Teilhard de Chardin 3 -.pptx

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Teilhard de Chardin

What role does evil play
in the concrete order of things?

We live in an evolving universe, that is growing into ever higher states of
complexity. That means the world is growing out of imperfect states into
more perfect ones. In such a world, evil is inevitable, according to Teilhard.
Whatever has yet to be completed is of necessity imperfect, defective,
unfinished. Evil is thus structurally part of an evolving world.
An evolving world and a perfect world would be mutually contradictory.

Evolution is a laborious process of trying things out,
so that disaster, pain suffering and death necessarily go with it.
In this world evil is no accident.
It is an essential aspect of an evolution
which has to pick its way through
a maze of errors and misplaced efforts.
Since God willed to create a world that
must grow to its completion
via an evolution,
imperfection and evil
were bound to occur.
It could not be otherwise.

With the appearance of humans in the world, self-aware and free,
moral evil enters the world.
For we too are imperfect and incomplete beings.
So long as we have not reached the end that is our destiny, sin remains possible.
The higher human awareness and freedom rise,
the more our power to do both good and evil increases.
“…Suffering among the living, sin in the sphere of freedom; there is
no order under formation which does not at every stage involve disorder.”
“Anything that makes me sink lower, that is the real evil.”

“Anything that makes me sink lower,
that is the real evil.”

Evil, then, is a universal phenomenon
in a world in evolution.
Evil is attendant upon the whole of evolution.
It is inevitable in a world
that can only be completed
through long and difficult struggle.

If Teilhard has been found optimistic in his overall approach,
it was not for underestimating the place of evil.
It was because he was convinced that, in the end,
good will triumph over evil, order over chaos.

Precisely because evil had such a large place in it,
the world stood in radical need of salvation.
For the very reason that evil has this cosmic dimension,
the redemption by Christ must have a truly cosmic dimension as well.
His cross comes to take on a whole new meaning here.

“Seen against the background of such a
universe, where the battle with evil forms the
sine qua non of existence, the cross becomes
even more critical and takes on a fresh beauty.
Of course, Jesus remains the one who bears the
sins of the world: moral evil is in some
mysterious way made up for by suffering.
But even more essentially, Jesus is the one who
structurally overcomes matter’s inherent
resistance to the ascent of spirit,
overcoming this resistance in himself
and on behalf of us all.

He it is who bears the weight… of every kind of creation.
He is the symbol and gesture of progress.
The total and definitive meaning of redemption lies
not only in reparation, but in breakthrough and conquest.”

Catholic theology has always seen a negative
and a positive aspect in Christ’s redemption:
on the one hand taking away sin,
and on the other lifting up humans into holiness,
divinising them in Christ.
Teilhard preserves both aspects to the full.
To lift humanity up into holiness is the fruit of grace,
but, in the natural order too, humanity and the world
must be brought to their ultimate destiny.

The natural order can serve
the supernatural order,
and is vital to it.
Even on the natural plane
we may recognise the saving
and redeeming effect of Christ,
so that he can be called,
in the full sense of the term,
the Saviour of the world.

To fail to give Christ his total dimensions
in the new understanding of the world
seemed to Teilhard a serious danger
for Christianity.
These teachings are all to be found
in St Paul’s explanations of the Human God
who saves humanity,
where in a convergent universe
they take on much greater meaning.

What does it mean for us that God has become human in an evolving world,
worked hard like one of us, and then went on to redeem that world?
That was the question Teilhard tried to answer, completely in line
with Catholic theology, only setting it within the new world view.
The orders of creation and grace ultimately become a single unity.

“Catholicism had at first view disappointed me, by its narrow, constricted way
of presenting the world, and its failure to grasp the significance of matter.
I see now, however- following the human God whom Christianity reveals to
me- that I can only be saved as an integral part of the universe…
The total Christ is only perfected, and is only attainable, at the end of
universal evolution. In Him I have found what my very being dreamt of:
a personalised universe through whose dominion I am personalised.
And this soul of the world rises up before me… as the product of a long,
historical revelation, in which even the most sceptical are surely bound to
recognise one of the principal forces directing human progress.”

Christ is the point in which God and the universe meet together,
resolving tensions in a perfect synthesis.
The whole cosmic event and the whole of human history
at once become charged with meaning.
The world is not absurd; history is not blind chance:
they have a meaning, a direction and a goal.

Through all the ups and downs, the mighty course of world history draws on
toward its definitive goal: the revealing of the total Christ, risen and living
in persons and the whole of nature,
crowned with the glories of the entire cosmos, at the end of the Age:
the unique and supreme event
in which the historic is to be fused with the transcendental.
That is why for every true Christian,
Christ is the meaning and the goal of history.

Therefore, the Church itself cannot be a minor phenomenon,
or a chance by-product, since she is the instrument, however inadequate,
bringing about Christ’s completion.
From an external viewpoint she presents herself as an arm of evolution,
which, with roots in the past, grows and develops through all the political,
social and cultural struggles of history.
In her deepest being, however,
she is a centre of divine power,
gathering together
the scattered races of humanity,
and carrying it upward
to its ultimate unity in Christ.

“At the very heart of the social phenomenon
a kind of ultra-socialisation is in progress,
through which the Church is slowly taking shape,
by bringing together through her influence all the spiritual energies
of the noosphere in their most noble forms, and giving them life:

the Church, that Christified part of the world aware of itself as such,
the Church, principal focus of inter-human relationships
through the intensity of its charity,
the Church, central axis of universal convergence
and the very spot where the universe and the Omega point
come rushing together.”

When we learn to see Christ as the goal of the natural
as well as the supernatural order,
the whole world takes on a meaningful and organic unity.
“For anyone who has once grasped the nature of a world
in which cosmogenesis,
focused and centred upon anthropogenesis,
culminates in Christogenesis-
for such a person everything,
every element
and every contingency in the universe
become lit up, aglow, animated
and infinitely lovable.”

“…lit up, aglow, animated and infinitely lovable.”
It is how Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
saw, and loved, the world.

Towards a new Christian
humanism

“How can we reconcile, and mutually nourish
the love of God and the healthy love of the world?”
This was Teilhard’s question,
because an unhealthy dualism
had been in operation
for centuries.

Once a Christian has learned to give Christ
his cosmic place as the Omega point,
this tension is resolved once and for all.
He or she can now plunge into all so-called
‘mundane’ tasks and problems,
seeing them as intrinsically pointed
toward Christ and God.

The love of Christ inspires all our earthly activity
because it is needed and oriented to Christ, Alpha and Omega.
“So, whatever our role as human beings may be, whether we are artists, working
people or scholars, we can if we are Christians, speed toward our actual work as
a way towards the supreme fulfilment of our beings.”

The natural completion of the human race is totally necessary to prepare for the
second coming of Christ.
“That there should be an apex to the cosmos
is just as necessary to Christ’s consummation
as was the presence of a woman to his conception.”

“In a universe where everything contributes to gradually forming the
spirit- which is uplifted by God into final union-
every kind of work, in its palpable reality,
becomes a path to holiness and communion.”

Yet Teilhard saw in the modern world a mighty hope,
a passion for work and research never known in history before.
“We have become aware that in adding to the stature of humankind,
we are also adding to the world’s stature, and this creates a great moral
energy which is increasingly becoming the normal …driving force behind all
human activity.”
If we are truly aware of the claims
Christ makes on us, we should be
on the front lines,
giving a lead in the best and finest activities
of modern people.

It was precisely Teilhard’s passionate love for Christ
that made him feel so strongly for humanity’s progress
through science and social action.
This has not always been the case with the Church.
“Let us be honest about this: only gradually
has the Church come to recognise and to value
– as we now do- the noble pride of human beings
and their passion for systematic enquiry-
those twin basic pillars of modern thought.”
His message to his fellow Christians was exactly this:
to show by their whole lifestyle and devotion to work just how much
religion can incentivise the real progress of humankind.

He seeks to enlarge the Christian virtues.
“LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
Does this basic Christian attitude mean only
that we are to relieve the cares and sorrows
of others?
Or does it not also imply that we should
actively spend ourselves on behalf of
the great body of humankind,
not merely to heal its wounds,
but to enter into all its hopes and fears
and to build it up in line with
what creation demands?”

Christian love is the great, all-embracing force to help us
towards realising what it is to be fully human,
to be the human race.
Ethics arise as we become aware of our task
and dignity in the world.
The Christian moral values can be lifted
onto the cosmic plane and be perfectly at home
there, without losing their distinctiveness.
Even more, within the Christo-cosmic vision,
these values acquire fresh meaning and beauty.

“Loving one’s neighbor used to mean to do them no harm and heal their
wounds. Now… Christian love must also find its highest expression in
committing our whole lives to our common progress.
“To be pure used chiefly to mean: to abstain and to keep oneself unsullied.
From now on, chastity must be understood primarily as lifting upwards the
powerful impulses of the flesh and of every passion.
Detachment used to mean: not concerning oneself
with the things of earth more than necessary.
From now on detachment must mean
to rise beyond and to aspire beyond
every good and beautiful thing…-
and to do so precisely because of
the love we bear them.”

“…A new definition of holiness: at this moment
that is what almost all of us stand in need of.”

“A new humanism [as opposed to the older humanism of the
Renaissance] is everywhere on the rise… a humanism in which no
value whatever is going to survive – especially in the area of
religion- unless it leaves room for, and defers to, the claims of a
cosmic, ultra-human future.”
Teilhard’s originality lies in confronting
this new humanism
with the Christian interpretation of life.

“What is new in Teilhard
is not the scientific facts nor his religious ideas,
but the fact that the two worlds of science and of faith…
in his case coincided in a marvelous union of thought and life.”
Paul Chauchard

Teilhard wanted to blaze a trail for the new type of Christian of his
dreams- one whose love for their life’s task in an evolving world would
coincide with their love for Christ, goal and crowning glory of that world.
A Christian who would be focused upon the future,
and whose faith would take full account of the world’s new dimensions;
A Christian who would be as open to all human values
as they would be unconditionally committed to God.

Teilhard knew this was a mammoth task, to be achievable only
by all creative minds within the Church working together.

Religion can provide great incentive for the human task in the world.
But without religion, would humanity be equipped to achieve it?
This option has, and is, being tried out in totalitarian systems,
where religion in any form is firmly outlawed.

However, Teilhard has pointed out how the cosmos needs to have a personal
centre, if ever humanity is to actively aspire to authentic unity.
In his view therefore, it is only through faith in an authentic
transcendence that humanity can be empowered
to overcome the obstacles in its path,
that threaten the success
of human enterprises on earth.

“Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in a way
that completes and fulfils them,
for love alone takes them and joins them
by what is deepest in themselves.”

Left to ourselves, without a transcendent goal to unite our hearts, and give
meaning to our efforts, we surely risk despondency and despair, boredom,
and all the temptations to egoism, power-grabbing,
greed and self-indulgence.
Why is it that the richest, most advanced and freest societies are also those
where people most often use drugs, and have the highest suicide rate?

A new vision of life on earth is needed that will be credible
and inspiring to our science-based culture.
In Teilhard’s view, when developed to its full, cosmic form,
Christianity is uniquely able to offer this vision.

“May they all be one.
Father, may they be one in Us,
as You are in Me and I am in You.”

“For the person who grasps it deeply,
the Human God, the person of Christ,
his nature and his life,
is the sure way to unite with God in true holiness.
This holiness expresses
what it means to be authentically human.”
St Pedro Poveda

Pierre Leroy SJ, writes,
“The look in his eyes when they met your eyes revealed the man’s soul:
his reassuring sympathy restored your confidence in yourself.
Just to speak to him made you feel better; you knew that he was
listening to you and that he understood you.

His own faith was in the invincible power of love:
people hurt one another by not loving one another.
And this was not naiveté, but the goodness of the man,
for he was good beyond the common measure.
In him this belief… was the fruit of long meditation.
It was a certainty that came only with years of reflection.
It was this deep seated spiritual conviction that led
Fr Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to move beyond himself:
the self being forgotten in a sympathetic union
with all people and with every individual person.

What was really astonishing was his closeness to the
earth and his deep feeling for the value of matter.
People who were shocked by him never realised
how deeply rooted was this simultaneous
love of God and love of the world.” P. Leroy

“Throughout my whole life,
during every moment I have lived,
the world has gradually been taking on light and fire for me,
until it has come to wrap me around in one luminous mass,
glowing from within…
The purple flush of matter fading softly into the gold of spirit,
to be lost finally in an incandescent personal universe…
this is what my contact with the earth has taught me -

the shining-through of the divine at the heart of a glowing universe,
the divine radiating from the depths of matter a-flame”.

Teilhard lived during a period of doubt and uncertainty.
With other Jesuit students, he was driven from his own country, France,
by the injustice of political strife.
As a young man he was caught up in the terrible First World War,
where he had miraculous escapes as a stretcher bearer on the front lines.

As a Jesuit he was truly Ignatian in that he found God in all things.
His prayer life was deeply Christocentric, encompassing all of his waking
moments, and centred on his great love
for the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Eucharist.
He also had a great and tender reverence for Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
It was his own fate to be misunderstood
and condemned to silence,
and to suffer torments that at times
came near to overwhelming him…

Yet in all that he did, and all that he taught
there was no bitterness or cynicism,
nothing but a constant positive attitude.
What kept him writing?
“…I simply could not contain
my own feeling of wonder.”

What is the ultimate significance of
Teilhard de Chardin’s work?
Apart from its brilliant insights, the real importance
of his work lies in how hugely inspiring it is
to the modern imagination.
His primary intention was to find, and show,
the route to a new unity in our thinking.
“A conception of this sort is open to attack on a number of heads, but
the crucial point is whether in its main features it is acceptable, and
really does provide lines on which science, philosophy and theology
can coordinate their enquiry.” Bernard Delfgaauw

This work of putting Teilhard’s ideas to critical examination and argument
has been going on in full swing, [Leroy, 1963] and the broad lines of his
thinking are influencing a wide range of people.
His ideas are becoming part of
the intellectual landscape of our time.

Easter Sunday 1955 was the last day of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s life.
He had been living in New York, long forbidden to teach or to publish his work,
an exile from France where controversy continued to make his life impossible.
After his own early morning Mass, he had attended Mass at St Patrick’s
cathedral, followed by an afternoon concert he had thoroughly enjoyed.

He went to a friend’s apartment, and during the evening, as he stood
at the window, looking out over the city, suddenly collapsed.
“This time it’s really bad!” he exclaimed,
before losing consciousness, which he never regained.
He was seventy four.

“Lord,
Since with every instinct of my being,
and through all the changing fortunes of my life,
it is You whom I have ever sought,
You whom I have set at the heart of universal matter,
it will be in a splendour shining through all things,
and in which all things are ablaze,
that I shall have the happiness of closing my eyes.”

There is a great and beautiful Providence in the fact that Teilhard died
precisely on an Easter Sunday, as he had long wished to,
the day Christians celebrate the rising of Jesus out of death,
the cosmic meaning of which Teilhard sought to explain
to people born into a new culture of human making,
the culture of the 20th and 21st centuries, and beyond.

Teilhard de Chardin 3 -.pptx

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