de Chardin

[TRH1292]

I am the OP.

Forgive, this is so complex.

Did Chardin believe in God as in the Catholic sense?

THANKS!

Yes. He was a priest.

 

[empther]

I am the OP.

Forgive, this is so complex.

Did Chardin believe in God as in the Catholic sense?

In what I read of his works,
he spends all his time discussing his theory of matter consciousness and how increasingly complex collections of matter lead to increasingly complex consciousness, human intelliegence, the future “noosphere” and the ultimate “omega point”

I can’t find any of that in the New Testament, which Chardin barely mentions if at all.

No wonder the Church allowed this guy to go off doing his paleanthology expeditions in China. Would you want him to be yhour parish priest? :bigyikes:

People who write books filled with weird ideas will find a ready market. Whether they actually accomplish anything positive for their fellow man is another issue.
When Bishop Sheen was a young priest studying in England, some philosopher wrote a best seller about an evolving, growing God. Sheen went to see this guy and pointed out why God is an infinite, unchanging God. The man said, “I never thought about it that way.” Sheen asked if he had read Aquiinas. The man answered, “No, and I don’t think I will. You make your reputation in this world not from truth but from novelty, and my theory is novel.”
:bigyikes: :banghead: :crying:

 

[TRH1292]

In what I read of his works,
he spends all his time discussing his theory of matter consciousness and how increasingly complex collections of matter lead to increasingly complex consciousness, human intelliegence, the future “noosphere” and the ultimate “omega point”

I can’t find any of that in the New Testament, which Chardin barely mentions if at all.

No wonder the Church allowed this guy to go off doing his paleanthology expeditions in China. Would you want him to be yhour parish priest? :bigyikes:

People who write books filled with weird ideas will find a ready market. Whether they actually accomplish anything positive for their fellow man is another issue.
When Bishop Sheen was a young priest studying in England, some philosopher wrote a best seller about an evolving, growing God. Sheen went to see this guy and pointed out why God is an infinite, unchanging God. The man said, “I never thought about it that way.” Sheen asked if he had read Aquiinas. The man answered, “No, and I don’t think I will. You make your reputation in this world not from truth but from novelty, and my theory is novel.”
:bigyikes: :banghead: :crying:

Pope Benedict XVI has spoken positively of his works in his speeches and in his books several times.

For instance in Spirit of the Liturgy:
"“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.”

As Father Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson said: “By now, no one would dream of saying that [Teilhard] is a heterodox author who shouldn’t be studied.”

 

[empther]

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.”

Well, ok, if all this means that Christ takes up the world to himself just like the Son of God took up the humanity of Christ to himself.
But is this really what Chardin is saying?
Or is Chardin saying that the “consciousness” in matter even down to the individual atom is doing this evolutionary/unionification?

That’s the trouble with Chardin. He doesn’t define his terms. He makes everything so vague you can’t nail down exactly what he’s saying.

I’m surprised the Pope mentioned him.

Maybe he’s still big among the Europeans ( they discuss philosophy in cafes over there ) and the Pope was trying to tell them there’s room in the Church for everybody.

 

[juliamajor]

I"m finding lately that many Catholics on blogs have made themselves arbiters of what is heresy and what is not. Who is orthodox and who is not. I find that most disconcerting. . If you do not like a particular point of view -don’t read it. But do not defame someone and scare people into thinking that they are poor Catholics because the read Father so n so. If they have not been censured by the bishop, the Pope or Magisterium and are told, not to read because they are detrimental to our faith, than we are free to read.
nothing justifies disparaging a fellow believer openly-especially one who has passed.
It is unkind.

 

[Cecilianus]

Calling Teilhard’s ideas “New Age” seems unhelpful to me not because it’s incorrect (I don’t think it is), but rather because sweeping labels to categorize broad streams of thought can distract us from the question whether specific teachings or ideas are correct or not. Even New-Agers can get things right. And the only reason not to categorize Teilhard as New-Agey is because the term is too broad, and too vague. He is what he is - and a little bit “out there”.

I consider myself a fan of Teilhard, and certainly regard his works as valuable and worth studying, worth learning from. Reading Henri de Lubac’s commentaries on Teilhard may help elucidate and draw out the value in them a bit better. His works were given a “monitum” (warning) by the Vatican, and the CDF has reiterated that the monitum remains in effect. A monitum does not mean “this is a heretic and you are risking going to hell, becoming demonically possessed, or worst of all becoming a Packers fan if you read this guy”; it means “read with caution, take with a grain of salt, and approach with maturity”.

He reads better as a poet than as a scientist or a theologian. “Writings in the Time of War” and “The Divine Milieu” are his best works, better than “The Phenomenon of Man”, and certainly better than his unpublished fragments, where his least orthodox statements (claiming an incompatibility between the scientific worldview and original sin, etc.) are to be found.

During his life he submitted to the authority of the Church when they imposed silence upon him, and he was never an obstinate dissenter like Kung. He was simply a speculative thinker whose speculations tended to be a bit wild.

 

[Jim_Baur]

Cecilianus

thanks!