A Theology for the Earth: The Contributions of Thomas Berry and Bernard Lonergan

CHAPTER THREE: INTERACTION WITH THE THOUGHT OF TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

CHAPTER THREE INTERACTION WITH THE THOUGHT OF TEILHARD DE CHARDIN Introduction Two early essays of Thomas Berry, "Creative Evolution" and "The Christian Process/' suggest a reason for his initial interest in Teilhard. Berry, like Teilhard, raised questions about the increasing split he perceived between religion (Christianity, in particular) and the world of the twentieth century. They both attributed the increase in secularization and the growing sense of human alienation from religion to a ghettoized Christianity, whose efforts to meet the needs of the modern world had, to date, been minimal.1 In these two essays, Berry dealt primarily with the radical change that he saw occurring in culture and society, change in which the wider society was leaving behind traditional Christianity. The fault, he thought, lay within Christianity itself and its failure to be cognizant of its own biblical mission of revolutionary change in history. To that effect, he wrote: The more carefully we studythe modernrevolutionsthe moreclear it becomes that they are all in the direct line of descent from the spiritual revolution ofChristianityand this in turn goesback to the prophetic and apocalyptic visions of the Old Testament.2 62 A THEOLOGY FORTHE EARTH In Berry's thought, it was Christianity that claimed the relevanceof the "death-rebirth" symbolism to the historical process itself. The "saving revolution" would be achieved not by accepting the world or society or the human as is, but through a "mounting historical sequence " of death and rebirth. A second exodus was needed, Berry declared, in which Christianity would leave its own isolated space and enter the new "Holy Land," the modern, historically conscious world.3 Teilhard was also concerned with the split between the two worlds in which he lived—the secular, scientific world that brought him in contact with many people for whom Christianity was no longer a vital force, and the Christian world, which, he felt, failed to communicate with a modern humanity. His lifelong pursuit was to bring together these two worlds that he loved. In the preface to The Divine Milieu, Teilhard spoke of the problem of the gap between the two worlds as follows: As a result of changes which, over the last century, have modified our empiricallybased pictures of the world and hence the moral value ofmanyofits elements, the "human religiousideal" inclines to stress certain tendencies and to express itself in terms which seem, at first sight, no longer to coincide with the "Christian religious ideal."4 One of Teilhard's goals in writing this essay was to show that the two worlds were indeed related. Despite similar starting points, there was a much more sustained effort by Teilhard than by Berry to enunciate new meanings for the major Christian doctrines. While Berry continued to see the necessity of this task, it was not a significant focus of his own work.5 He claimed to focus more on the larger society. This difference, however, occurred not because Teilhard wished to address Christians as such and Berry didn't; both thinkers were interested in a religiously disenchanted group. Teilhard's primary audience was the secular scientific community to which he belonged;6 Berry'swas the more general public secular society. The difference lay mainly in the source of their religious ideas; Berry drew many of his religious ideas from non-Christian religions, while Teilhard was specifically concerned with reinterpreting Christianity. This became obvious as Berry declared his departures from Teilhardian thought. Berry distanced himself from Teilhard's thinking about the role of the past and of non-Western civilizations in human evolution. This led to a broader thematization by Berry of how human psychic energy empowered further evolution. He also critiqued Teilhard's notion of Western progress. Berry's critique was directly related to his sensitivity to the ecological crisis. INTERACTION WITH THETHOUGHT OF TEILHARD DECHARDIN 63 Berry's Development of Teilhard's Thought—Role of Classical Civilizations and Non-Christian Religions Berry's essays, "Threshold of the Modern World" and "Building the Earth/' faulted Teilhard for underestimating the role of the great civilizations in the future evolution of humanity.7 For the most part, Teilhard considered the classical civilizations to be mere extensions of the Neolithic period. Berry quoted Teilhard on this point: The better we get the past into perspective, the more clearlywe see that the periods called "historic" (right down to and including the beginning of "modern" times) are nothing else than direct prolongations of...