-008_Teilhard's Christianity and the Ancient Vedanta.htm Teilhard's Christianity and the Ancient Vedanta       Our task of comparison will be all the more interesting because one of the cross-purposes in Teilhard's life was just that he found himself simultaneously attracted by and at variance with old Indian thought. As he has explained in his essay, How 1 Believe,1 he recognised in this thought "an abundant sense of the Whole", which chimed with his own faith, but he saw in it (1) a suppression of the individual and the rich dynamism of life in a "homogeneous unity" and (2) a vision of matter as "dead weight and illusion". If anything in the modern Orient struck him as a sign of hope, it was

Part One THE REAL RELIGION OF TEILHARD       DE CHARDIN His Version of Christianity and Sri Aurobindo's Expose of the Ancient Vedanta           Roman Catholicism and Pantheism       The Roman Catholic Church has shown deep concern over the real religion behind the scientific-spiritual philosophy of the Jesuit priest and palaeontologist Teilhard de Chardin. Apropos of some declarations of his, a very disturbing question has arisen for it: "Was Teilhard a pantheist?"   According to pantheism, the universe is a single infinite Being manifesting all that is phys

II What is Basic Teilhardism? What Place has his Christianity in it?       (1)       In Rideau's book we have found from his Teilhard-quota-tions that Teilhard's Christianity has no vital concern for any traditional dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church but concentrates solely on preserving "Christ on the scale of and at the head of creation".1 According to Teilhard, such an exclusive regard is "the most essential aim and criterion of Christian orthodoxy"2 and, "since St. John and St. Paul, the fundamental rule of theology".3 The divine power so figured is the Cosmic or Universal Christ and, naturally, his

Supplementary Note       We may press some further statements of Teilhard into service of our contention that he subscribes to panpsychism not only in the sense that life is present in all matter even where it is not apparent but also in the sense that one single life, an identical vital presence, is active in various degrees throughout the universe - a sense which would be a natural and logical step towards pantheism.   A pronouncement at some length in our support meets us on pp. 98-100 of The Vision of the Past (Collins, London, 1966). The article where it occurs is called "The Transformist Paradox" and refers to "the new perspectives of discontinuity and p

Pantheistic Christianity and Panentheism       The issue over the equation of the natural Omega with a natural Christ being settled, we may move on to the other -namely, that, like Pantheos, Teilhard's Cosmic Christ is a World-God who precedes his own particular concentrated historical manifestation known as Jesus. In short, what Teilhard is announcing is a genuine pantheism sub specie Christi. And such a thesis emerges if we rightly gauge several of his pronouncements:   "The concentration of the Multiple in the supreme organic unity of Omega represents a most arduous task. Every element, according to its degree, shares in this laborious