No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Teilhard De Chardin's Spirituality of the Cross
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Abstract
This article studies the spiritual theology of the cross in the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In Teilhard's books and articles the accent falls on the cross as a symbol of progress. The cross stands for Jesus' positive act of saving the world through his death; it represents, too, Christian life as a sharing in the cross of Jesus through the labor and pain of human progress. In his spiritual notes, however, Teilhard takes a different perspective. His own meditations on the cross center not on the cross as a positive symbol of personal and collective progress through struggle, but rather on death as the ultimate fragmentation, and as an apparent dead end that is the final passage to Jesus Christ.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The College Theology Society 1976
References
1 The first two-thirds of this article was delivered as a paper at the International Congress, “La sapienza della croce oggi,” Rome, October, 1975Google Scholar.
2 Teilhard's best complete presentation of his theory of evolution is Man's Place in Nature, trans, by Hague, R. (London: 1966)Google Scholar.
3 Trans. by B. Wall, et al. (New York: 1960).
4 Revelation 21, 4.
5 While reading W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, Teilhard copied a few lines into a notebook he kept for his reading notes: “I wanted to believe, but I could not believe in a god which was not better than the ordinary decent man” (unpublished reading notes, page 58, notebook II for 1945). For Teilhard, Christ is, while completely human, still—in a certain sense—as big as the world, because he is its keystone and its Prime Mover (Le Christique, unpublished essay written in 1955, p. 4Google Scholar); Teilhard believed that this is the God contemporary man is looking for.
6 “The Sense of Man,” in Toward the Future, trans, by Hague, R. (London: 1975), p. 34Google Scholar.
7 “The Road of the West,” in Toward the Future, p. 53.
8 “My Universe,” in Science and Christ, trans, by Hague, R. (London: 1968), pp. 60–61Google Scholar.
9 “Christology and Evolution,” in Christianity and Evolution, trans, by Hague, R. (London: 1971), p. 85Google Scholar.
10 Journal, vol. I (26 August 1916 - 4 January 1919)Google Scholar, texte intégral publié par N. et K. Schmitz-Moormann (Paris: 1975), p. 68.
11 Ibid., p. 82.
12 “Introduction to the Christian Life,” in Christianity and Evolution, p. 163.
13 “Christianity and Evolution,” in Christianity and Evolution, p. 181.
14 Unpublished letter, August 11, 1936.
15 Unpublished letter of May 21, 1952, to Francois Richaud. Teilhard goes on to say that he “absolutely refuses to admit that atheism is an organic part of Marxism: Marxism does not deny the whole God, but only the God of the Above, in the measure that this God seems incompatible with the God of the Forward. From this, there is a way of mutual understanding between the Christian and the marxist in the perspective of a universe in a state of cosmogenesis (but only in such a universe).”
16 Journal, p. 190.
17 “The Struggle Against the Multitude,” in Writings in Time of War, trans. by Hague, R. (London: 1968), p. 107Google Scholar.
18 “Cosmic Life,” in Writings in Time of War, p. 67.
19 “Introduction to the Christian Life,” p. 163.
20 Idem.
21 The Divine Milieu, trans, by Wall, B.et al. (New York: 1960), pp. 101–104Google Scholar.
22 Ibid., pp. 103-104.
23 Ibid., p. 104.
24 In Christianity and Evolution, pp. 212-220.
25 Ibid., p. 216.
26 Letter of September 18, 1948, to de Terra, Rhoda, published in Letters to Two Friends (New York: 1968), p. 187Google Scholar.
27 Retreat notes, 1941, unpublished.
28 Idem.
29 Retreat notes, 1942, unpublished.
30 Letter of Good Friday, 1955, to Ravier, Father in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Lettres intimes (Paris: 1974), pp. 465–466Google Scholar.
31 These three phases of Christian personalization, which form the outline of much of The Divine Milieu, are to be found outlined concisely in the essay “Reflections on Happiness,” in Toward the Future, trans, by Hague, R. (London: 1975), pp. 117–120Google Scholar.
32 The Divine Milieu, p. 96.
33 Ibid., p. 97.
34 S.J.de Lubac, H., “Maurice Blondel et le Père Feilhard de Chardin, mémoires échangés en décembre 1919, présentés par H. de Lubac,” Archives de philosophie, 24 (1961), pp. 123–156Google Scholar.
35 Notes from public debate, Jan. 21, 1947, Paris; unpublished.
36 The Phenomenon of Man, trans, by Wall, B. (New York: 1965), p. 312Google Scholar.
37 “Operative Faith,” in Writings in Time of War, p. 230.
38 Journal, p. 337; cf. pp. 164-167 and 183.
39 “My Universe,” in Science and Christ, p. 62.
40 Ibid., p. 63.
41 The Divine Milieu, p. 88.
42 See Laberge, J., Pierre Teilhard de Chardin et Ignace de Loyola (Paris: 1973), pp. 165–173Google Scholar.
43 Retreat of 1939, unpublished.
44 Retreat of 1941, unpublished.
45 Retreat of 1943, unpublished.
46 Retreat of 1942, unpublished.
47 Retreat of 1939, unpublished.
48 Retreat of 1941, unpublished.
49 Retreat of 1942, unpublished.
50 Retreat of 1945, unpublished.
51 Idem.
52 Retreat of 1949, unpublished.
53 Retreat of 1944, unpublished.
54 Idem.
55 Retreat notes, 1945, unpublished.
56 Retreat notes, 1946, unpublished.
57 Retreat notes, 1948, unpublished.
58 Retreat notes, 1954, unpublished.