We will be publishing the first-ever English translation of Fr. Philippe de la Trinite’s three-volume critical study of Teilhard de Chardin’s works originally written in French and published in 1967 & 1968. The author was a Carmelite theologian who worked closely with Cardinal Ottaviani in the Holy Office.

The translator, Brian Welter, has kindly given us permission to post his excellent foreword. He is currently working on the translation of Volume 2.

“Even though the original French Teilhard de Chardin: Étude critique was published in 1967, the reader of Teilhard de Chardin: A Critical Study in 2024 will be familiar with much of Philippe de la Trinité’s line of thinking on paleontologist Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955). This line of thinking is very similar to the argument that we hear today from any defender of the Catholic Tradition and western metaphysics. This is because we continue to be confronted today with the same problem that de la Trinité saw at the heart of Teilhardism. The core of de la Trinité’s argument is found in the interview at the end of the book in which he notes that Teilhard’s success is the sign of poor training in metaphysics. In fact, despite the tight and coherent critique of Teilhardism, this book is in a wider sense a reflection on the result of the decline of metaphysics in the West and its replacement by scientism. A Critical Study could have equally been a book on Freudian or Jungian psychoanalysis or on the success of Marxism and the Frankfurt school, other ersatz metaphysical systems. Regardless of the angle, the attacks on metaphysics have been felt deeply in the Church.

Scientism is the extension of the scientific disciplines into areas of discourse and life that are properly the domain of metaphysics. Scientism is science acting as metaphysics. It claims to be the final jury on the higher things of life. It is science that no longer knows its proper place. It rejects oversight from a higher authority. In Fides et ratio (8), John Paul II defines scientism and warns us about it:

This [scientism] is the philosophical notion which refuses to admit the validity of forms of knowledge other than those of the positive sciences; and it relegates religious, theological, ethical and aesthetic knowledge to the realm of mere fantasy. In the past, the same idea emerged in positivism and neo-positivism, which considered metaphysical statements to be meaningless. Critical epistemology has discredited such a claim, but now we see it revived in the new guise of scientism, which dismisses values as mere products of the emotions and rejects the notion of being in order to clear the way for pure and simple facticity. Science would thus be poised to dominate all aspects of human life through technological progress. The undeniable triumphs of scientific research and contemporary technology have helped to propagate a scientistic outlook, which now seems boundless, given its inroads into different cultures and the radical changes it has brought.

Scientism’s assertiveness and self-confidence have only grown since those words, or the even earlier words of Philippe de la Trinité. This makes Teilhard de Chardin: A Critical Study more relevant than ever.

Teilhard’s scientism has a theological dimension to it as well as this metaphysical one. He observes, for instance: “Humanity is not cooled, but only searches with all its forces for a God that is proportionate to the immense news of a Universe whose appearance upset the scale of our power of worship.”[1] Such an idea reflects the very aggressive attempt to insert evolution into the Gospel by making this scientific perspective a kind of fifth gospel that explains the other four. This is a powerful example of scientism: science inverts the proper relationship and claims oversight of that which previously oversaw it.

De la Trinité’s wider, metaphysical perspective allows him to provide a clear, coherent, and profound judgment on Teilhard. Just as Nietzsche’s famous God is dead was not a declaration but merely an observation, so Teilhardism is, for de la Trinité, not so much a cause as it is a symptom of profound changes that have already taken place. What was the state of society and the Church that enabled Teilhardism to emerge in the first place and be taken so seriously? This question, which concerns the state of metaphysics, is repeatedly answered. Bad metaphysics leads to bad theology, or as de la Trinité observes, “A deficiency in metaphysics leads logically to a deficiency in dogma.”[2]

The sharp observations and meticulously laid-out case against de Chardin reveal the theological heterodoxy of Teilhard’s thought. De la Trinité defines these errors in terms of the dynamic of modernity, with its revolutionary spirit, in one insightful observation after another. He sometimes comes close to depicting Teilhard as a victim, as an idealist throwing himself into the wave of anti-metaphysical, doctrinally heretical flotsam and jetsam. He reveals the descent from metaphysics to materialism: “The divinity of Christ slides from the ontological register to the phenomenological register.” (22) Exactly! We have seen this in Protestant denomination after Protestant denomination even while it was spreading throughout the Catholic Church. In many cases, Catholic thinkers have gone from ontology to phenomenology, from a realism-based metaphysics of being to an idealist phenomenology of becoming, and from Tradition to anti-tradition. De la Trinité reveals Vatican II, its roots from earlier decades, and its spirit more fully and richly than most writers on the topic because he is working from such a detailed and extensive roadmap of this disastrous thinking. Readers will better understand the thought process whereby St. Thomas Aquinas turned into Anthony de Mello and Teilhard de Chardin, the Mass of the Ages into folk music and Protestantized liturgy, and objective authority into subjective opinion and feeling.

In a footnote, the author reflects more deeply on this slide from metaphysics and the deposit of the faith and how, of all things, it arrives at the deprivation of supernatural life for even the most innocent:

The baptized newborn is visibly and canonically incorporated into the Church, but he does not have to receive the mysterious, ‘ontological’ gift of supernatural life. He has it by who he is. The creator is redeemer, creation is already redemption. Hominization is divinization. The more the human humanizes, the more he divinizes. (23-24)

This seems closer to pantheism than to traditional Christianity.

De la Trinité provides an apt synopsis of the modern attitude, which has split off from the traditional orientation of the Christian West. The transformation in belief, at the core of which is the rejection of the ontological reality of Revelation, leads to a completely different understanding of the person from that of traditional metaphysics and theology. The anthropology of evolution shares nothing in common with the anthropology of traditional metaphysics and Christian belief. De la Trinité describes the altered psychology and upended sense of self and the world. Tragically, this new vision of man was increasingly embraced in some sectors of the Church from the mid-twentieth century onward, with Teilhard’s writings at the core of this upheaval. This split between the Christian and evolutionary perspectives led to a split within Teilhard, including in his core beliefs.

De la Trinité reveals this inner split from the pages of Teilhard’s writings. This sharp moral and psychological evaluation refers to the Jesuit’s state of mind and level of obedience to his superiors. This painstaking evaluation helps us see Teilhard’s relationship with the Church, including his contempt for it, or at least for his superiors. The Jesuit followed the letter, but not the spirit. He adhered to the ban on the publication of his books while preparing for postmortem publication. He claimed to be in obedience to his superiors while characterizing his vision as ahead of his time and of those very superiors. He was ahead of the Church, and had to be patient for the Church to slowly catch up with him.[3]

At times, de la Trinité  expresses admiration, or at least understanding, of aspects of Teilhard’s teaching. Perhaps the most consistent is the Jesuit’s strong concern for the declining role of the Church in society and for the psychology of individual Christians. In the mid-twentieth century, the Church and its teachings were losing their pull and its social status was falling. De la Trinité cites Teilhard: “How the Gospel is presented to us now is too narrow. It is lacking something from the Gospel. Our age requires stronger nutrition.”(62) This could have been said by many Churchmen. De la Trinité maintains a respect for Teilhard as a person throughout this critique. There is none of the ad hominem attack strategy that is so central to public discourse in 2024 and that Teilhard himself practiced when he treated his superiors as backwards with his patronizing obedience.

An impressive and meticulous researcher, the author cites a wide range of Teilhard’s writings, including his letters. He is able to dig up numerous gems that show the core of Teilhard’s beliefs. Doubtful thought after doubtful thought is cited: Man’s role “is to achieve the cosmic evolution in bringing about the fermentation, until the achievement of their ultimate promises, of the inexhaustible energies that bathe his heart when he is born.” “And, before each new property that is manifested before his eyes, on the new day that is open on the promised Earth, the learned man almost kneels as he would before the revelation of a divine attribute.” (24–25) The reader gets the strong impression from this focused analysis that Teilhard is establishing a new religion, not laying the groundwork for a theological renewal for Christianity. His agenda is not shared by the Church.

The author’s words about Teilhard seem applicable to the woke spirit of 2024: “It is not possible to oppose him as one can attack a St. Thomas, a Descartes, a Kant or, one another level, a specialist in Biblical exegesis, because Teilhard is not really rational nor a rationalist. He sees, he feels, he affirms. He hardly deduces or proves anything. He sees and pursues the path that is in front of him.” (81) The Gospel, even Christ Himself, is demoted in this rereading of the Gospel under the aegis of the meta-gospel of evolution and all the feelings that revolve around evolution. Christ must fit into the grammar and logic of evolution. Evolution is the Meta-revelation. This is a profoundly unhappy interpretation of the Gospel, as it is devoid of grace. Evolution, one can suppose, is the new bestower of grace, but it is an impersonal grace. We seem to be back to the Deism of the Enlightenment, with evolution as a refined version of the heavenly watchmaker. De la Trinité notes: “We are dealing with an inversion, a metamorphosis, a deformation of the mystery of Jesus that fulfills the requirements for a panchristic universe.” This goes to the heart of Teilhard’s attacks on the veracity and truth of Revelation, as he seems guilty of transforming Revelation beyond all recognition. This is the entire point of de la Trinité’s reflections.

A note about style. First, Teilhard’s eccentric capitalization of nouns is retained in the translation to give readers a better sense of his writing. At times, Philippe de la Trinité practices this undisciplined capitalization as well. Second, de la Trinité writes in the typical French of mid-twentieth-century scholarly analysis, with long and winding sentences full of digressions, abrupt stoppages, verbless sentences, and excessive dashes and commas as attempted roadmaps through all this complexity. This has been simplified.

The fact that, on the one hand, Teilhard did such an effective and powerful job of advancing his ideas and that, on the other hand, de la Trinité is so passionate in refuting these, means that this is only the first of a two-book set by de la Trinité.”

[1] AvH, 348.

[2] 235.

[3] Page 50, fn 1.