Heya George,
Just to clarify, I wasn't saying Teilhard was a crypto-protestant. I was
only pointing out that having one's works snubbed by the RCC does not, even
by the RCC's standards, automatically make someone's theology non-Christian.
It may not even be non-Catholic necessarily.
On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:57 PM, <gmurphy10@neo.rr.com> wrote:
> I'll respond later to the rest of Gregory's post but here just comment on
> Teilhard. I certainly consider him to be a Christian who intended to set
> out a faithful understanding of the Christian, and specifically Roman
> Catholic, faith. (I don't have his writings at hand now but in one place
> where he's talking about the Body of Christ as the future of evolution, he
> explicitly speaks of the Roman church as the core - I can't remember the
> exact wording - of the church.) It is perhaps easier for a non-Roman
> Christian to see how in many ways his views are closer to those of
> traditional RC theology than to, e.g., the Lutheran or Reformed traditions.
> This is not to say that Rome & the Jesuits were not, from their standpoint,
> right to silence him as a theologian. But it's not because he was a
> crypto-protestant! (Traditional Lutheran & Reformed ideas about original
> sin are stronger than those of Trent & even more remote from Teilhard's than
> the RC position.)
>
> Some of Teilhard's ideas - e.g., what I mentioned above about the Body of
> Christ - are valuable, though in that case not very thoroughly worked out
> (in part just because he couldn't publish & get hepful criticism. OTOH his
> ideas about original sin are a problem, & not just because he realized that
> the traditional formulations wouldn't work.
>
> Shalom,
> George
>
>
>
> ---- Schwarzwald <schwarzwald@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Heya all,
> >
> > Jumping in here on one point.
> >
> >
> > > And then you named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who was disciplined for
> his
> > > views by the Roman Catholic Church because they were possibly
> inconsistent
> > > with Christian theology, while you suggest they *are* consistent with
> > > Christian theology. We will have to have this out one day George
> because
> > > Teilhard is a controversial figure and his process-orientation is
> *huge* in
> > > his approach.
> > >
> >
> > Catholic as I am, I have to mention that the Roman Catholic Church is
> > concerned with Catholic theology, not simply Christian theology. If
> Chardin
> > was promoting salvation by faith alone, his view would still be
> 'Christian
> > theology'. It would not be Catholic theology. And even the condemnation
> was
> > not complete - as in, not every idea that Chardin discussed was
> necessarily
> > incompatible even with Catholic theology.
> >
> > Either way, the result is that Teilhard's case is complicated. That the
> RCC
> > condemned him does not mean he wasn't promoting a Christian theological
> > concept, nor does it mean that all of his writing/understanding is
> > incompatible with more specifically Catholic theological concepts. On the
> > other hand, it doesn't mean that everything Chardin wrote was
> distinctively
> > Christian, or compatible with orthodox Christianity/Catholicism either.
> >
> > I will say that Chardin's view of evolution puts him in sharp opposition
> to
> > Darwin's view of evolution. But then, as I've said before on this list,
> who
> > cares what Darwin thinks?
>
>
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Received on Mon Sep 14 22:15:12 2009
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