Giovanni Cavalcoli
Of the Order of Preachers
Presbyter and Theologian

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Father Giovanni

About the desire to proclaim some new “santi”: observations on the theology of Teilhard de Chardin and his dangerous poetic thought

ABOUT SMANIA OF CERTAIN NEW PROCLAIM "SAINTS": COMMENTS ON THE THEOLOGY OF Teilhard de Chardin AND HIS POETIC DANGEROUS THOUGHT

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His theology is not driven by a rigorous and lucid speculative commitment based on sound philosophical base, and it is scarce in the same understanding faith, on which prevails a lively poetic imagination. Born then purely subjective visions, emotional and imaginative, to the detriment not only of the correct philosophical reasoning, ma, what is worse, the same doctrine of the faith. In Teilhard de Chardin is a substantial lack of docility to the Magisterium of the Church, he presumptuously replaced by its imaginative subjective view. This is why some have spoken rightly, about him, of "gnosis".

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Author
Giovanni Cavalcoli, o.p.

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God the Father has made known to us the mystery of his will: the recap plan in Christ all things [Ef 1, 3-10]

They distracted by what, because the things seen are fair [Sap 13,7]

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Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. [1881-1981]

The information agency Vatican Insider reports:

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"The plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture has overwhelmingly approved a proposal that must be brought to Pope Francis, It is asking you to contemplate whether it is possible to remove the Warning the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on the works of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. The petition was approved on Saturday 18 November during the proceedings of the meeting held on the theme "The future of humanity: new challenges to anthropology ". the proposal, as raised by the online newspaper SIR [Ed. cf. WHO], It is motivated as well: "We believe that such an act not only rehabilitate the genuine effort of the pious Jesuit, in an attempt to reconcile the scientific view of the universe with Christian eschatology, but also it represents a formidable stimulus for all theologians and scientists of good will to collaborate in the construction of a Christian anthropological model, following the directions of the encyclical Laudato si, naturally you place in the wonderful frame of the cosmos' " [See article Vatican Insider, WHO].

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I must say that I support the initiative, I consider acceptable but with the necessary reservations about his motivation, so I would like to make some clarifications. First of all, it is not "rehabilitate" Teilhard de Chardin, as if that Warning the judge had erred and had to be corrected. It must be borne in mind that, when the Church condemns a doctrine that endangers the faith, can't be wrong, because it applies to that assistance of the Holy Spirit that Christ promised to Peter as the guardian of the truth of faith. And those who teach what the truth, It is obviously qualified to teach what is the opposite error.

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But there are in Warning three pastoral-disciplinary aspects, which may be the subject of reserves, and then correction. Now, by order, we will see what:

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First, care to preserve the seminarians by Teilhard errors it seems like a goal too limited: why worry only of seminarians and not even the teachers? Perhaps the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin did not cause even failures in academic circles?

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Second, the tone of Warning, the 1962, understandably it reflects what until then had been the style of the Holy Office: limited to condemnation of errors, differently from what is the current procedure of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which, having taken up the post-conciliar directives, accompanies the condemnation of the errors to the relief of the positive aspects of thought the author censored. But of course, of this fact you can not blame the Holy Office of the 1962, who, Dieting contemporary methods, He had simply done his duty.

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However, what arouses true wonder - and this is the third observation, the most serious - is the fact that the condemnation of the errors remains on general and not precise what are the errors condemned, come of always instead it is customary in the Church and it is wise and necessary, to give way to precisely faithful to know from what evils you have to watch and, consequently, what are the appropriate care. So we must say frankly that we have a real defect, course of pastoral and not doctrinal, but it requires, already own, that the document is removed. And it was time, after so many contradictory and uncertain threads in these sixty years of which they are or are not the Teilhard de Chardin errors!

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but be careful, because now there is an opposite danger the one that came from Warning. If this fact favored a harsh attitude towards Teilhard de Chardin without deciding the same time clearly the question, Now the risk is that of yet another subtle maneuver of the usual modernist, maneuver that is not hard to see behind the apparent homage to the Pope, expressed with refined hypocrisy in the petition. The modernists, indeed, under the pretext of respect for Teilhard, They hope the Pope to bite, merely remove the hated Warning accusing them, and everything ends there, for greater ease in continuing better spread their heresies, How do impunity from fifty. So, Needless to say very clearly that there is no question of "rehabilitate" doctrinally Teilhard. If the modernist dream of such a thing, if the take away immediately from the head. It deals with, instead, to correct pastoral attitude of Teilhard, treating it with greater justice and charity.

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The Supreme Pontiff, in granting the removal of Warning, could and should, in my opinion, not to be mocked by the modernists, to test their sincerity, entrusting the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to publish a challenging doctrinal instruction knew Teilhard de Chardin, in which the praises for his merits are accompanied with a detailed list of the errors, What we are waiting unnecessarily from 1962. Then you will see if the drafters of the petition are animated by a sincere love for sound doctrine and the Church, and then by a true respect for Teilhard de Chardin, or they want to use him to continue to get away with it, although we do not know for how long.

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I proceed now by presenting a list of possible theological errors of Teilhard de Chardin, on which you can not, nor should defer all, but rather bring greater clarity to.

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  1. In Teilhard de Chardin it lacks the notion analog entity, which it allows to recognize the primacy and transcendence of spirit over matter.
  1. He therefore does not know how to conceive a pure spirit free from material. Because of this, for him God is so high spirit, but jointly is the maximum vertex of matter. It is a God material. The Scriptures speak of idolatry.
  1. For him, "God is the soul of the world": proposition pantheistic flavor. It confuses the relationship God-world with the soul-body relationship.
  1. His theology is the imaginary covering a substantial deification of the world.
  1. He wants to replace metaphysics, which is overcoming the physical to grasp the spiritual, with a "hyperphysicshis coinage ", which it is nothing but a fantastic increase of physics raised ("Evolved") the absolute.
  1. Based on these assumptions, Void is clear that the distinction between the natural order and the supernatural, being the grace, participation in divine life, pure spirit without matter.
  1. Based on these assumptions, the Holy Spirit should lead to an essential material component. That is evident heresy.
  1. It should be said against Teilhard de Chardin that the unity of God is not the union or synthesis of a multiplicity, but it is absolutely simple unity without composition. God divides and reassembles, but it is indivisible and reassembles what is divided.
  1. The Holy Trinity is not a "trinitization"God as an effect of its own internal movement of multiplication and reunification, but it is the same divine essence triune, unchangeable, no multiple and unmultipliable.
  1. God creates the world not in the sense of unifying assumed an infinite multiplicity of material coexisting with Him from eternity, but in the sense of creating the same multiplicity of nothing. God is not only the authorizing officer of the world, but because of its existence. When God created the world, He had nothing beside Him and independently of Him, but it created everything, creature of the single unit and the multiplicity of entities and from nothing.
  1. Nothingness is not something possible or practicable, that tends to being or needs to be, but it is a simple non-being. Designing for nothing in this direction is arbitrary imagination and does not correspond to the biblical concept of nowhere, from which God draws the be.
  1. It has not existed or may have existed from eternity, next to God and independently of Him, a pure infinite multiplicity as pure numerical quantities without the multiplicity of the respective entities, because the amount of the substance is accident and does not exist alone without its substance.
  1. So a pure multiplicity no corresponding subject can not be real, but it is a purely abstract entity and imaginary. The truth is that God, creating the world, does not simply an abstract unified preexisting multiplicity, but it created a real multiplicity of nowhere, which, however, it was not previously to eternity a pure multiplicity no real subjects, because otherwise it could not even be real, but it was and is created as a real and concrete multiplicity of individual institutions, because the multiplicity of real accident and substances.
  1. God is not essentially and necessarily connected to the world, but it is completely independent. It does not need the world to complete its essence. His creative act in the world is entirely free and he could very well exist alone without the world, because He is infinite Perfection, absolutely self-existent and self-sufficient.
  1. Because of this, Also the Incarnation of the Word and the Redemption by Christ were free and gratuitous acts of merciful love of the Father for the salvation of sinful man.
  1. If God is the summit of the world, the divine nature of Christ is the apex of human nature and it falls into heresy.
  1. Teilhard de Chardin admits in Christ "a third nature, it would be neither human nor divine, but cosmic "[1]. That is clearly a heretic.
  1. It gave, creating the world, It has not only created bodies that would evolve until the spirit level, but together with the bodies (visible), also created pure spirits, ie the angels (invisible).
  1. Teilhard de Chardin recognizes that the spirit is superior to matter, and it is right in saying that the matter evolves out in preparation for the creation of the spirit. However, He does not say clearly that the matter can only be a condition of existence of the spirit (the man), but it can not become spirit nor can cause the existence.
  1. Teilhard de Chardin overlooks the fact that the spirit can exist without material subject: It gave, the angel and the human soul separate from the body after death, while the matter can not exist or exist alone or by itself without its substantial form, that gives shape, so as to constitute in conjunction with her the material substance, composed of matter and form. He seems so confusing the matter with the material substance, which it is composed of matter and form.
  1. Teilhard de Chardin denies the human soul creation directly from God, stating mediation of matter: "The soul is created by means of materiality"[2].
  1. It is true that the material substance, ie the body, changes over time, It evolves and turns naturally tending to elevate its nature with bringing it closer to the spirit. But the body can not become spirit, because becoming physical or processing or bodily evolution involve the fact that a material changes shape, but remains matter with a form. Why become spirit, ie pure form subsisting without matter, It should disappear as a subject: which in fact it does not happen.
  1. Teilhard de Chardin is right to claim that matter and body are actually true and what good, date, innocent, useful, beneficial, not contrary to the spirit and not the enemy. God is the one and the other creator. But it errs in assuming that matter can become spirit (see previous issue.): would overstate the matter to the detriment of the loftiness of spirit over matter and fall into materialism, ie in the deification of matter.
  1. The deep, immutable and inescapable ontological difference and essential (visible and invisible) between matter and spirit is not a sign of division or conflict between them, but it is the effect of divine wisdom creator, without separating distinguishes and unites without confusing.
  1. Teilhard de Chardin seems to have taken account of the fact that among the material things and spiritual things is so different, but also similarity and analogy, in their common membership to reality, so that the human reason, starting from the experience of visible things, It can rise by analogy to the knowledge of spiritual things, and even of God (Sap 13,5; RM 1, 19-20). However, he realized that the experimental science leads to theology.
  1. It is not clear in Teilhard de Chardin, the distinction between living and nonliving. It should be said that the evolution from non-living to living was made possible thanks to the omnipotence of the Divine Creator, then not in the sense that the inanimate bodies contained originally already by itself and in itself life in a latent state, because this is pure imagination and does not correspond to the experience.
  1. Teilhard de Chardin is right in saying, come Darwin, that the species of living beings in the course of evolution were transient and were not fixed, but they have changed into one another, to higher and higher species, until it reaches the threshold of the human species, but without crossing, except perhaps thanks to the divine creative power.
  1. It is not documented by science that an animal can generate a man, although it is not metaphysically impossible. So it is not documented with certainty that man is descended from monkeys, if anything, they can have common genes. It should also be noted against Teilhard de Chardin that what we know by divine revelation on this topic, It is that all mankind originated, thanks to an act divine creator, a single pair in paradise place on earth.
  1. It's not impossible, but it is extremely unlikely and totally undesirable that the primitive couple Edenic, equipped with, according to the biblical revelation, of very high spiritual perfection, It was generated by a pair of monkeys in paradise.
  1. From science we know that the earth had originated long before humans, and that this appearance was preceded by monkey. But to this day it has never been shown that at some point the monkey has begun to generate men. And it is impossible, however, the existence of an intermediate living between man and monkey, because the human soul is not the result of an evolution, ma, It is a simple spiritual form, or there is all or not there.
  1. Teilhard de Chardin neglects the fact that the species or human nature or essence of man is fixed and immutable, why it, while allowing a certain "christogenesis”, It is not a transient stage of evolution, one stage of the cosmic become exceeded and surmountable, After becoming a precedent and start to become a more, but it is "fixed end of eternal counsel", because it is created in the image and likeness of God, it did not become and will not become.
  1. With everything, Teilhard de Chardin is right to claim that man must progress towards Christ and that Christ ("Christ Omega") drew has sé. But the human and Christian progress is not change in the nature or essence, and therefore the moral law which guides, but it is progress, increase, development, strengthening and growth of the powers of a subject that keeps the same nature, always in obedience to the same law.
  1. The moral law, so, It is not subject to evolution, but it can and should be getting better known and applied. The preservation of perennial values ​​is therefore the condition of real progress.
  1. Teilhard de Chardin is right in saying that God moves and intentionally finalistically the universe according to an upward trend from matter to spirit, whose purpose and supreme and unsurpassable summit is Jesus Christ. He recognizes that the efficient cause is moved from the final cause. However, It overlooks the fact that Christ is not simply the top and end of man and the world ("Cosmic Christ" as "Point Omega"), ma, as God, infinitely it transcends and has created out of nothing.
  1. According to the data of faith, the history of man does not consist in the fact that God unifies evolutionarily and gradually over time the manifold, so that at the end of all mankind is in communion with God (“pleromization”), but it shows the mercy of God, that exalts the humble, and his righteousness, that breaks down the proud.
  1. It is contrary to the faith to believe that every man will let attract by God, so that everyone is saved. On the contrary, by virtue of free will and the choices of each, there is who receives the divine mercy and is saved and there is one who refuses and is damned.
  1. According to the data of faith, the primitive couple were created in a state of high physical perfection, moral and spiritual, superior, for some aspects, that achieved today by the human species, though wounded by original sin. It therefore seems highly unlikely, although not impossible, God has given birth to the Edenic pair of parents monkeys.
  1. What is quite likely however that appears, in punishment for sin, the primitive couple, expulsion from Paradise on this miserable earth, I have taken an ape-like appearance. That is confirmed by the findings paleoanthropological, studied by Teilhard de Chardin, which testify with clarity upward evolution of the human form simian progressed to that of today's man. In this field of knowledge he undoubtedly has its merits.
  1. Sin has not simply originated from our wickedness, but it has a historical much deeper, that is the original sin committed by our first parents, whose fault, transmitted for generation, infected all humanity and is taken away by Baptism expiation thanks to the sacrifice of Christ.
  1. The sin is not a simple inevitable and negligible accident of evolution path towards the best, almost malriuscito or waste product in the production chain to a thriving industry, however,, but evil act of disobedience to God, subsequent to original sin, that makes the man fall into a misery that, from which it only raises the cross of Christ, which therefore radically it frees us from sin delivering us from its consequences, that the loss of grace, the pains of this life and the tendency to sin.
  1. polygenism is incompatible with the Christian faith, saying that mankind originated from a single pair, and that the original offense, committed by this pair, It has been transmitted from generation to this pair to all mankind. Only the Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved from this guilt.
  1. The previous history of the earth to man's creation and the Garden of Eden, as it is apparent from paleontology, It presents an unsuitable environment for human life, and therefore seems to be to relate, both with the sin of the angels, although both foreshadowed, with the consequences of original sin. In fact, the Edenic universe was perfectly under the dominion of man.
  1. The laws of nature on earth, object of science, given that regulate a hostile nature, harmful and dangerous for us, Although laws laid down by the Creator, beside beneficial laws, clearly represent, eyes of faith, a fallen nature from Edenic condition, as a punishment for sin (Gen 3, 17-19). Teilhard de Chardin seems to disregard this fact testified by the Bible.
  1. The sufferings of this life and the hostility of nature to us are not necessary moments in the evolution proceeds, are not just opportunities to take it forward, but are the consequences of original sin and also of our sins, that serve to join the redemptive cross of Christ.
  1. For Teilhard de Chardin Christ does not suffer to atone for our sins, but only to strengthen us and guide us in the suffering necessary for our ultimate fulfillment.
  1. The opposition and enmity between the "flesh" and "spirit", which speaks St. Paul the Apostle, They were not originally desired by God, but are a consequence of original sin and the Christian ethics leads to their reconciliation. Because of this, Christian asceticism order, under certain circumstances, know how to give up the pleasure of the body, not to lose the joys of the spirit.
  1. The excessive and indiscreet concern of Teilhard de Chardin to consider flesh and spirit as one, It raises fears of lax ethics and hedonistic, caused by the fact that, under the pretext of unity between spirit and flesh, the human subject, Prone in this life, following the original sin, to be dominated by passions, neglect the moral effort for the spirit over the flesh domain.
  1. "We declare," - says Teilhard de Chardin [3] - "to construct a conceivable future of the human species towards which could both stretch the communism that rationalism and Christianity". This statement smacks of duplicity and is irreconcilable with the Christian's duty to testify publicly his faith.
  1. The Church is not the apex of humanity evolving, but it is the community of God's children living in grace.
  1. The fact that the Church constantly progresses towards the Parousia does not mean that all members of the Church may progress equally. Some progress and some people downgrades or stops.
  1. The life of grace and divine sonship are not simply the evolution of man summits, but a divine life than the simple human life.
  1. The matter of the sacrament of the Eucharist is not the world ("Mass on the World"), but the bread and wine specially prepared for the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass.
  1. Teilhard de Chardin argues that the Eucharistic transubstantiation does not matter only the bread, but it is completed in "transubstantiation of the world" [4]. In this way it falls into a clear idolatric falsification of the Eucharist.
  1. The Eucharistic transubstantiation of the Mass does not take place in the course of cosmic evolution, as believe Teilhard de Chardin, but when the celebrant pronounces the words of consecration of the bread and wine.
  1. Christ is not only the world's top evolving ("Cosmic Christ"), but first and foremost is the Son of God the Creator and Savior of the world.
  1. The Eucharistic Communion is not communion with the "cosmic Christ", but with the body and blood of the Lord under the Eucharistic species.
  1. It is true that in the Mass the celebrant consecrates himself to God with the Church. But we must not confuse this consecration cult, which it is a simple act of the virtue of religion, consequent to the consecration Eucharistic Bread and Wine, and its effect and purpose, with the same consecration of bread and wine, which act by which the priest, in persona Christi, the transubstantiation, which is the principle, reason and because of the cultic consecration.
  1. Christ at the end of the world is not welcome in the glory of the whole of humanity reached the apex of evolution (“pleromization”), why not all men want, but "will separate the sheep from the goats" (cf. Mt 25,32), ie welcome the right, while the reprobates will turn away from Him.

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Overall Guest

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the omega point did finally match by Teilhard de Chardin with the Risen Christ

It Padre Pierre Teilhard de Chardin It seems animated by a strong religious and mystical fervor, Christological in nature, with the laudable intention of harmonizing apologetic experimental science with the science and technology. His christocentrism, But, it appears immanentistic, while exaggerated is the exaltation of matter, the world and evolution, with prejudice to spiritual transcendence and God himself.

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His theology is not driven by a rigorous and lucid speculative effort based on solid philosophical base, and it is scarce in the same understanding faith, on which prevails a lively poetic imagination. Born then purely subjective visions, emotional and imaginative, to the detriment not only of the correct philosophical reasoning, ma, what is worse, the same doctrine of the faith.

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the omega point to the new ortogenesis

In Teilhard of Chardin there is a substantial lack of docility to the Magisterium of the Church, he presumptuously replaced by its imaginative subjective view. This is why some have spoken rightly, about him, of "gnosis".

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It also has the impression of a kind of substitution of poetry to theology. But it is a dangerous poetry, this his, because it does not simply express the Word of God with poetic images - something quite legitimate and useful -, ma replaces personal with fantastic creations. Rightly, Jacques Maritain speaks of theology-fiction [5] or what has been called fantatheology. It's no wonder that Teilhard de Chardin confuse intellect with imagination, because he himself theorizes: "The thought is feeling transformed ' [6].

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Remove the This orientation, without clarifying this "dangerous thought", or if you want ... "dangerously poetic", may create more dangers, especially then in a quite delicate moment like the one we are experiencing today in the Church and ecclesiastical level.

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Varazze, 7 December 2017

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The fantatheology Teilhard de Chardin in the film version

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NOTE

[1] Cit. in G.Frénaud- L.Jugnet -Th.Calmel, The Teilhard de Chardin errors, tree Publishing, Torino,1963, p.38.

[2] A.Drexel-L.Villa, Analysis of an ideology. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Editions Civilization, Brescia 1970, p.129.

[3] Cit. in A.Drexel-L.Villa, op.cit., p.124.

[4] A.Drexel-L.Villa, op.cit., p.131.

[5] The peasant of the Garonne, Desclee de Brouwer, Paris 1966, p.177.

[6] Cit. in A.Drexel-L.Villa, Analysis of an ideology. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Editions Civilization, Brescia 1970, p114.

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