1. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Chapter Four
The God of the Cosmos

2. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Background
 In 1881, he is born in
Auberge (same province as
Pascal) of central France.
 Family consists of 11
children of Emmanuel and
Berthe-Adele.
 Father is a
wealthy, educated
landowner.
 Family has relation to
Voltaire.
 Feels a calling from God at
a young age.

3. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Vocations
 At 11, he attends a Jesuit boarding school with a
reputable natural science program near Lyons, and
performs well in Science and Religion.
 Becomes a Jesuit novice.
 1901-1905 he studies
philosophy, geology, zoology, and theology at
Jersey (island in English Channel), as a result of
strict French orders concerning religion.
 1905 he teaches science at Jesuit high school in
Cairo, Egypt. Meantime he searches
archaeological sites of old Christian and Muslim
communities.
 Studies theology, geology, paleontology in
Hastings, England. Compares St. Paul and St.
John‟s cosmic passages with personal scientific
conclusions.

4. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Vocations cont.
 1912 studies geology
and paleontology in
Paris.
 Visits and studies
data at Museum of
Natural History.
 Participates in
Archeological projects
in France and Spain
that increases his
interest in evolution.

5. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Vocations cont.: War
In 1914 World War I caused him to
become a medical orderly responsible for
carrying stretchers at the front of battle.
Impressive battles include Ypres, Verdun,
and Marne.
Earns many decorations especially a
Legion of Honor.
War had a tremendous impact on Teilhard.
He developed many new views, and
strengthened his own theories for himself.
For example, war is where he found
„absolute‟.

6. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Vocations cont.
 After the war, Teilhard pursues a degree in
natural science at the Sorbonne.
 1921 He says that the evolutionists Jean Baptiste
de Monet de Lamarck and Charles Dawin were on
to an authentic truth in their pursuit of proving
evolution.
 1922 he graduates with a doctorate and the highest
honors.
 Next, He teachers geology at the Institute
Catholique in Paris.
 He becomes a priest (pg 130- no specifics offered
as to how or why)

7. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Vocations cont.: Movement of Evolution
Teilhard is for the movement of
evolution, and disagrees with the
immobilists.
Brennan R. Hill, our
author, says, “(Evolution) would come to be
his most enduring contribution.”
During 1922 he was invited to speak before
Jesuit seminarians, and they requested for
him to write an essay which they could
study.
The essay reached the Vatican and caused
concern.

8. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Vocations cont.: Exploring China
Before the Vatican censors could act
Teilhard accepted an invitation to travel to
China.
He excavated in the Yellow River Basin
area.
While in China he wrote Mass on the
World.
When he returned to Paris he received a
letter that demanded for him agree to be
silenced.

9. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
vocations cont.: Exile
Only a short time after he appealed to
the letter he was ordered by the Jesuit
General to leave France.
At the age of forty-five he found exile
in China.
Over the next twenty years he could
not publish his writing.
He experienced political turmoil and
war between Japan and China.

10. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
vocations cont.: Exile
He participated in archaeological
expeditions, and discovered „Peking Man‟.
He studied in Africa and India, and studied
the „Java Man‟ in Burma.
He visited the U.S. and France a lot.
He distributed essays to familiar
people, and he began to write The Divine
Milieu in an attempt to be accepted again in
France.
He was allowed to bring his manuscript to
France in 1927, but he could not stay or
publish his book.

11. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
vocations cont.
In 1928 after deeply critiquing the
church, he returns to France and
cannot publish his essay The
Phenomenon of Man.
He considered it to be his best work.
After World War Two he could
return to Paris.
In 1947 he received the Legion of
Honor citation from France.

12. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
vocations cont.
He becomes a member of the French
Academy of Sciences, but was very ill and
recovering from a heart attack.
In 1948 while visiting the U.S. he was
invited to lecture at Harvard and Columbia.
In 1949 at Rome he is denied publication
of The Phenomenon of Man, lecturing in
the U.S., and professorship in France.
1951 He went to South Africa to study.

13. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
vocations cont.
Left copies of his writing with
Mademoiselle Mortier for protection.
After a few months in South Africa
he went to the U.S.
Died on April 19, 1955
In 1981 Pope John Paul the
Second wrote a letter of praise over
Chardin.

14. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Ideas
 Religious foundation from his mother, and interest
in nature from his father causes him to search for
the „absolute‟ (something tangible and eternal).
 Believes that Divine resides in “the heart of all
matter”, and that God and The World complete
each other. Also, he believes God uses The World
to attain us so we attain Him, and that God can be
found in The World.
 In addition, he believes matter is the source of life.
 Awareness that God and Nature are intimately
linked.
 Believes in presence of “Universal Being” in
nature, a “blood stream or nervous system
running through the totality of life.”

15. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Ideas: Change in Traditional Beliefs
 He says after comparing
theological beliefs to
science, “Matter and Spirit:
these were no longer two
things, but two states or two
aspects of one and the same
cosmic Stuff…”
 His belief that the Universe
evolved was from reading
Henri Bergson‟s writing.
 Belief that matter and spirit
are united, the idea originated
from an acquaintence with
Father Joseph Marechal.

16. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Ideas cont.
Teilhard de Chardin believes God is
everywhere in the process of formation in us;
God is the heart of everything.
Teilhard de Chardin‟s mission is to unite God
above with the God ahead among believers.
Looks at Cosmos as the Body of Christ, and
that our God is better than those of different
religions, because He is fully engaged in the
conquest of The World for the cosmic Christ.
Teilhard believes that war victims become close
to God in death, because he said he saw „divine
eyes revealed‟ in dying soldiers.

17. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Ideas cont.
He says, “God, the personal and loving
Infinite, is the Source, the motive Force
and the End of the universe.”
In war he develops that God is everywhere
(not just in the formation of us).
Growing belief is, “God is also the Heart
of it all.”
He establishes a belief that he is a part of
God‟s renewal of The World from noticing
the difference from the characteristics of the
Universe and human‟s „trite
pretentiousness‟.

18. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Ideas cont.
Strongly feels that Nature is
„becoming‟, and that The Universe
including human spirit is changing.
Of evolution he commented, “(it) proves
nothing for or against God”. He believes
that such unity is suited to religious
tradition.
He considers „The Universal Christ‟ the
“organic center of the entire universe”.
Big Statement, “nothing is here below
profane for those who know how to see”.

19. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin