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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Chapter FourThe God of the Cosmos


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.


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.


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.


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’.


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)


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.

Pierre Teilhard de ChardinIdeas

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.”


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.


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.


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’.


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”.

theology pierre teilhard de chardin powerpoint

Education