When Teilhard de Chardin refers to the body of Christ, it is clear that for him the term has very specific meaning. The body of Christ is not just a theological concept to Teilhard, or a spiritual reality experienced only in times of prayer and at Mass. He speaks expressively of Christ's body as a kind of aura radiating out from everything, and clearly it is an integral part of his own perception of the world. But how does this relate to the findings of his scientific research? How does Teilhard integrate his faith and commitment to science in his vision of the world? In this chapter I want to explore the relationship between Teilhard's understanding of the body of Christ and his worldview as a whole.

Teilhard did not write systematically about theological issues, but there are threads running through his works which intertwine to produce a consistent theological description of his vision. And the body of Christ has great significance in his vision — and in its theological representation. In a short, undated paper (probably written in 1919) entitled ‘What Exactly is the Human Body?’, Teilhard gives us a useful definition: