Donald J. Goergen, Thomas Aquinas and Teilhard de Chardin. Christian Humanism in an Age of Unbelief. Eugene OR: Pickwick, 2022, 15,3 × 23 cm, 312 p., ISBN 978-1-6667-3849-0

The scholarship of this book is sound – well-researched and well-written. The author, Donald Goergen (hereafter G.) is a seasoned researcher and an acclaimed author of many books on similar subjects. He clearly draws from years of fruitful research in Thomism and Teilhard scholarship. The style of the book is simple: reader-friendly and geared towards all audiences. One of the things I like about it is that specialists and non-specialists who are interested in basic knowledge of evolution and issues of contemporary humanism will find the book useful. G makes every effort to avoid jargons and this is where he makes it accessible to non-specialists. Where some technical terms have been kept it is because there is no other way to speak to specialists in the two spheres of Thomism and Chardin-scholarship. This is evident in the 10 thematic chapters of the book. G. seriously engages the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and Teilhard de Chardin to further the dialogue, he thinks, is needed today. Why is the dialogue necessary? G. says it is to combat the secular humanism of our time. Taken as a given that evolution is a fact of life, the way many contemporary theologians have come to understand it, G. poses an essential question, “what is the future of religion in an increasingly secularized world?” G. proposes that the answer can be found through harvesting the wisdom of Aquinas and Teilhard – two thinkers who, according to him, were adept at using language creatively. “Teilhard uses language to help us see, Aquinas in order to help us understand. Aquinas’ language signifies; Teilhard’s language evokes. Aquinas communicates with great care the vision he has of God. Teilhard finds language at times a constraint… Aquinas speaks of God with analogy; Teilhard with ecstasy.” (203) The creative use of language of the two thinkers under consideration equally brings in sharp focus the contrast of their joint concerns. We see in Aquinas, as G. helps us to understand, the concerns of a teacher who desires to present the material world systematically in the age of faith. By contrast, we see in Teilhard the concerns of a thinker who is writing to present the material world scientifically in an age of unbelief. It is obvious that G. clearly appreciates the wisdom of the two thinkers. But he does not want us to get caught just marveling at their wisdom. As he tells us, their wisdom is only a starting point; also their synthesis is by no means a “closed door” (2). In the end, by juxtaposing the ideas of the two thinkers, G. gives the reader a glimpse of what a renewed humanism might mean in our age, which by his correct estimation, is largely an age of unbelief. As the systematic thinker and fine synthesizer that he is, G. creatively weaves the ideas of Aquinas and Teilhard – two thinkers who lived in two different eras and two different places and separated about 700 years from each other. For people unfamiliar with the ideas of the two thinkers, the first chapter is an apt survey of their thoughts, their milieus, and the respective meanings and values that informed their cultures. This is also where the reader will appreciate all the more the task G. has taken upon himself. He helps the reader understand some similarities, including the controversies surrounding the receptions of the ideas of the two thinkers, especially at the beginning of their illustrious careers. In Aquinas’ lifetime, the Archbishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, went as far as condemning, in 1270, what he thought were “thirteen Averroist theses” in …