Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qlrfm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-15T12:25:39.419Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Teilhard de Chardin's Christocentric Trinitarianism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Agneta Sutton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Not only did Pierre Teilhard de Chardin speak about the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart and see the Holy Spirit as the driving force of evolution, but the human union and community of persons joined by mutual love, in what he called the ‘noosphere’, was clearly analogous in his mind to the Trinitarian union of persons. Yet the Trinitarian dimension of Teilhard's writings has received little attention. On Teilhard's understanding, the Holy Spirit is the power through which evolution becomes the awakening of soul or spirit in matter, rather than being random variation and natural selection. It is also the Holy Spirit who promotes spiritual evolution in the human heart and opens human eyes to the divine presence in the world. Finally, Teilhard's concept of the ‘noosphere’ is analogous to that of the Trinity, understood as a personal unity where neither the individual person nor the Trinity as a whole would be complete without the other.

Keywords

TrinitarianHoly SpiritSoulEvolutionDivine MilieuNoosphere
Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 92 , Issue 1037 , January 2011 , pp. 90 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 The Author. New Blackfriars © 2010 The Dominican Society.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I am indebted to Canon Leo Declerck, Rosemary Cattell and Michael Sutton for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

References

2 Grumett, David, Teilhard de Chardin: Theology, Humanity, and Cosmos (Leuven, Paris and Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005), p. 130.Google Scholar

3 http:www.zenit.org/phprint.php., accessed August 19th, 2009.

4 Immanentism was an ‘error’ that was condemned in the first and middle parts of the last century under the title of modernism. But the condemnation of immanentism in Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis was not directed at Teilhard, since at that time his writings were not yet published. But in 1962 he was given a warning. See, Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, Warning Regarding the Writings of Father Teilhard de Chardin, June 30th, 1962.

5 Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, The Divine Milieu, (DM) (New York: HarperCollins, 2001).Google Scholar

6 Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, The Human Phenomenon (HP), ed. and trans. Appleton‐Weber, Sarah (Brighton and Portland, Oregon: Sussex Academic Press, 1999).Google Scholar

7 Chardin, Teilhard de, ‘Mon Univers’(‘My Universe’), in Science et Christ (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1965), pp. 63–114.Google Scholar The translations of terms and sentences quoted from this text are mine. It is also to be noted that the 1924 paper is not to be confused with a paper in English under the same title in Cardin, Pierre Teilhard de, The Heart of the Matter (Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, 1978), pp. 196–208.Google Scholar The latter was written in 1918.

8 SC, 73.

9 SC, 76.

10 SC, 71.

11 This is not to say that Teilhard was not influenced by Darwin's theory or by what Bergson had borrowed from it. See, Grumett, David, ‘Teilhard de Chardin's Evolutionary Natural Theology’, Zygon, 42 (no. 2)(2007), pp. 520–534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 SC, p. 75.

13 SC, p. 78.

14 SC, p. 77. I have written Spirit with a capital S, because Teilhard here wrote ‘l’Esprit’, with a capital e.

15 SC, p. 82.

16 Other Pauline passages referred to are: Col 2:10; Col 3:2; Eph 4:9.

17 For a detailed and sympathetic account of Teilhard's understanding of love, one that covers a variety of aspects of love, see Lubac, Henri de, The Eternal Feminine (London: Collins, 1971).Google Scholar

18 As Gustave Martelet noted, Teilhard's understanding was not that of God as a sort of a clock‐maker. See, Martelet, Gustave, Et si Teilhard disait vrai. (Paris: Editions Parole et Silence, 2006), p. 19.Google Scholar

19 HP, p. 96.

20 HP, p. 97.

21 HP, p. 193.

22 HP, p. 191.

23 HP, p. 193.

24 HP, pp. 101–102.

25 HP, p. 99.

26 HP, p. 211.

27 HP, p. 211.

28 DM, p. 4.

29 Central to Teilhard's eschatology, as is Rom 7: 18–25 and also Col 1: 16–20.

30 DM, p. 24.

31 DM, p. 24.

32 DM, p. 25.

33 DM, p. 27.

34 DM, p. 31.

35 DM, pp. 31–32.

36 DM, p. 33.

37 DM, p. 35.

38 DM, p. 49.

39 DM, p. 89.

40 DM, p. 93.

41 DM, p. 95.

42 Cf, Rom. 8:23.

43 DM, p. 98.

44 DM, p. 98.

45 DM, p. 94.

46 See, DM, p. 130.

47 DM, p. 103.

48 DM, p. 121.

49 DM, p. 133.

50 Hp, p. 172.

51 HP, p. 173.

52 Hp, p. 179.

53 HP, p. 186.

54 HP, p. 191.

55 HP, p. 186.

56 HP, p. 188.

57 DM, p. 88.

58 DM, p. 86.

59 DM, p. 87.

60 Lubac, Henri de, Teilhard Postume: Réeflexions et Souvenirs (Paris: Fayard, 1977), p. 40.Google Scholar

61 Chardin, Teilhard de, ‘Le Christianisme dans le Monde’, in Chardin, Teilhard de, Science et Christ (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1965), p. 139.Google Scholar

62 Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, ‘The Christic’, in Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, The Heart of the Matter (HM) (Orlando, Florida: Harourt, 1978), p. 89.Google Scholar

63 Hm., pp. 80–102.

64 Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, ‘Sauvons L’Humanité, in Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, Science et Christ (Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1965), pp. 169–191.Google Scholar See also, Lubac, Henri de, Teilhard Postume: Réflexions et Souvernirs (Paris: Fayard, 1977), p. 43.Google Scholar

65 HP, p. 214.

66 See, HP, p. 168.

67 HP, p. 206.

68 See, HP, pp. 206–207.

69 HP, p. 213.

70 HP, p. 214.