May God give us the grace and wisdom to transform into a people of wholeness.
Thank you … (less)
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Jan 24, 2020Bruce rated it it was amazing
Written like a prayer - every sentence is inspired and inspiring. For anyone seeking intellectual and spiritual depth and to be spared religious dogmatism this is a must.("Deeply religious without being formally religious, deeply secular without being profane ..") Based on the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and also inspired by The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings by Stephen Talbot. Read a while back but kept copious notes. These stand out:
Love and relation are the producers not the product of being. Without relationship there can be no being ...

If love is absent from the core of knowledge - whether on the level of science, university education, or faith - the end result is division, confusion and separation (less)
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Sep 07, 2019Baxter Trautman rated it it was amazing
Shelves: non-fiction, spiritual, heart, mystical, science
Can't believe I hadn't rated this yet. I found this book while going through an awkward period of life where I was trying to reconcile my training as a scientist with my belief in a very large and broad cosmology. Delio, as both biologist and theologian, penetrated the heart of my doubts and skepticism and helped me see how the two disciplines are indeed complimentary rather than in opposition. It's not a casual read but absolutely a primer for those interested in marrying mind and soul. (Note: Delio comes from a Christian perspective, but if that is not your faith as it isn't mine, don't be put off for she addresses spirit more than religion.) (less)
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Jul 07, 2018Eve rated it it was amazing
There is too much to say about this book. It is incredible. I want to buy a copy for so many people. It encompasses the closest to what I believe the truth about life, God, faith, and Christianity is that I have ever read, and it written so beautifully and comprehensively. It has taken me over a year to read it because I was so blown away at times that I had to sit with the information for a while before continuing to read. Thank you deeply, Ilia Delio, for this book.
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Jan 23, 2020Anita rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: non-fiction
The book was difficult for me to understand as it seems to be written for theologians more than for the more casual reader. There were several times when the light went on for me with such things as the wholeness of being and how the Cosmos and humanity as a part of that whole is evolving. There was a strong emphasis on the power that love has in being itself. There is a lot of material and thoughts of Teilhard de Chardin contained and clarified. That was a big plus for me.
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Jun 09, 2018Eddie rated it it was amazing
Dense and hard to consume very much at a time, but really good. It's not a book that I particularly enjoyed reading, just because it was so much to take in...but a good deal of the material has become some of my core beliefs! I could make a book just from my highlights. She quotes Teilhard de Chardin so much that at times I wondered if I should have just read his works instead. ...more
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Dec 30, 2017Claude H. Blanc rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Mind blowing, heart warming

Ilia Delio takes us on a cosmic journey where the awesome love of God and the greatness of human destiny, far from being scary, makes one feel at home, in the bosom of Reality.
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May 22, 2021Jana rated it it was amazing
Shelves: daily-readers
This book may have made me into a theological philosopher. I will probably continue to read in this area. This book fascinated me, from the physics early in the book, through the evolution towards the end.
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May 28, 2021Justin Hargrave rated it it was ok
Interesting, but some aspects are difficult to swallow - partly bc of the sources on which she draws, partly bc her writing style is so academic as to be difficult to understand. Mostly worth reading, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend. Was glad to finish it...! (less)
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Jun 07, 2018Michael rated it it was amazing
Lovely, lovely read! Teilhard was a head of his time.
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Sep 24, 2018Amy Bird rated it really liked it
“Love does strange things. It does not often function logically or systematically; it is often spontaneous, creative, and provocative.”
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Apr 09, 2020Tamara added it
An eye-opening book. We are all connected. Love is our purpose.
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Jan 02, 2021Christopher rated it it was amazing
A good introduction to and extension of the work of Teilhard de Chardin.
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Jan 29, 2017David rated it it was amazing
From the next to last page of the book - "God's love is unmanageable and unruly; it is creative, spontaneous, and novel."

This is very interesting book and worth every minute reading and pondering. Here are the dog-ears and highlights:

pg. 10 - man seeks transcendence in ways that actually inhibit it...
pg. 41 - great description of the Greek love words.
pg. 51 - Love turns passion into transformative power.
pg. 65 - Theonomous culture - every cultural creation has a religious meaning.
pg. 77 - Divine love as a river.
pg. 84 - To love is to risk being rejected by the other.
pg. 85 - Love is not a concept but a transforming power...heals, reconciles, unites, makes whole.
pg. 88 - "Love means to let go and enter the storm and to love as passionately, extravagantly, and wastefully as God loves."
pg. 97 - Flight from the world while living in the middle of it.
pg. 99 - Authentic love and freedom of self.
pg. 104 - God not as a magician...
pg. 128 - Repentance not as a one time act but a permanent newness of life.
pg. 131 - Jesus gather things divided, confronted systems that diminished, marginalized, or excluded human persons.
pg. 135 - Love pushing through what is dead and breathes new life.
pg. 140 - Bonaventure's warning against intellectual pursuits divorced from soul-building.
pg. 145 - Artificial charade called life.
pg. 167 - Technology, control, and change.
pg. 179 - The desire of every human person.
pg. 180 - When we separated from the whole.
pg. 183 - Descartes children!!!
pg. 184 - Letting go of what we try to possess.
pg. 192 - The Eucharist and love.
(less)
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Mar 05, 2021Carol Hassell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Hope

A new and hopeful understanding of the place and contribution of Christianity to the evolution of consciousness and to the unity of all in love.
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Nov 12, 2015Jason Lyle rated it really liked it
This was a good book, but a very tough read for me. It is scientific and theological at the same time. The main idea of the book is Christianity should be evolving more toward love and kindness and therefore God will evolve with us toward love, kindness and acceptance. One thing I would have liked for her to address, however, is how evil plays into her theology of evolution. It seems evil would have to be a factor to be dealt with. Nonetheless, it was a good read and I wrote down many quotes from it. (less)
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Sep 05, 2013Michael rated it it was amazing
One of the best titles in theology I have read. Ilia Delio demonstrates why the theory of evolution is a nonnegotiable not only for the survival of spirituality and religion but for the survival of the human species. She argues that the power and arrow of evolution is love, and that God will not, indeed, cannot, save us if we do not choose love as the power of our future. She also unearths the thought of Teilhard de Chardin in a way more relevant than ever.
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Jun 28, 2016Ephrem Arcement rated it it was amazing
I finished this book weeks ago, and it is still imposing itself on me. Sr. Ilia brings so many ideas together in this fascinating work--ideas that need to be heard and are too often ignored by mainstream Christianity. With this book, Sr. Ilia reveals her staggering ability to integrate and create something new and lead us into the becomingness of God.
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Jul 20, 2014Tom Gorski rated it really liked it
The science is at times daunting but that may keep the "powers that be" (men in lace outfits and red caps) from actually reading what is an excellent forward movement of Teilhard's efforts during the previous century on evolution and spirituality. (less)
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