Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1947)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1955)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin [ pjɛʁ tejaʁ də ʃaʁdɛ̃ ] ( listen ^{? / I} ) (born May 1, 1881 in Orcines near Clermont-Ferrand , † April 10, 1955 in New York ) was a French Jesuit , paleontologist , anthropologist and philosopher . He took part in several research trips to Asia and Africa and took part in the excavation and evaluation of the Peking man in China . In his main philosophical work Man in the Cosmos ( Le Phénomène humain, 1955) he attempted a synthesis of the natural scientific theory of evolution and Christian salvation history . He saw the divine creation, the cosmos, as an evolutionary process, in the course of which matter and spirit faced each other from the beginning as two states of the one “world substance” in a reciprocal relationship, in order to finally attain identity in the omega point by the matter in the People become aware of themselves.

After his death, the hitherto largely unprinted complete works, which the Church had long rejected, was published.

Life

Country palace Sarcenat around 1890, at the time when Teilhard grew up there

Teilhard de Chardin was born on May 1, 1881 at the Sarcenat country estate in Orcines in the Auvergne near Clermont-Ferrand . He was the fourth of eleven children of the librarian Emmanuel Teilhard de Chardin and Berthe-Adèle de Dompierre d'Hornoys. His parents came from the Auvergnate gentry. In addition to managing his estates, his father devoted himself to the Clermont-Ferrand archives. He was also interested in science and gave his children a wide variety of approaches to nature. His mother, a great-great-grandniece of Voltaire, was very religious. The connection of the Christian worldview with that of the natural sciences became Teilhard's life theme. Even as a child he showed a keen interest in plants and stones and started collections accordingly.

Training as a Jesuit priest and palaeontological research (1892-1914)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin at the age of 12

From the age of twelve Teilhard attended a Jesuit college. In 1899 he entered the Jesuit order as a novice in Aix-en-Provence . After the novitiate and during the beginning of the Juvenate, he had to leave the country because of the Jesuit persecution in France and began to study philosophy in a study house on the Channel Island of Jersey . In addition, he dealt with geology and fossils.

In August 1905 Teilhard began teaching physics for three years at the Jesuit college in Cairo. In addition, he went on geological excursions to Mokattam, Fayoum and Upper Egypt. From October 1908 he studied theology in Ore Place near Hastings in south-east England. After the scholasticism, he was ordained a priest on August 24, 1911. He allegedly never wants to abandon his vows of chastity and celibacy . Influenced by the work L'évolution créatrice by Henri Bergson , published in 1907, his later worldview crystallized in several essays on theological topics. Here his realization matured that spirit and matter are not two opposing things, but two states of the same cosmic substrate (see also evolution and creation (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) ).

In 1912 he left England to prepare for his doctorate with the French anthropologist Marcellin Boule . In August 1913 Teilhard went on vacation to Ore Place in the south-east of England, did some research with Charles Dawson and on August 30 found a monkey-like-looking canine that was showing signs of wear and tear, as is typical for humans. As a result, he was involved with Dawson from 1913 in the find of the Piltdown man in the south of England, which later turned out to be a fake. Teilhard, however, stubbornly and persistently denied that the Piltdown man was a scientific fake , and became entangled in contradictions in attempts to divert suspicion of complicity. During this time Teilhard made the decision to devote himself entirely to research into fossil life. His religious superiors did not mind, as they disliked his independent theological thinking. In preparation, he completed an additional course in paleontology, the science of living things from past geological ages, in Paris.

Front soldier in the First World War

In December 1914 Teilhard was drafted into the French army and immediately sent to the Western Front , where he stayed until the end of the war. The First World War, in which Teilhard was deployed as a medical corporal in a Moroccan rifle regiment, among others at the Battle of Verdun , the Battle of the Marne (1918) and the Battles of Ypres , interrupted his scientific career. In his war diaries he expressed his enthusiasm for his war effort, which initially made him happy and enthusiastic because, in his naivety, he believed that his engagement at the front could make a contribution to the progress of the cosmos, as he interpreted this war as. He refused a promotion to the rank of chaplain ( military chaplain ) in the rank of captain in order to be able to carry the wounded from the battlefield as a stretcher.

In the breaks from fighting he began to grapple with evolution and reject it. In 1916 he wrote the essay The Cosmic Life (contained in Early Writings ), in which he briefly indicates that he understands Christ as the center of the universe. He survived the war unharmed and was awarded the Legion of Honor for his courage and commitment. During this time he claims to have had several visions of Christ . He described this in detail in his autobiographical book The Heart of Matter . The images that sparked his visions were mainly related to Catholic symbols: the heart of Jesus, the monstrance, the host, etc.

In the spring of 1918 he wrote, in intensive exchange with his cousin, the philosopher Marguerite Teillard-Chambon , a hymn to The Eternal Female (also contained in early writings ). Teilhard made his solemn religious vows on May 26, 1918, and in March 1919 he was released from military service. For his military services he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor and awarded the Croix de guerre and the military medal.

First research trips and conflicts with the Church (1920–1926)

In 1920 Teilhard passed the scientific diploma examination at the Sorbonne and then wrote his dissertation on the mammals of the French lower Eocene . In 1922 he received his doctorate as Dr. rer. nat. and then received an extraordinary professorship for geology at the renowned Institut Catholique de Paris . Due to his unorthodox, albeit pious, way of thinking, he got caught up in an inextricable conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities, because his ideas about cosmic evolution and the overcoming of the matter-spirit dualism contradicted orthodox theological views. Therefore, he mainly worked as a geologist and palaeontologist and took part in several research trips that took him to Burma, Ethiopia, India, Java and China, where he explored the Ordos desert with a geologist friend. During this time u. a. the writings The Mass on the World, My Universe and The Appearance of Man.

In September 1924 Teilhard returned to Paris and resumed his lectures. He also wrote and published The Hominization, a scientific study of human evolution.

Exile in China and "The Divine Milieu" (1926–1932)

Teilhard's working paper, in which he tried to reinterpret the doctrine of original sin in the context of an evolutionary movement, made him a suspect in Rome. In order to save him a church trial, his order general Vladimir Ledóchowski decided in May 1925 to banish him to China. He then obediently finished his scientific work, gave up his Paris professorship and in April 1926 began his journey into exile in China, where he stayed for most of his life. As a result, he plunged into a deep internal crisis. He tried to deal with his personal catastrophe by describing his experiences and convictions in his “devotional book”, The Divine Milieu , written in 1926 . He considered the encounter with God to be possible even in a state of suffering, pain, and diminution.

Later his church superiors allowed him to take part in a longer expedition to eastern Mongolia, where Teilhard researched the tectonics of the earth's crust and carried out fossil studies. It was the beginning of a twenty year exile in Asia. He then went on five geological expeditions with a friend, which allowed him to create a geological map of China. In 1927 he toured Dalai Nur in eastern Mongolia, then made a detour to Abyssinia and French Somaliland. In addition, he wrote the first of his two main works, The Divine Area, for which the church censors refused to give him permission to print.

Teilhard during an excavation in the Castillo cave, 1913

Teilhard returned to China in 1929. In Beijing he met Lucile Swan , an American sculptor, with whom he maintained an intensive correspondence until his death. In the same year Teilhard took over the supervision of the National Geological Survey of China, and in December of this year the working group around Teilhard and Davidson Black caused a worldwide sensation because they found the first skull of the fossil Peking man (Sinanthropus Pekinensis) in one of the caves of Zhoukoudian discovered in Chou Kou Tien. It was a 500,000 year old link between humans and their presumed ape-like preliminary stage. This was one of the most significant paleontological events of the twentieth century. (Chinese researchers recently re-dated the bones. The result: the fossilized remains of Homo erectus are 780,000 years old.)

In 1931 he took part in the Croisière Jaune expedition with Citroën half-track vehicles across China. Teilhard's interest now turned more and more to human evolution, which was reflected in the analysis of finds, but also in numerous written works, presentations and extensive correspondence. Among other things, it was about the relationship between man and woman on a spiritual level.

Research trips around the world, "Man in the Cosmos" (1933–1945)

From February 1933 Teilhard undertook research in central China. During this time he wrote down My Faith . In 1935 he visited sites in India and Java together with Helmut de Terra (Mein Weg mit Teilhard de Chardin) . Back in Beijing, he designed various articles on the subject of 'personal universe'. In 1937 he traveled to the USA, where he was awarded the Gregor Mendel Medal in Philadelphia. A trip to Honolulu and Japan followed. Then it went back to China, then to Burma and back to Java. During this time The Spiritual Phenomenon and The Human Energy emerged. Teilhard undertook all of these trips together with friends and as a member of an international network of paleontologists and geologists.

Teilhard traveled a fifth time to Beijing for further research, where the Second World War captured him. During this time he wrote his main work, Man in the Cosmos ( Le phénomène humain, written in 1940), in which he attempted to dispel the contradictions between scientific and theological thinking. The ecclesiastical censorship authority refused permission to print the book . Instead, like other of his writings, the work was makeshift duplicated. Teilhard was only able to publish a few dozen scientific articles in specialist journals.

Honors, exile to New York (1946–1955)

In 1946 Teilhard returned to France. He tried to catch up with the intellectual milieu in Western Europe, attended conferences and continued to hope for the publication of his main works. On the night of June 1, 1947, he suffered a heart attack. In 1947 he was appointed officer of the Legion of Honor for his geoscientific achievements in Paris. Three years later, the French Academy of Sciences elected him a member. In other writings he rounded off his life's work, including his autobiography The Heart of Matter.

In 1951 Teilhard traveled to South Africa to excavate Australopithecus, which was discovered in 1925 . In the same year he was banished from France again, this time to New York , in connection with the recently published encyclical Humani generis (“On some false views that threaten to undermine the basis of Catholic teaching”). And again the seventy-year-old submitted to the discipline of the order. Teilhard spent his last years as an employee of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research in New York City. Especially in his last years Teilhard suffered from increasing tensions with Rome and with his order.

In the following four years he undertook research trips to North and South America and again to South Africa. He wrote his last writings such as The Energy of Evolution and The Substance of the Universe. Since 1947 he was a member of the Académie des sciences . In 1952 he became an honorary member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin died on Easter Sunday in 1955, in the middle of a discussion. He was buried in the Jesuit Cemetery in the Saint Andrew-on-Hudson Novitiate in Hyde Park, New York. After the novitiate closed (1968), the property was sold in 1970 to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), a world-renowned school for gastronomy, on whose campus the Jesuit cemetery and its grave are still located today.

After his death, sometimes with a delay of several years, his books could be printed and translated into other languages. They reached millions of copies in a short time after his lectures and clandestinely duplicated manuscripts had met with great interest.

plant

Teilhard's scientific work comprises 11 volumes with almost 5000 pages. His philosophical treatises are even more extensive. In addition to his books, he has written hundreds of essays and lectures, along with countless letters and diary notes. Most of the shorter writings have been published in thematic anthologies.

Teilhard's theses can be divided into two categories. Those in which he takes a more scientific-technical point of view can be found in his main work Le Phénomène humain (Man in the Cosmos) , written in 1940, and works such as The Origin of Man (La Place de l'Homme dans la Nature). And the more mystical and spiritual side that can be found in works like Le Milieu divin (The Divine Realm) . Both categories form the foundation of Teilhard's new theology, which could not receive an imprimatur or a nihil obstat (declaration of unobjectionability) from the Roman Catholic Church .

His work The Divine Realm - A Draft of Inner Life is about the individual inner soul development. Teilhard had started with the first drafts for this book in 1920 and wrote the definitive version in Tien Tsin in the winter of 1926/27 . After much back and forth it was not allowed to be printed and was only published in 1957, two years after his death.

For Teilhard, conscious reflection on the phenomena of existential disgust was of great importance. In his writings, he dealt extensively with the concept of disgust in life , which he considered to be the cause of the paralysis of life and which should be fought as a general enemy of humanity. From the time of the beginning of the Second World War, Teilhard devoted the greatest attention to the subject of existential disgust in his work. Against the background of his increasing depressive attacks and anxiety states and in view of the depressing world situation, he braced himself against defeatism , but expressed how threatened he saw himself and his vision of evolution towards the omega point and that the fight against disgust was in him took place itself.

Think

Teilhard's thinking is shaped by broad scientific knowledge and at the same time by deep Catholic piety. With his assumption that creation is to be seen as a process that will continue to the end of time with unimagined results and not as something complete and finished, as the biblical creation narratives seem to suggest, he softened the methodological boundaries between science and theology. For Teilhard, creation and evolution are not mutually exclusive. He also rethought the relationship between “necessary” development and human freedom. Theologically, he ties in with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as Spiritus Creator , who always interacts with creaturely freedom. Teilhard's further insights into the evolution of man, especially with regard to its spiritual aspects, are often compared with those of the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo , who sees man today as a transitional being to a higher level of development. Teilhard suffered from periodically recurring phases of existential deep depression since his youth . With the beginning of the Second World War, the time of his discouragement began. There were also anxiety states that persisted in the post-war period.

For Teilhard, mysticism is “the science of the sciences”. It is great science and great art, the only power capable of synthesizing the riches accumulated through other forms of human activity. In his eyes, the “mystical emotion” (la vibration mystique) cannot be separated from the “scientific emotion” (la vibration scientifique).

The basic intention of Teilhard's work lies in the reconciliation of the Christian faith with the evolutionary understanding of the world. He summarized his worldview in a kind of creed.

Overcoming the mind-matter dualism

Teilhard assumed the cosmos was progressively evolving into the spirit, which he described in idiosyncratic terms: According to this, life emerged from material through “hylogenesis” in various preliminary stages ( ancient Greek ὕλη hýlē “wood, material, matter”). This phase has passed into biogenesis , a sphere of life: the biosphere . Through the appearance of the spirit, more and more complex structures with more and more pronounced inwardness or centeredness would be formed up to the human being. Teilhard calls this third phase in the cosmic process the noogenesis, which leads to the noosphere (from nous, ancient Greek spirit). The noosphere is the last stage of cosmogenesis. Teilhard understands the spiritual as a centered reality that has become conscious of itself in people.

Up to this point, Teilhard finds himself in agreement with the majority of his scientific contemporaries, while the incorporation of the spirit into his cosmogenetic model was particularly unacceptable for theology, since he relativized the conventional dualism of spirit and matter.

The cosmogenesis stride after the emergence of the human spirit with the same dynamics, and according to the same laws of increasing complexity and convergence on.

Due to the laws of convergence, complexity, internalization and centering, for Teilhard the noosphere is a self-creating reality that tends towards a common center, a “hyper-personal” center. Teilhard equates the goal of noogenesis, especially in the late writings, with the "cosmic Christ". For him, noogenesis and christogenesis form a unit.

He differentiates between two phases within noogenesis: the phase of divergence , to which he counts the taking possession of the earth, striving apart, separating oneself from one another, and the phase of convergence, the groping search for and approaching one another. According to Teilhard, this phase has become visible primarily through the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. In his opinion it is carried on in Christianity. He expects from him not only the strongest impetus for convergence, but also final victory.

Love as cosmic energy

Since the whole of reality is directed towards a goal, the energy must be present in it that enables it to reach towards this goal. Teilhard believes he can discover this “cosmic energy” everywhere. He addresses this in various writings. At the human level it appears as the love energy. But it was at work long before humans. So he writes in Man in the Cosmos:

“When viewed in its full biological reality, love is not limited to humans. It is the attraction that one being has on another. It is peculiar to all life and is connected in different ways and to different degrees with all the forms in which organic matter gradually appears. [...] If there were not a tendency towards union in the molecule at an unbelievably rudimentary level, the appearance of love on a higher level, in the human form, would be physically impossible. "

For Teilhard love is the most universal, the most monstrous and the most mysterious of the cosmic energies. It is the driving force for all cosmological striving. It anticipates the ultimate goal, the organic unity of all being, already acting and suffering. For Teilhard, this love has already been fully realized in the heart of Jesus Christ. It did not penetrate into cosmic reality from outside, but just like the human spirit it sprang from this reality, changed its essence in the process and has become personal in man.

Both must be taken into account: the continuity of the love energy and the discontinuity through the respective transformation. Similar to how two lovers attract each other and change through this attraction, so the human spirit gives itself over to the greater one, it unites with it. It is from the beginning the same energy that drives the whole of reality, but it is transformed in the different phases of cosmogenesis. Under this aspect Teilhard describes the entire cosmic process as "amorization" (= unifying and perfecting love). That is why love is the primary driving force of cosmogenesis.

Christology Teilhards

Teilhard uses the term cosmic Christ in his works . Hypothetically, he imagined that “Christ would radiate life forces onto the universe with the help of a world soul (whose place he would take).” The world soul performs a work that is built up “from below” through human efforts on earth let the cosmic Christ develop. Christ receives a cosmic dimension through this cosmogenesis , and the cosmos receives a "Christian" dimension. Teilhard expresses this with the term Christogenesis . At one point he speaks of “theogenesis”, in the sense of the becoming god of total reality. The term cosmic Christ was coined a few years earlier by the Anglo-Indian theosophist Annie Besant .

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is thematized by Teilhard as a fact of salvation history and in his individual theological view: He considers the Passion and Easter stories and the resurrection to be a central truth. Overcoming death heralds the end times; in and through Christ begin a new humanity and creation. The church doctrine, according to which Christ has a human body and a divine nature, Teilhard supplements with the intuitively grasped thesis that the cosmic body of Christ is in development and at the same time is the ultimate goal of the natural evolution of all beings. Teilhard differentiates the fallen, earthly world from the divine realm (supernatural), which is only accessible to the believing consciousness. The divine realm resembles the Kingdom of God of the Gospel and unites apparently contradicting properties: universality and personality, immanence and transcendence, closeness and infinity.

The point omega

To describe the goal towards which cosmogenesis is groping, Teilhard used the metaphor Omega . He understood the point omega as a center of the overall reality reached the goal and tried to stay in conversation with non-Christians:

“If the point Omega were not naturally elevated above time and space, which it collects in itself, it would not be Omega. Autonomy, omnipresent activity, irreversibility and finally transcendence: these are the four attributes of Omega. "

Omega, the Eternal One, is a biblical title for Christ in the Revelation of John (Rev 21: 6). The “Point Omega” is the goal, direction and engine of evolution. Teilhard described in his main work Man in the Cosmos the unification of the world through God through Jesus Christ in the following words:

“Creating, completing and atoning for the world, as we already read in Paul and John, is for God the unification of the world in an organic union with itself. In what way does he unite it? By immersing himself into things to a certain extent, by making himself the 'element', and by then, by virtue of the base found in the heart of matter, taking over the leadership and the plan of what we call evolution today. In having risen as a human being among human beings, Christ has taken his position as the principle of universal life force, and he has always been in the process of bowing, purifying, directing and under him the general ascent of consciousness into which he has placed himself to animate to the utmost. "

In the booklet Mein Universum, which is dedicated to the Unio Creatrix, the unity of creation, Teilhard Christ referred even more directly to the point Omega:

"Because Christ is Omega, the universe is physically permeated to its material core by the influence of his superhuman nature."

The term omega made it difficult for Teilhard to allow the personal dimension of the target point of cosmogenesis to resonate. But everything was important to him to point out that the target point of cosmogenesis is understood as something personal, more precisely as a "hyper-personal". He wanted to show that for him spirit is a historically grown, biological, even planetary quantity, a real fruit of cosmogenesis and not an extra-cosmic accompanying phenomenon. As the spirit in man has become personal, the goal must also be understood as personal, as the center of all centered units. Teilhard did not see the perfection of man in a further perfecting of the individuals, but in the fulfilling merging of the individuals in the community.

Ethics and evolution

In Der Mensch im Kosmos (Le Phénomène Humain) , Teilhard presents his views of creation and evil in 1955. Instead of the creation story in six days , Teilhard describes the creation of the universe over millions of years and man as the latest product of evolution. Teilhard followed the course of human evolution and the Hominisation to return to previous human-like forms, the great apes . Consequently, he denies the biblical narrative in the Book of Genesis of Adam and Eve and the concept of original sin . In Teilhard's cosmos, evil is a response from matter that manifests itself on all material levels in the form of disorder, evil, mistakes and failure. The decay in the sense of the increase in entropy is also an evil, and yet it is necessary for further development.

Teilhard was convinced of the necessity of evil, because since the many are subject to the "game of possibilities", the evil must appear among the huge number of creatures. With the appearance of man, cosmogenesis becomes a great risk, since man is gifted with freedom and his egocentric striving for independence runs counter to the goal of unity. For example, if it did not occur in the area of ​​human freedom, one would have to seriously doubt freedom. In humans, the evil shows itself anew in the feeling of loneliness, separation and fear, also because of their own mortality.

Teilhard considers people irreplaceable and says: “Despite the improbability of his prospects, he must reach his goal; certainly not necessary, but infallible. ”He considers discouragement and despair to be the great risk of human evolution, the fundamental temptation.

Entropy, Thermodynamics and Divergence - Teilhard de Chardin

For Teilhard, the whole of reality is something dynamic, something that is constantly developing. For him, the cosmos as a static, fixed quantity is finally outdated. He therefore rarely uses the term cosmos. He prefers to speak of cosmogenesis, which expresses the creation, becoming and unfolding of the universe more clearly. In cosmogenesis he sees a creative movement brought about by God that has not yet reached its goal. The characteristic of this movement is the constant increase in the organization of all beings. Cosmogenesis is on a way, but not for the sake of the way. This path has a goal that is not prescribed or dictated from outside. Cosmogenesis is groping its way towards a goal that it creates itself step by step.

Teilhard assumes that all physical things have spiritual properties. In order to produce spirit, matter must already have been animated as primordial matter. Through evolution she finally became aware of herself in the consciousness of man. However, he does not claim that inanimate things are conscious and can experience pain, for example. Rather, he postulates that there are graduated forms of conscious spirituality to be found in living beings. Only when a being is sufficiently complex in physical terms can the corresponding spiritual side also take on complex traits.

According to Teilhard, the path that cosmogenesis has taken in the past follows the law of convergence . He understands this to mean the union of units that were initially separated into ever larger, more complex units. In the two factors convergence and complexity the basic striving of cosmogenesis is revealed. More and more complex structures appear to the front, which at the same time converge more and more intensely. The goal will be the most complex structure with the greatest possible convergence.

The new senses

According to the theologian Giulio Haas , one can only understand Teilhard's world view if one takes into account the term "inner soul senses" which he introduced. According to Teilhard, these are senses that make it possible to grasp the appearances of the whole of reality and thus to make the overall horizon of being tangible. Teilhard speaks of a sense of immeasurable space and a sense of the depth of time. By this he understands the consciousness for the number, for the proportion, the duality, for the novelty, the movement and the organic.

In his late work The Heart of Matter , Teilhard describes the sense of the whole, i.e. the feeling for abundance, as the driving force in his life. He is aware that his worldview is not only the result of objective facts, but also the fruit of subjective, inner dynamisms. Thanks to the new senses, man is able to think the perfection of cosmogenesis, abundance, the pleroma . Thanks to them man is able to unite with the whole of the world.

Teilhard understands the cosmic sense to mean the relationship between human reality and the evolutionary and ultimately personal universe:

"In a personal universe [...] the cosmic sense immediately finds its natural place: it represents the more or less dark consciousness that each of us gains from the reflected unity in which he unites with all others."

The human mind , in turn, is a mutual attraction, which is spread on the whole of the noosphere of Teilhard. The most difficult thing to understand is the Christian sense. "Christian" is a word created by Teilhard as a counterpart to "cosmic". As he explains in The Heart of Matter , it took his whole life to grasp the Christian meaning and to incorporate it into his worldview together with the cosmic and human meaning .

effect

There was an intense Teilhard discussion in the 1960s and 1970s, which ebbed in the period that followed. During this time Teilhard was largely portrayed as a reconciler between theology and the natural sciences. He was considered a vehement advocate of technical and scientific progress. ( The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1946 filled Teilhard with enthusiastic admiration. In a strange way, he welcomed the atomic and hydrogen bomb explosions as proof of “the infinitely evolving power of man” without even thinking about the atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the long-term consequences the contamination to waste.) However, when in the 1970s the irreparable destruction of today ecosystems increased more and the environmental consciousness developed, Teilhard were anthropocentrism and its short-sighted faith in technology obsolete . Since Teilhard also proved to be insensitive to the political responsibility of science, natural scientists like Hoimar von Ditfurth , who had previously held him in high regard , condemned him . At the moment, the climate of the partial hard discussion is characterized by the uninterested indifference of very many contemporaries, as well as by an undiminished harsh rejection of a few and the undiminished uncritical disciples of a tiny circle of supporters.

reception

According to the council theologian Henri de Lubac , Teilhard never tried to declare his visions authoritative or even justifiable. Strictly speaking, the worldview presented by Teilhard eludes a precise theological assessment. Therefore it was not possible to take individual teachings from the entire work and condemn them. However, the Holy Congregation of the Holy Office rightly warned against an overly gullible Teilhard reception .

According to the author Ludwig Ebersberger , Teilhard was banned from publication for life without any reason. Teilhard has shown that the transfer of the traditional beliefs into the new forms of thought and expression is possible "without revealing even an iota - one was not able to prove it was even a single sentence as 'heretical'."

Influences and honors

Teilhard's work has had a wide range of scientific, cultural and artistic effects to this day. In France there are dozens of streets, squares, etc. that bear the name of Teilhards. Gymnasiums and lecture halls were also named after him. There is also a Teilhard de Chardin-Allee in the German Saarland . Theodosius Dobzhansky , one of the most important evolutionary biologists of the 20th century and co-founder of the modern synthetic theory of evolution, dedicated Teilhard the essay Nothing in Biology Makes Sense, Except in the Light of Evolution. Seven extinct primate species that were common in North America, Europe and Asia during the Eocene are known as Teilhardina. Several pieces of music have been created as homage to Teilhard, such as the symphony No. 8 by Edmund Rubbra (1968) and the music CD Le Coeur de la matière by Matthias Müller.

The Canadian author Gabrielle Roy met de Chardin in Paris in the late 1940s. According to her biographer François Ricard, his thinking had a strong influence on her afterwards.

Partial hard organizations

• In 1965 the Fondation Teilhard de Chardin was founded in Paris with its seat in the Musée national d'histoire naturelle.
• There are Teilhard de Chardin societies in various countries. The American The American Teilhard Association ATA was founded 1967th The German Teilhard Society in Munich has published the Acta Teilhardiana (see web link ).
• Many reading groups and associations carried and still carry Teilhard's name.
• The director of the Catholic Katharina-Werk in Basel , Pia Gyger , was inspired by Teilhard's worldview and the Eastern Zen meditation from 1982 onwards when realigning the women's community .

Teilhard in the judgment of his contemporaries

Teilhard translator Josef Vital Kopp :

“Teilhard is portrayed to us as a tall figure who remained gaunt on the restless journeys. His fine but energetic features were shaped by sea and desert winds. Brown, warm, benevolent and at the same time critically examining eyes flashed under the high forehead. His mouth was covered with small ironic lines. The long-fingered explorer's hands were constantly in motion, and the gestures, even of the aging man, still had a youthful agility. [...] Teilhard was a lovely person, a man of dialogue. Wherever he appeared, he spread optimism and confidence. Everyone was captured by his charisma and warmth. "

Maurice Blondel , philosopher and friend Teilhard:

“His power of persuasion was sometimes expressed in a fervent will to convert and a prophetic tone that some might find downright indiscreet. But hand in hand with this went a modesty in Teilhard that prevented him from ever believing that he had recognized all that was true. "

Teilhard's handwriting with signature, 1908

Teilhard's cousin Marguerite Teillard-Chambon on his first writings:

“Even outwardly, his manuscripts are meticulously meticulous in their writing and layout, as if they came out of a quiet study, although his hand is still trembling with tiredness and excitement when he returns from the trenches. [...] What he saw, felt, thought in that extraordinary period of life from which he emerged transformed, will he be able to make it known one day? Before he was demobilized, he asked himself the anxious question: Will I ever be heard? "

Henri de Lubac , who was in constant contact with Teilhard for more than 30 years, wrote that their relationship was characterized by trust and absolute sincerity from day one. According to Henri de Lubac, Teilhard already had a passion for the absolute as a child; He looked for this 'blissful object' everywhere and tirelessly. Getting into Teilhard's subject is easier for those who do not approach the work with preconceived ideas because of Teilhard's wonderful impartiality. He defined himself modestly, but very aptly, as “a man who tries to be honest about what is dear to his generation.” De Lubac continues: “He always sees in the reader his friend who strives to be with him to move forward. "Teilhard does not claim to show more than a few" access roads on which the view of an immensity of yet unexplored reality opens up to us. "

Paul Grenet, a friar of Teilhard:

"In his writings, as in his relationships with people, he followed only one diplomacy: 'the diplomacy of sincerity'."

The biologist Adolf Portmann was of the opinion that research into the Peking man established Teilhard's reputation as an explorer of an extinct world and laid the foundation for the trust with which many people accepted his far-reaching conclusions about the evolution of mankind. At the same time, however, Portmann found that "the prophet has very often taken the pen out of the researcher's hands".

Claude Cuénot, a friend of Teilhard:

“There is no Teilhard for the general public and another for the initiated. [...] He not only accepted advice and corrections willingly, but even asked for them, not only from his superiors [...], but even from younger and less experienced people. "

Alice Teillard-Chambon, sister of Marguerite:

"Even if the work is presented in a well-constructed form, its power in language (you could almost say: its impact force) comes from a first spark that bathed everything in light."

The geologist Helmut de Terra, whom Teilhard had accompanied on longer research trips through India as well as to Burma and Java, described him as follows:

“He was far from any preaching arrogance; he always adapted to his surroundings and never played superior. Insofar as he could speak as an authority, he was never opinionated, just as he made no special claims even under the most adverse circumstances of a trip, but understood how to fit in with shameful modesty. "

As an example, de Terra added :

“When studying a bone, which revolved around the degree of fossilization, Teilhard used a sample that was previously unknown to me: He ran his tongue over the bone and said that it was not sufficiently mineralized to be considered a fossil because it has retained its original porosity. The way in which he took the bone from the worker's dirty hand and raised it to his lips carelessly was again very characteristic of his carelessness. This characteristic made it an ideal companion on expeditions. "

criticism

With his theological ideas about the cosmic Christ and modifications in the doctrine of creation, images of God and Christ, Teilhard encountered resistance and sometimes sharp criticism from church authorities, scholastic theologians, scientists, but also from philosophers such as Jacques Maritain and Dietrich von Hildebrand .

Theological criticism

1952 were Teilhard's teachings of Pope Pius XII. condemned in his encyclical Humani generis . In 1957 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered the eradication of all Teilhard books from the seminaries and church houses. In June 1962 the Holy Office drafted a monitum and admonished all bishops, religious superiors and university officials that young people in particular must be protected from the dangers posed by some of Teilhard's theological and philosophical texts without explicitly naming individual works or more precise examples. However, the Holy Office did not include any of Teilhard's writings in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books), which was still in existence at the time of the Monitum of 1962.

Shortly thereafter, Teilhard's works saw strong theological defense by prominent clerics. The Jesuit and later Cardinal Henri de Lubac wrote three comprehensive books on Teilhard's theology in the 1960s. In the following decades, prominent theologians and prelates, including leading cardinals, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI. and Pope Francis, benevolent to Teilhard's ideas.

Giulio Haas, was of the opinion that Teilhard had not solved the problem of evil in a relationship:

Teilhard's grave in New York, January 2000

“It is about individual evil. Teilhard's world view tries to make it understandable why evil is inevitable in the world and why it does not disavow the Creator God. But his vision does not answer the question of why evil , suffering, attacks precisely these particular people and in this particular way. This is where Teilhard's weakness seems most visible, namely his lack of interest in the specific individual case. How carefully he examined and described the individual found objects as a paleontologist - what interested him above all was to classify the individual in a larger whole, and not the individual in its respective uniqueness. "

Eugen Drewermann considers Teilhard's interpretation of the evolutionary process, in which he interprets the increasing complexity of evolution as directed becoming, to be incompatible with the facts.

In his first book Evolution and Creation (1963), the philosopher Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg accused Teilhard of “the confusion of all self-sufficiency and principles” and summed up: “Such sentences should never have been written in the Western world.” Two years later, in his second book man and matter, Hengstenberg judged more differently:

“There is no doubt that Teilhard de Chardin has valuable thoughts, especially in religious-ascetic terms. One will not read his book The Divine Realm without emotion. But these positive moments can only be won and made fruitful if they are freed from Teilhard's system and its evolutionist categories that distort reality. "

Elsewhere, Hengstenberg criticizes the fact that Teilhard uses God as a stopgap, or deus ex machina , and decimates it to the 'Omega category'. He has twisted Christology until it fits into his evolutionary scheme. The Teilhard critic, Hans Urs von Balthasar, finds it unbearable how Teilhard integrates the mystery of God's annihilating love into his “total biological power balance theory (energetics)”.

Hengstenberg's criticism was also devastating with regard to human freedom:

“Of the conflicts that transformist evolutionism gets into with reality, the conflict with freedom of choice is particularly evident. This can be seen in the Teilhard de Chardins system. [...] Either one must hold on to the irreversibility of evolution and its transformism and renounce the inherently fallible freedom of decision, or one must insist on the indeterministic 'choice' and abandon the irreversibility of transformistic ascent. In both cases, however, the Teilhard system collapses as a whole. "

The theologian and university professor Jan-Heiner Tück attests to the evolutionary theoretical justifications of Teilhard's latent cynicism, which emerges openly when he praises the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 as the progress of the human mind, but completely ignores the horrors of war and the atomic bomb victims. According to Tück, imitating the methodological fuzziness and idiosyncratic terminology of Teilhard in the interdisciplinary discourse puts you on the sidelines.

Philosophical criticisms

The German literary scholar Ulrich Horstmann bluntly describes Teilhard's work as a delusional system and pathological conception.

The philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand met Teilhard in 1951 in New York, where he was giving a lecture. He wrote about this encounter:

“The lecture was a great disappointment because it showed extreme philosophical confusion, especially with Teilhard's view of the human person. At the time, however, I was even more excited about his theological primitiveness, since he completely ignored the crucial difference between nature and supernatural. [...] But it was only after reading some of Teilhard's works that I became fully aware of the catastrophic consequences of his philosophical ideas and the absolute incompatibility of his theological fiction [...] with Christian revelation and the teaching of the Church. "

Hildebrand also said: “Teilhard is an author who 'fascinates'. That is not good for objectivity. The assessor of Teilhard easily gets into a 'vortex' that robs him of his orientation. ”However, he criticized the Teilhard criticism for the fact that the really positive aspects of Teilhard were not worked out: there was enthusiastic glorification that served no one, but the clear analysis was lacking . Hildebrand doesn't know of any thinker like him, "who jumps so artificially from one position to another, without even noticing this jump or being put off by it."

Scientific criticisms

• Although all fossil finds and morphological-anatomical studies clearly showed that there is no such thing as orthogenesis , Teilhard insisted on this in his view of the world .
• The Nobel Prize winner Sir Peter Medawar was not at all taken with Teilhard. He attributed mental confusion and exaggerated language that suggested hysteria. He said of Man in the Cosmos that this work was unscientific in its whole approach:

“Teilhard practices an inexact science and has achieved a certain skill in it. He has no idea what a logical argument is and what evidence is. He does not even maintain the traditional forms of scientific writing, although he expressly describes his book as a scientific treatise. [...] I read Teilhard's book with real pain, not to say with desperation, and worked through it. Rather than wring our hands over the general situation of man, we should turn our attention to what is repairable: above all, the gullibility with which readers accept such a deception. If it was just a matter of naive, passive gullibility, it would still have to be excused, but it is all too clear that people want to be betrayed. "

• The evolutionary biologist Edward O. Dodson judged more cautiously :

"That he was a great Christian mystic is certainly true, but it may not be fair to label him only as a second-rate natural scientist, for he was one of the leading geologists and paleontologists of his time."

But then Dodson also found that Teilhard had not provided enough data in his research on which his generalizations were based; and that his reflections are sometimes inductive and that his writing style is very poetic and therefore misleading or incomprehensible to those who read his writings as scientific writings. He comes to the conclusion that there is a remainder of the work that cannot be supported from a scientific point of view, namely the “inner”, the “collective” and the “point omega”.

• The French biologist and philosopher Jean Rostand said of Teilhard's works:

“Teilhard is not a biologist; he has neither the training nor the knowledge nor the spirit of a biologist. He systematically ignores embryology [...]. "

• The anthroposophist Johannes Hemleben wrote in his Teilhard biography:

“Teilhard is too quick to get out of touch with the facts of scientific research. Imperceptibly he changes from knowledge to belief. "

• The scientific theorist and biologist Franz M. Wuketits described Teilhard as an "evolutionary mystic":

“If one believes that one can derive religious truths from scientific statements, then one has confused [...] two fundamentally different levels of thought with one another. The result is then a strange mixture of scientific theory and mysticism and in any case difficult to digest for a person who thinks in halfway clear lines. "

• Richard Dawkins describes Teilhard's main work Le Phénomène humain (The Man in the Cosmos) as a “prime example of bad scientific poetry”, by which he understands the “excessively indulgent use of poetic allegories” and the “inflationary use of meaningless comparisons”:

"Teilhard's book claims to be a scientific book, but its 'soul temperature' and its 'calories' are just as meaningless as the planetary energies of astrology ."

• The Basel biologist Adolf Portmann, who is a friend of Teilhard :

“There is one thing that makes dealing with Teilhard's work particularly difficult. It is the intimate connection that has shaped the result of the paleontologist's field work with the mystical immersion in the miracle of life into a unity in all the writings. [...] I draw the sharpest line against Teilhard de Chardin's statements where his prophetic vision forces him to present what is to come as a clear consequence of knowledge. "

Language problems

According to Thomas Becker, Teilhard's difficult language, the idiosyncratic linguistic form of his texts, which, due to the clumsiness of most of the translations, does not make understanding easier, cannot be ignored. "In addition, one has the impression that Teilhard sometimes intentionally makes encrypted statements or that the original text was so mutilated by the censorship that his statement is no longer understandable."

The theologian and religious scholar Ernst Benz already explained in 1965 what makes access to Teilhard particularly difficult in the German-speaking area: On the one hand, he created his own terminology, which is very idiosyncratic. He introduced a number of scientific categories into theology, which in him received a completely new spiritual meaning. In addition, he introduced a number of surprising word creations, such as " planetization ", "hominization", "amorization" (from amour).

Teilhard himself judged some of the essays about him to be “confused” because they contained too many quotations from writings from different periods of life.

Rehabilitation attempts

There have been repeated attempts by the church to rehabilitate or appreciate Teilhard:

• In 1939 Teilhard was asked by the order general to present his vision in great detail.
• Although it is questionable whether the church will accept Teilhard's theories in order to get a better position in relation to the advancing natural science, the French Bishops' Conference held a minute's silence in 1959 in Marseille to honor "the greatest religious genius of the century".
• The future Cardinal Henri de Lubac was one of the first to deal with Teilhard's theological critics in the 1960s. He admitted that Teilhard was not very precise in some of his concepts, but emphasized his church-faithful view. According to Henri de Lubac, many critical writings about Teilhard stem from partial knowledge or from a prejudice: "Let us silently ignore a number of emotionally blinded authors who can only be described as slanderer." Others would give Teilhard the greatest admiration, but his thinking from a single point of view from which it becomes highly misleading.
• Cardinal Christoph Schönborn wrote in 2007: "Hardly anyone else has tried to synthesize knowledge of Christ and the idea of ​​evolution."
• Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi , President of the Pontifical Council for Culture , declared in November 2017 that Teilhard's explanations were "incorrect on some points and not always easy to understand correctly due to linguistic inaccuracies", but according to today's theological knowledge there is no reason to to warn against his writings. The Pontifical Council for Culture decided to petition Pope Francis with the request to rehabilitate Teilhard and to repeal the complaint ( Monitum ) of the Holy Office of 1962.

See also

• Evolution theory
• Panentheism
• Panpsychism
• Planetization
• meaning of life
• Theistic evolution

bibliography

Books

Special editions

• (Volume I) Man in the cosmos. Beck, Munich 1959, new edition 2010: ISBN 3-406-60274-6 ( Le Phénomène Humain, 1955).
• (Volume IX) The Origin of Man. Beck, Munich 1961. Supplementary volume to Der Mensch im Kosmos, new 2006 as TB: ISBN 978-3-406-54742-3 ( La Place de l'Homme dans la Nature. Le Groupe Zoologique Humain, 1956).

The eight volumes of the Olten work edition

• Volume II: The Divine Realm. A blueprint of the inner life. Walter, Olten 1962 ( Le Milieu Divin, 1957).
• Volume III: The Appearance of Man. Walter, Olten 1964 ( L'Apparition de l'Homme, 1956).
• Volume IV: The look into the past. Walter, Olten 1965 ( La Vision du Passé, 1957).
• Volume V: The Future of Man. Walter, Olten 1963 ( L'Avenir de l'Homme, 1959).
• Volume VI: Human Energy. Walter, Olten 1966 ( L'Énergie Humaine, 1962).
• Volume VII: The Living Power of Evolution. Walter, Olten 1967 ( L'Activation de l'Énergie, 1963).
• Volume VIII: Science and Christ. Walter, Olten 1970 ( Science et Christ, 1965).
• Volume X: My Faith. Walter, Olten 1972 ( Comment je crois, 1969).

Further editions

• The current crisis. In: Paul Distelbarth (ed., Transl.): New becoming in France. Testimonies from leading French. Ernst Klett, Stuttgart 1938, pp. 300-313.
• Song of praise from space. The mass over the world - Christ in matter - the spiritual potency of matter. Walter, Olten 1964 ( L'Hymne de l'Univers, 1961).
• My univers. Walter, Olten 1973 ( Mon Univers, 1965).
• Of the happiness of existence. Walter, Olten 1969 ( Sur le Bonheur, 1966).
• Selection from the factory. With an afterword by Karl Schmitz-Moormann. Walter, Olten 1964; again Fischer TB 1967.
• Early writings. Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1968 ( Écrits du temps de la guerre, 1965).
• Hymn to the Eternal Feminine. Johannes, Einsiedeln 1969.
• My world view. A scientifically based world interpretation of the end of the universe and the meaning of creation. Walter, Olten 1973.
• Ascent to Unity - The Future of Human Evolution. Walter, Olten and Freiburg im Breisgau 1974.
• The Gate to the Future - Selected Texts on Questions of Time. Kösel, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-466-20250-7 .
• The Teilhard de Chardin reading book. Edited by Günther Schiwy, Walter, Olten 1987.
• The Teilhard de Chardin reading book. New edition by Patmos, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 978-3-491-69429-3 .
• Point Omega - the divine goal of evolution. The Teilhard de Chardin reading book. Patmos, Ostfildern 2013, ISBN 3-8436-0171-2 .
• The heart of matter. The core of an ingenious worldview. Walter, Olten 1990, with appendix from Lobgesang des Alls, ISBN 3-530-87379-9 ( Le Cœur de la Matière, 1976).
• The heart of matter and the Christian in evolution. (New translation). Patmos, Ostfildern 2014, ISBN 3-8436-0529-7 .

Letter volumes

• Mystery and promise of the earth. Travel letters 1923–1939. Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau / Munich 1958.
• Pilgrims of the future. New travel letters 1939–1955. Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau / Munich 1959.
• Design and deployment. Letters from 1914–1919. Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau / Munich 1963.
• Letters from Egypt. 1905-1908. Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau / Munich 1965.
• Correspondence with Maurice Blondel. Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau / Munich 1967.
• Letters to Leontine Zanta. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1967.
• Letters to a non-Christian. Walter, Olten 1971.
• Letters to a Marxist. Walter, Olten 1971.
• Letters to women. Selected and explained by Günther Schiwy. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1988.
• The Letters of Teilhard de Chardin and Lucile Swan. Editor Th. King and MW Gilbert, Georgetown Univ. Press, Washington 1993/2005, ISBN 978-0-940866-96-6 .

Diaries

• Diaries I. Notes and drafts - August 26, 1915 to September 22, 1916. Walter, Olten 1974, ISBN 3-530-87372-1 .
• Diaries II. Notes and drafts - December 2, 1916 to May 13, 1918. Olten 1975, ISBN 3-530-87373-X .
• Diaries III. Notes and Drafts - May 14, 1918 to February 25, 1920. Olten 1977, ISBN 3-530-87374-8 .

literature

• Thomas Becker: Spirit and matter in the first writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardins. In: Freiburg Theological Studies. Volume 134, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, Basel, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-451-20982-9 .
• Ernst Benz : Faith in creation and end-time expectation - answer to Teilhard de Chardin's theology of evolution. Nymphenburger, Munich 1965.
• Peter Gotthard Bieri (Ed.): Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The meaning and goal of evolution. Shaker Media, Aachen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86858-521-6 (selected and edited chapters from The Future of Humans. ).
• Thomas Broch: The problem of freedom in the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardins. Matthias-Grünewald, Mainz 1977.
• Thomas Broch: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Pioneer of the New Age? Matthias-Grünewald / Quell, Mainz, Stuttgart 1989.
• Thomas Broch: Thinker of the Crisis - Mediator of Hope. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Echter (topos plus), Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-7867-8324-1 .
• Bernard Delfgaauw: Teilhard de Chardin and the evolution problem . CH Beck, Munich 1971.
• Ludwig Ebersberger: Man and his future - natural and human sciences are approaching Teilhard de Chardin's understanding of the world. Walter, Olten 1990.
• Ludwig Ebersberger: Faith Crisis and Human Crisis. The new topicality of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. LIT, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-8258-4612-1 .
• Maria-Christina Eggers / Pia Gyger: Ascent into the Light - The Way of the Cross as the path of my transformation. Kösel, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-466-36823-5 .
• Ida Friederike Görres: Son of the earth: The man Teilhard de Chardin. Three attempts. Josef Knecht, Frankfurt 1971.
• Pia Gyger: Man connect earth and heaven - Christian elements of a cosmic spirituality. Rex, Luzern 1993, ISBN 3-466-36726-3 .
• Adolf Haas : Teilhard de Chardin Lexicon. Basic terms, explanations, texts. 2 volumes, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1984.
• Giulio Haas: Teilhard and Jung's worldview. Walter, Olten 1991, ISBN 3-530-30130-2 .
• Maria Hafner: Nothing but the whole. Images and texts for “The Heart of Matter” by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Rex, Luzern 2005, ISBN 3-7252-0791-7 .
• Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg : Evolution and Creation. An answer to Teilhard de Chardin's evolutionism. A. Pustet, Munich 1963.
• Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg: Man and Matter. on the problem of Teilhard de Chardins. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1965.
• Josef Vital Kopp : Origin and Future of Man. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his worldview. Rex, Lucerne 1970.
• Rupert Lay : The Heretics - From Roger Bacon to Teilhard de Chardin. Georg Müller, Munich, Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-7844-1888-0 .
• Erik Lehnert: Finality as a determination of nature. On natural teleology with Teilhard de Chardin. Ibidem, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-89821-173-8 .
• Henri de Lubac : The Faith of Teilhard de Chardin. Herold, Vienna / Munich 1968.
• Henri de Lubac: Teilhard de Chardin's religious world. Herder, Freiburg 1969.
• Adolf Portmann : The arrow of the humane. About P. Teilhard de Chardin. Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau / Munich 1960.
• Olivier A. Rabut: Conversation with Teilhard de Chardin. Scientific, philosophical and theological discussion of his work. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1981.
• Günther Schiwy : Teilhard de Chardin. His life and his time. 2 volumes, Kösel, Munich 1981/90, ISBN 3-466-20211-6 (volume 1), ISBN 3-466-20212-4 (volume 2).
• Günther Schiwy: A God in Change. Teilhard de Chardin and his picture of evolution. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2001.
• Wolfgang Smith .: Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of the Teachings of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin . TAN Books & Publishers, Rockford, IL 1988, ISBN 0-89555-315-5 , OCLC 19648994 .
• Karl Schmitz-Moormann: The world view Teilhard de Chardins. Physics, ultraphysics, metaphysics. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 1966, ISBN 3-663-04068-2 .
• Karl Schmitz-Moormann: Teilhard de Chardin in discussion. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1986.
• Karl Schmitz-Moormann: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Evolution - the creation of God. Matthias-Grünewald, 1996, ISBN 3-7867-1901-2 .
• Mathias Trennert-Helwig: The elemental force of the cosmos. Dimensions of love in the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Herder, Freiburg 1993.

Web links

Commons : Teilhard de Chardin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wiktionary: Teilhardina  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Literature by and about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin  in the German Digital Library
• Teilhard de Chardin e. V.
• American Teilhard Association ATA
• Association des Amis de Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (French). With a 24-minute animation of Teilhard's life on the homepage.
• Teilhard de Chardin Foundation - Netherlands. ( Memento of December 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). At: teilharddechardin.nl.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Happiness without sex. SPON May 1, 1995.
2. ↑ Stephen Jay Gould : How the Zebra Gets Its Stripes: Essays on Natural History. (Suhrkamp pocket book science) Suhrkamp Verlag 1991. S. 202 ff.
3. ↑ Tom Wolfe : Hooking up. News from the world village. Blessing, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-89667-159-6 . Rubric: Digi-Blah, fairy dust and the human anthill.
4. ↑ Stephen Jay Gould: How the Zebra Gets Its Stripes: Essays on Natural History. (Suhrkamp pocket book science) Suhrkamp Verlag 1991. P. 206 ff.
5. ↑ Stephen Jay Gould: How the Zebra Gets Its Stripes: Essays on Natural History. (Suhrkamp pocket book science) Suhrkamp Verlag 1991. P. 207.
6. ↑ Tom Wolfe : Hooking up. News from the world village. Blessing, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-89667-159-6 . Rubric: Digi-Blah, fairy dust and the human anthill.
7. ^ ^{A b} Marguerite Teillard-Chambon in the French Wikipedia
8. ↑ Fabian Heinzel: Luminaries of church science: From the astrolabe to the big bang theory. Section: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Man of God and adventurer.
9. ↑ Peter Modler: The phenomenon of "disgust before life" with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaft 1990. ISBN 978-363142907-5 . At the same time doctorate, theological faculty at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau 1988. PDF download , p. 28 ff., P. 34
10. ↑ Cf. Günther Schiwy: A secret love.
11. ↑ See web links: Spiegel Online Wissenschaft, March 12, 2009.
12. ^ List of former members since 1666: Letter T. Académie des sciences, accessed on March 7, 2020 (French). 
13. ^ Fabian Heinzel: luminaries of church science. From the astrolabe to the big bang theory. Section: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Man of God and adventurer.
14. ↑ ^{a b} David Alexander Lubaszek in: Martin Leiner, Nikolaus Knoepffler, James Birx: Teilhard de Chardin. V&R unipress 2005. P. 94 f.
15. ↑ Le phenomène humain. Paris 1955. The German translation was published by Beck in Munich in 1959 under the title Der Mensch im Kosmos.
16. ↑ Anselm Grün : Paths through depression: Spiritual impulses. Kreuz Verlag, 2013. Section 9: Disgusting life.
17. ↑ Peter Modler: The phenomenon of "disgust before life" with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaft, 1990. ISBN 978-363142907-5 . At the same time doctorate, theological faculty at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg im Breisgau 1988. PDF download , p. 128 f.
18. ^ ^{A b} Henri de Lubac: Teilhard de Chardins religious world. P. 15.
19. ↑ Peter Modler: The phenomenon of "disgust before life" with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaft, 1990. ISBN 978-363142907-5 . At the same time doctorate, theological faculty at the Albert Ludwig University, Freiburg im Breisgau 1988. PDF download , p. 127 f.
20. ^ Henri de Lubac: Teilhard de Chardins religious world. P. 13.
21. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, in: My faith. Peking 1934, p. 116.
22. ^ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Man in the Cosmos. P. 272.
23. ^ Giulio Haas: The world view of Teilhard and Jung. P. 17.
24. ^ Giulio Haas: The world view of Teilhard and Jung. P. 257 ff.
25. ↑ ^{a b} Martin Leiner (ed.), Nikolaus Knoepffler (ed.), Et al .: Teilhard de Chardin. (Publications of the Institute for European History Mainz, supplements) V&R unipress. July 12, 2005. pp. 79f.
26. ^ Giulio Haas: The world view of Teilhard and Jung. P. 14.
27. ↑ Teilhard: The Divine Realm, p. 81.
28. ↑ Martin Leiner (ed.), Nikolaus Knoepffler (ed.), Et al .: Teilhard de Chardin. (Publications of the Institute for European History Mainz, supplements) V&R unipress. July 12, 2005. p. 76.
29. ^ Adolf Haas: Teilhard de Chardin Lexicon. Vol. 1, p. 257.
30. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Man in the cosmos. P. 279.
31. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Man in the cosmos. P. 305.
32. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: My Universe. P. 40.
33. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The divine milieu. P. 84.
34. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Man in the cosmos. Pp. 185 and 282.
35. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Man in the cosmos. P. 20.
36. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The heart of matter. P. 29 f.
37. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The human energy. P. 109 f.
38. ↑ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The human energy. P. 104.
39. ^ ^{A b} Peter Modler: The phenomenon of "disgust before life" in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaft, 1990. ISBN 978-363142907-5 . At the same time doctorate, theological faculty at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg im Breisgau 1988. PDF download , pp. 1–4.
40. ↑ Martin Leiner , Nikolaus Knoepffler , James Birx: Teilhard de Chardin. (Publications of the Institute for European History Mainz, supplements) V&R unipress 2005. S. 59.
41. ^ Henri de Lubac: Teilhard de Chardins religious world. 1st chapter.
42. ^ Ludwig Ebersberger: Faith Crisis and Human Crisis. The new topicality of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. P. 14 f.
43. ↑ Source , optionally also in French
44. ↑ Niklaus Brantschen and Pia Gyger: It's about love: From the life of a celibate couple. Kösel-Verlag 2013. p. 26.
45. ↑ Josef Vital Kopp: Origin and Future of Man. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his worldview. P. 75.
46. ↑ Josef Vital Kopp: Origin and Future of Man. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his worldview. P. 18.
47. ^ Draft and unfolding, letters from the years 1914–1919. P. 49 f.
48. ^ Henri de Lubac: Teilhard de Chardins religious world. P. 12 ff.
49. ^ Henri de Lubac: Teilhard de Chardins religious world. P. 20.
50. ^ ^{A b} Henri de Lubac: Teilhard de Chardins religious world. P. 16.
51. ↑ Adolf Portmann: The arrow of the human. P. 48.
52. ^ Henri de Lubac: Teilhard de Chardins religious world. P. 19.
53. ↑ Helmut de Terra
54. ↑ Helmut de Terra: My way with Teilhard de Chardin. Pp. 62, 89, 63.
55. ^ ^{A b} Jan-Heiner Tück : How the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin wanted to unite faith with science. NZZ January 13, 2018
56. ↑ Sources: Spiegel Online of February 17, 1960, s. Weblinks, p. 2, and Adolf Haas: Teilhard de Chardin-Lexikon. Vol. 1.
57. ↑ Osservatore Romano of June 30, 1962 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 54 1962, 526).
58. ^ Giulio Haas: The world view of Teilhard and Jung. P. 29.
59. ↑ Eugen Drewermann: ... and it happened like this - modern biology and the question of God. Walter, Zurich 1999, p. 421, ISBN 3-530-16899-8 .
60. ↑ Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg: Evolution and Creation - An answer to the evolutionism of Teilhard de Chardins. Pp. 127 and 139.
61. ↑ Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg: Man and Matter. Source: Teilhard Forum, s. Web links.
62. ↑ Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg: Man and Matter. On the problem of Teilhard de Chardins. P. 168 f.
63. ↑ Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg: Man and Matter. P. 118 f.
64. ↑ Ulrich Horstmann : The monster. Contours of a philosophy of flight. Vienna / Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-88602-075-4 . P. 78 f.
65. ↑ Dietrich von Hildebrand: The Trojan horse in the city of God. Appendix: Teilhard de Chardin's new religion. On: kathtube.com. P. 339.
66. ↑ Dietrich von Hildebrand: The Trojan horse in the city of God. Appendix: Teilhard de Chardin's new religion. On: kathtube.com. P. 6.
67. ↑ Dietrich von Hildebrand: The Trojan horse in the city of God. Appendix: Teilhard de Chardin's new religion. On: kathtube.com. P. 176.
68. ↑ Dietrich von Hildebrand: The Trojan horse in the city of God. Appendix: Teilhard de Chardin's new religion. On: kathtube.com. P. 342.
69. ^ Paul Wrede (ed.), Saskia Wrede (ed.): Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species. Annotated and illustrated edition. Wiley-VCH Verlag 2012. p. 197.
70. ^ PB Medawar : Yearbook for Critical Enlightenment. Voltaire Club. Szezesny, Munich 1963, quoted from Dietrich von Hildebrand: The Trojan horse in the city of God. Appendix: Teilhard de Chardin's new religion. On: kathtube.com. P. 341.
71. ↑ Vera Haag: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Visionary or evolutionary mystic. 2006, p. 10, p. Web link.
72. ↑ Franz M. Wuketits : Theories of Evolution - Historical Requirements, Positions, Criticism.
73. ↑ Katharina Peetz: The Dawkins Discourse in Theology, Philosophy and Natural Sciences. (Religion, Theology, and Natural Science). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2013, p. 46.
74. ↑ Adolf Portmann : The arrow of the human. Pp. 21, 45.
75. ↑ Thomas Becker: Spirit and matter in the first writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardins. Pp. 21, 205.
76. ↑ Ernst Benz: Faith in Creation and Expectation of the End Times. Answer to Teilhard de Chardin's theology of evolution. P. 230 ff.
77. ↑ Thomas Becker: Spirit and matter in the first writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardins. P. 19.
78. ↑ Peter Modler: The phenomenon of "disgust before life" with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaft, 1990. ISBN 978-363142907-5 . At the same time doctorate, theological faculty at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau 1988. PDF download , p. 28 ff., P. 127.
79. ↑ COSMOS. Anti-darwin? Spiegel Online, 1960.
80. ^ Henri de Lubac: Teilhard de Chardins religious world. P. 11 ff.
81. ↑ Christoph Schönborn: Goal or Coincidence? Creation and evolution from the perspective of a reasonable belief. P. 148 f.
82. ^ Rome rehabilitates theologians . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of November 25, 2017, p. 18.
83. ↑ kathisch.de : Pope to rehabilitate Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin , November 22, 2017.
84. ↑ Frz. in: Études. Revue bimensuelle. Zs. The French Jesuits , no. 13, 1937, October 20, 1937. Not in Gallica , unlike many of Teilhard's other writings.