Sunday, April 10, 2011
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
I posted on Facebook: If your religion can't produce a de Chardin, find another religion.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (May 1, 1881 – April 10, 1955) was a French philosopher. scientist and Jesuit priest.
I haven't read deeply into de Chardin, most of what I read I didn't understand, & some of what I did understand I didn't agree with. He often knocked heads with the Vatican, but he stayed Catholic. My Catholic friends love him.
de Chardin was the kind of visionary Christian thinker who viewed science as a process capable of clarifying Divine Revelation & intent. By contrast, fundamentalists believe science is also a Divine trick designed to confuse & mislead us. Plate tectonics would have delighted de Chardin the paleontologist and geologist. Fundamentalists say they were invented at most 10,000 years ago along with the rest of the universe, making the process (& science in general) in essence stagecraft. Which to me takes all the fun out, since plate tectonics are the big "click" that snaps into place the puzzle of how our planet's surface shapes itself, determining so much else. I don't think science directly challenges Christian orthodoxy except that it fails to provide proof of anything supernatural, God or ghosts or leprechauns. But the Nicene & Apostles' Creeds don't require you to be a scriptural literalist; they either touch something in your mind & (metaphoric) heart or they don't. Great theologians can agree with science that the reality we experience isn't all the reality there is, or even quite what we are experiencing, & can they can do so without trashing the science.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (May 1, 1881 – April 10, 1955) was a French philosopher. scientist and Jesuit priest.
I haven't read deeply into de Chardin, most of what I read I didn't understand, & some of what I did understand I didn't agree with. He often knocked heads with the Vatican, but he stayed Catholic. My Catholic friends love him.
de Chardin was the kind of visionary Christian thinker who viewed science as a process capable of clarifying Divine Revelation & intent. By contrast, fundamentalists believe science is also a Divine trick designed to confuse & mislead us. Plate tectonics would have delighted de Chardin the paleontologist and geologist. Fundamentalists say they were invented at most 10,000 years ago along with the rest of the universe, making the process (& science in general) in essence stagecraft. Which to me takes all the fun out, since plate tectonics are the big "click" that snaps into place the puzzle of how our planet's surface shapes itself, determining so much else. I don't think science directly challenges Christian orthodoxy except that it fails to provide proof of anything supernatural, God or ghosts or leprechauns. But the Nicene & Apostles' Creeds don't require you to be a scriptural literalist; they either touch something in your mind & (metaphoric) heart or they don't. Great theologians can agree with science that the reality we experience isn't all the reality there is, or even quite what we are experiencing, & can they can do so without trashing the science.
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I love Teilhard de Chardin. He was brilliant. He was actually silenced, to which he assented.
For good or ill, the Roman Catholic Church, although it moves slowly (ill) it does support science. And thank God no literal interpretation of Scripture. That last thing alone is great.
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For good or ill, the Roman Catholic Church, although it moves slowly (ill) it does support science. And thank God no literal interpretation of Scripture. That last thing alone is great.
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