Teilhard de Chardin’s Ideas Find Resonance Inside the Vatican 70 Years After His Death

I'm an outsider here, so I won't say anything about theology, but let me just point out that his writings form the basis for an interesting series of 8 science fiction novels by the Catholic author Julian May: The Many Colored Land, The Golden Torc, The Nonborn King, The Adversary, Intervention, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask, and Magnificat.

RileyG said:

I actually have a breviary that is based on his teachings. It's very fascinating!

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Why is it fascinating, Riley?

At least to me, "fascinating" is attractive in a positive sense, while "interesting" can, to me, adapt to either a positive attraction or a negative or even neutral, entirely detached non-emotional engagement. My first experience with his writings was before I returned to the Church, and was a searcher looking anywhere not traditionally Catholic. I took him to be a pantheist - God is the universe - yet a universe having some sort of "cosmic consciousness" that in a non-personal way, was necessarily evolving. Because he was a Jesuit, I was very interested in hearing a talk by a Jesuit visiting the local university where I was at the time. This Jesuit was the only Jesuit I had, at that time, ever even seen before. I went to hear him expecting to learn more about "cosmic consciousness". This visiting Jesuit had no interest in talking about Teilhard, but rather proved to be the most Christ-like man I have ever known on this earth, and a friend and spiritual director for me for decades, until he finally passed on.

Teilhard is to me now, a tragedy. Like many others I have met having great intelligence, I think probably he was too smart for his own good.

RileyG said:

Although I didn’t agree with much of his theology, I just found it interesting how he was heavily influenced by evolution and archeology.

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In an essay titled "The Mysticism of Science," dated March 1939, Teilhard wrote:

"We should feel very uncomfortable, not to say ‘asphyxiated’ if we were obliged to return today to the planetary spheres and cubic skies by which some thinkers right into the seventeenth century believed the world to be enclosed. But we should be far more stifled if we had to accept the narrow boundaries into which our ancestors, right up to the nineteenth century, squeezed the ages of the universe, without discomfort. The perspectives of unbounded time with which we fill our lungs have become so natural that we forget how recently and at what cost they were conquered. And yet nothing is more certain: less than two hundred years ago, the world’s leading thinkers did not imagine a past and would not have dared to promise themselves a future, of more than six or eight thousand years. An incredibly short time; and what is even more disturbing to our minds, a span of simple repetition during which things were conserved or reintroduced on a single plane, and were always of the same kind. [Human Energy, pp. 168-169]

"At what cost"? When our rationality comes up against our faith tradition there will always be a cost for resolution.

I loved some of the writings of Teilhard de Chardin! I didn't understand everything he wrote, as he had a scientific mind
and wrote on complex issues that were over my head.

FYI, Teilhard de Chardin was in the scientific team that discovered Peking Man.

He was silenced mostly because at the time, the Church had leaders who feared the theory of evolution. Many at the time
thought he was promoting Darwin's theories on evolution, but he was not, as the Church came to understand
and are now more positive toward his writings.

One of the things he wrote on evolution that I agree with and I'm paraphrasing here, is that human beings
evolved biologically quickly, until about 10,000 years ago. Then, the biological evolution slowed way down.
However, the intellectual and spiritual evolution continued and still does today.

Teilhard de Chardin, served as a stretcher bearer during WWI, because as a priest he refused to carry a gun,
As a result, he saw the horrors of war firsthand and became an opponent of war.

Akita Suggagaki said:

In an essay titled "The Mysticism of Science," dated March 1939, Teilhard wrote:

"We should feel very uncomfortable, not to say ‘asphyxiated’ if we were obliged to return today to the planetary spheres and cubic skies by which some thinkers right into the seventeenth century believed the world to be enclosed. But we should be far more stifled if we had to accept the narrow boundaries into which our ancestors, right up to the nineteenth century, squeezed the ages of the universe, without discomfort. The perspectives of unbounded time with which we fill our lungs have become so natural that we forget how recently and at what cost they were conquered. And yet nothing is more certain: less than two hundred years ago, the world’s leading thinkers did not imagine a past and would not have dared to promise themselves a future, of more than six or eight thousand years. An incredibly short time; and what is even more disturbing to our minds, a span of simple repetition during which things were conserved or reintroduced on a single plane, and were always of the same kind. [Human Energy, pp. 168-169]

"At what cost"? When our rationality comes up against our faith tradition there will always be a cost for resolution.

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I have found "our rationality" just as fragile and corruptible as "our faith tradition" - such is the brokenness and sinfulness of our poor and needy souls.

fide said:

I have found "our rationality" just as fragile and corruptible as "our faith tradition" - such is the brokenness and sinfulness of our poor and needy souls.

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O, I completely agree. We can apply our "rationality" to justify anything.

I believe that Peking man was found to be fake and Teilhard was complicit. I have to do more research

His analysis of past science reeks of Cartesian materialism which denied miracles and sought to bring God down to the laws of His creation rather than creation being subject to God.

Much of what we consider science today is merely the imaginations of men and then overconfidence in that imagination

Evolution cannot explain the Cambrian explosion, and we are only beginning to grasp the vast complexities of the genome. It is much more than a simple arrangement of A, C, T and G
Evolution has been forced on us as a simple explanation to deny God, but thankfully modern science is seeing much more to genetics and the presence of an intelligence in the genome which cannot be explained by natural material means
Our modern space telescopes are also seeing that the Big Bang theory of a singularity is not straightforward as expected and we really don’t know what happened.
It is ironic that modern science is being found to be the myth, and Genesis explains the universe more in line with observable science than the evolution and cosmology we have been force fed ever could.
We don’t even know the real speed of light. We know the speed of reflection which is subtle but not the same. On the grand scale, if our error is in astronomy then our error is astronomical and what we think we know, we now have no idea.
Everyone has been told that Galileo proved that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but that is not true. It cannot be proven by observation that the earth revolves around the Sun. It is by calculation which is subject to the errors of human thought. Galileo observed that Venus orbits the Sun and moons orbit Jupiter, but he could not observe that earth does the same. He just said it was true and showed fancy calculations, and a world eager to be free of the Church and free of God eagerly believed him and we were all told to stop thinking. God was then wist away as a child’s fable akin to Santa Claus.
Thankfully, modern science is seeing the insufficiency of what was once believed true yet now is in doubt. This all did not happen by random chance and a single explosion of hyper dense matter. The observable universe does not reveal that.
Genesis tells us that water was first then the first great light then the firmament then the Earth and then the Sun, moon and stars. There is nothing in the observable universe which contradicts it, yet people say it is a myth and even Christians say it is allegory and God did not really mean it. Then why is the more we learn casting doubt on evolution and the truth being shown in Genesis?

They loved not the truth, so God sent them strong delusion to believe the lie rather than the truth. So me where evolution has been observed. No where because one can’t. It is only in the imaginations of men. Observation shows that we are not evolving but are breaking down by genetic entropy.

Materialism alone does not explain the universe. Evolution violates known philosophical first principles. I believe Teilhard was fascinated with it in his desire to share God with the world. He did not have the data we now have to show the fallacy and hence the error of theistic evolution

Oh you will get people who will laugh and ridicule belief in God, but they do not have the data to back up their claims, only their imaginations to which I will not bow. We bow only to the Lord God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

boughtwithaprice said:

I believe that Peking man was found to be fake and Teilhard was complicit. I have to do more research

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The sources I googled including the link I provided, say nothing about Peking Man being fake.

Here's another; Peking man | Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, China | Britannica

JimR-OCDS said:

The sources I googled including the link I provided, say nothing about Peking Man being fake.

Here's another; Peking man | Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, China | Britannica

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Have you checked the journal, Paleoanthropology 2021:1:85-97?

It contains an analysis of the lack of authenticity of the bones of Peking man.

boughtwithaprice said:

Have you checked the journal, Paleoanthropology 2021:1:85-97?

It contains an analysis of the lack of authenticity of the bones of Peking man.

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Why would I, I never even heard of it.

I just went to the site you posted and there is nothing I could see of Peking Man being fake.

JimR-OCDS said:

Why would I, I never even heard of it.

I just went to the site you posted and there is nothing I could see of Peking Man being fake.

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Strange. As even the article you posted to me contains the obscure disclaimer regarding Homo Erectus

Such a reading of the fossil record may be incorrect. In fact, there is very little evidence about the variability of features such as cranial thickness and external embellishments of the skull among even one population of H. erectus, let alone among different populations dispersed through two or three large continents. Practically nothing is known about the climatic or ecological conditions under which cranial thickening occurred. Also unknown is the relationship between skull growth and the brain enlargement that is such a striking feature of hominin evolution. These and many other questions must be answered before H. erectuscan be either confirmed or written off as an ancestor of Homo sapiens


This statement tells me that the author has no idea what he is talking about and reads more like a wish list for a cheer leader of evolution, not a serious scientific article.

If you have never heard of scientific journals, then why do you speak as if you are all knowing on the subject? You have presented no evidence only beliefs of other authors
A simple review shows that Peking man fossils are not available for examination, only photographs, making the evidence twice removed for serious scrutiny. Two questions remain. Are the bones authentic? Are the photographs authentic? Such uncertainty makes any position of argument suspect.

Do you see that ?

boughtwithaprice said:

Strange. As even the article you posted to me contains the obscure disclaimer regarding Homo Erectus

Such a reading of the fossil record may be incorrect. In fact, there is very little evidence about the variability of features such as cranial thickness and external embellishments of the skull among even one population of H. erectus, let alone among different populations dispersed through two or three large continents. Practically nothing is known about the climatic or ecological conditions under which cranial thickening occurred. Also unknown is the relationship between skull growth and the brain enlargement that is such a striking feature of hominin evolution. These and many other questions must be answered before H. erectuscan be either confirmed or written off as an ancestor of Homo sapiens


This statement tells me that the author has no idea what he is talking about and reads more like a wish list for a cheer leader of evolution, not a serious scientific article.

If you have never heard of scientific journals, then why do you speak as if you are all knowing on the subject? You have presented no evidence only beliefs of other authors
A simple review shows that Peking man fossils are not available for examination, only photographs, making the evidence twice removed for serious scrutiny. Two questions remain. Are the bones authentic? Are the photographs authentic? Such uncertainty makes any position of argument suspect.

Do you see that ?

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All I posted about was Teilhard De Chardin and what I found on the internet.

I'm not interested in getting into this argument. I don't have the expertise to comment
on the subject of Peking Man nor other fossil remains.

JimR-OCDS said:

All I posted about was Teilhard De Chardin and what I found on the internet.

I'm not interested in getting into this argument. I don't have the expertise to comment
on the subject of Peking Man nor other fossil remains.

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I don’t want to argue with you either. I am reviewing the facts. Peking man is not substantiated, but a man without expertise, by your own admission, has been conditioned to accept it without review.

Do you find that strange?

JimR-OCDS said:

I loved some of the writings of Teilhard de Chardin! I didn't understand everything he wrote, as he had a scientific mind
and wrote on complex issues that were over my head.

FYI, Teilhard de Chardin was in the scientific team that discovered Peking Man.

Religious Scientists: Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (1881-1955); Jesuit paleontologist - Vatican Observatory

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) Credit: French Jesuit Archives If one mentions the name Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the first thing that comes to mind...

www.vaticanobservatory.org

He was silenced mostly because at the time, the Church had leaders who feared the theory of evolution. Many at the time
thought he was promoting Darwin's theories on evolution, but he was not, as the Church came to understand
and are now more positive toward his writings.

One of the things he wrote on evolution that I agree with and I'm paraphrasing here, is that human beings
evolved biologically quickly, until about 10,000 years ago. Then, the biological evolution slowed way down.
However, the intellectual and spiritual evolution continued and still does today.

Teilhard de Chardin, served as a stretcher bearer during WWI, because as a priest he refused to carry a gun,
As a result, he saw the horrors of war firsthand and became an opponent of war.

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Teilhard de Chardin's writing are rightly condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. See Teilhard de Chardin Refuted by Saint Thomas Aquinas. See also Evolution Refuted by the Ribosme.

Edwin Wright said:

Teilhard de Chardin's writing are rightly condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. See Teilhard de Chardin Refuted by Saint Thomas Aquinas. See also Evolution Refuted by the Ribosme.

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But later the Church accepts his writings, although he is still not part of the canon.

Also, when the Church had some issues with his writings, it had to do mostly with his thesis on evolution. The subject
wasn't accepted at the time because of Darwin's book but it is today.

Teilhard de Chardin, never stated that humans evolved from other species, but humans did evolve biologically and
the biological evolution slowed down about 10,000 years ago. However, the intellectual and spiritual evolution continued
and continues today.

OH, and as far as the article you posted, Thomas Aquinas (born 1225) was long before evolution was known and before Teilhard de Chardin (born 1881).