"Jesuit says Rocks are Alive and Men are Descended from Apes

"Jesuit says Men Descended from Apes!"

–1937 Florida newspaper headline

A lecture on the life and work of Teilhard de Chardin

David H. Fenimore
University Distinguished Professor of the Humanities
Thursday, November 29^th 3-4 p.m.
Orvis School of Nursing 204, University of Nevada, Reno

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
(1881-1955)

This French paleontologist-priest devoted his intellectual life to reconciling spirit and matter, religion and science, creation and evolution. As with Galileo, Rome forbade him to publish, denied him an appointment at the Sorbonne, and exiled him to China, where he conducted scientific research and helped discover Peking Man. His reputation spreading, he chafed at the restrictions set by his ecclesiastical superiors, and began traveling, lecturing and writing manuscripts to be published only after his death. Pope John XXIII expressed interest in his ideas, which have continued to evolve in integrative works by social and environmental thinkers such as Marshall McLuhan, E.O. Wilson, Ken Wilber and Al Gore.

Founder of the New Age? First to point out "Descartes's error"?

"What we call inorganic matter is certainly animate in its own way . . . Atoms, electrons, elementary particles . . . must have a spark of spirit." (Science and Christ, written 1920s, published in English 1968)

Inspiration for the Gaia Hypothesis? Prophet of the Internet?

"And now, as a germination of planetary dimensions, comes the thinking layer which over its full extent develops and intertwines its fibers, not to confuse and neutralize them but to reinforce them in the living unity of a single tissue." (The Phenomenon of Man, written 1938-41, published in English 1959)

Mediator between Darwin and the Creationists?

"Though frightened for a moment by evolution, the Christian now perceives that what it offers him is nothing but a magnificent means of feeling more at one with God." (epilogue to Phenomenon of Man)

Struggling with his own dualistic nature?

". . . there is nothing which I do not do for compensating the things which, for higher reasons, I cannot give you (and it is hard for me not to give you) . . . this very privation I must impose on you makes me ten times more devoted to you . . . when there is no physical contact, there is convergence at a higher level."

(letter to his beloved companion of 12 years, the expatriate American artist Lucile Swan, 1936)

For more information call the Western Traditions Program at 784.4447