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 the writings of Aquinas. The archbishop followed it up in 1277, i.e., upon Thomas’ death, with a further condemnation of 219 propositions he thought were suspect in the opinion of Aquinas. In the case of Teilhard, Teilhard’s appreciation of the cosmicity of Christ similarly landed him in trouble with the ecclesiastical authorities. During his lifetime, he was put in a position where he “had frequently to defend himself against the suspicion of pantheism” (182). Barely seven years after his death, in 1962, the Holy Office issued a warning “pertinent to ambiguities and possible errors in some of Teilhard’s writings” (34). There are even further perplexing similarities between the two thinkers that G, brings out. “All of Teilhard’s writings (from 1913 through 1955) came before the Catholic Church being reconciled with an evolutionary world view… As Thomas Aquinas’ adventure with the philosophy of Aristotle at a time when Aristotle was not yet seen as amicable from the vantage point of Christian faith” (66). It was precisely because the two thinkers, who somehow were ahead of their times, manifested an adventurous spirit that their works endured beyond the initial polemics that greeted them.

After the opening chapter that compares the thoughts of these two great Catholic thinkers, the subsequent chapters take up schematic subject-specific issues. Aquinas’ theology of creation is considered in chapter two. Here G. brings out with clarity the scriptural basis of Aquinas’ teaching on creation, highlighting how Aquinas worked out this idea in the context of his polemics against the Manicheans, Cathars, and the other heretical groups who held tenaciously to a pessimistic view of nature. G. does not want us to forget that Aquinas the Aristotelian was also Aquinas the Augustinian. He helps us understand how Aquinas was grounded in the theology of St. Augustine and shows many ways Aquinas respects Augustine’s opinion. Perhaps what might have set Aquinas aside from other Augustinians of the time, we learn from G., was that Aquinas left himself “open to a temporal development in the production of corporeal creatures” (50). This is where G.’s fusing of the horizons of the two thinkers become even more creative, as in his suggestion that that such a development can be found in a radical way in Teilhard’s cosmological vision (discussed in chapter three). In Teilhard’s vision, “cosmogenesis become biogenesis as the universe gives birth to life, and biogenesis becomes anthropogenesis, as in due time within the midst of the biosphere there emerges Homo sapiens” (61). Since Aquinas considered the views of the Manicheans on the matter, G. finds it pertinent to show how Teilhard’s view “was at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Manicheans as far as the material world is concerned” (62). Teilhard shows in his own distinctive way, and perhaps in a language unavailable to Aquinas, how the universe is created and how it evolves at the same time; how God is the creator and the one who directs the evolving creation; how the evolutionary process “has a center, is centered, is a process of centration.” This center is also both up above and up ahead. For, God’s creation evolves in stages and unfolds (65). G. concludes this section of the work by letting the reader know “there is little in Thomas or in Teilhard that would allow for major disagreements between the two. There is little in Aquinas’s theology of creation with which Teilhard would disagree, even if Teilhard would choose to emphasize certain aspects of creation to bring out its evolutionary dimension” (80).

Chapter four, which treats of Aquinas’ theological anthropology, is meant to anticipate chapter five, which treats of Teilhard’s theological anthropology. Aquinas might have treated the origin of sin, but not in an evolutionary way as we know it today. Nonetheless, Aquinas was right in his treatment of human sinfulness – a sinfulness Aquinas traced back to the beginning of human origins. “If there is any doctrine for which there is more than ample empirical evidence, it is the doctrine of the original sin, as Cardinal Newman so aptly described” (83). What G. does here is use Teilhard’s treatment of human nature and the Fall, which Teilhard does from an evolutionary perspective, to complement Aquinas’s treatment of the subject. G., however, concedes that the traditional doctrine of monogenism can be problematic, at least for evolutionary biologist, and is, therefore, open to new ways of conceiving original sin. He thinks Teilhard does a good job of attempting to resolve this difficulty. Teilhard saw original sin as “a static solution of the problem of evil” (163). Teilhard, therefore, thought that the “traditional idea of a Fall and the Augustinian interpretation of original sin, were an attempt to explain evil within a fixed universe that came forth from the hands of God. But creation was not and is not finished” (163). Teilhard’s technical terms, such as hominization, anthropogenesis, psychogenesis, noogenesis, noosphere, personalization, socialization, spiritualization, excentration, affectionizaton, and amorization, all say something about Teilhard’s understanding of human nature and creation’s telos, which Teilhard conceives as moving upward and forward and has an omega point – a point of ultimate convergence. G. also helps us understand how this very idea is the cornerstone of Teilhard’s Christology (a matter he discussed extensively in chapter seven). For Teilhard, “There could be no evolution of life without the first cell, no human evolution without the first human beings, and no cosmic Christ” (151).

Just as chapter four anticipates chapter five, chapter six, which treats of Aquinas’ Christology is designed to lay the foundation for chapter seven, which treats of Teilhard’s cosmic Christ. Chapter five explores Aquinas’ treatment of Christ’s self-knowledge, a matter that will be of interest to contemporary ecclesiologists and pastoral theologians, many of whom still wrestle with the question of Christ’s self-knowledge. Drawing from the wisdom of Aquinas, G. explains that “As Son of God, Christ had access to divine knowledge within his divine nature” (133). There are also treatments of virginal conception of Christ, the teachings and ministry of Christ, Christ’s miracles, redemption, and satisfaction – matters that are of interest to sacramental theologians, pastoral theologians and ecumenists. Teilhard, on his part, does not discuss Christology in the traditional sense the way Aquinas does. Teilhard’s own emphasis is rather on Christ’s relationship to all creation – “Christ is in some way the fulfillment of creation, that for which the created order itself yearns” (152). G. is keen to help the reader understand that at the heart of what Teilhard conceives as noosphere is “the Christosphere, a realm of love surrounding the universe, a realm of love that relates from and through the person of Christ as embodied and symbolized in the cross of Christ” (170-171). In the final analysis, G. helps the reader to grasp the relevance of Teilhard’s other creative terms to Christology, particularly how Christ-Omega is the center. “What Christ mediates to and through creation is the power of love” (172).

Chapter eight reaffirms and connects the dots in the cosmologies, anthropologies, and Christologies of Aquinas and Teilhard that the earlier chapters address, but this time with attention to the unity in their cosmotheanthropic vision as it relates to their approaches to the triune God. Here G. offers extensive treatment of why Aquinas might be read in almost the same mystical-poetic way that Teilhard has traditionally been read. G. locates evidence for this novel reading in Aquinas’ apophatic theology. “A basic principle for Thomas is that a thing is only known according to the mode of the knower” (176). God is knowable, but our finite mind can only grasp so much. There is also a lengthy treatment here of the various names for God. The most proper name for God is the tetragrammaton, the One Who is, a name that was revealed to Moses (Exodus 3: 14). But as creatures, we name God through metaphors and “other names for God that derive from God’s relationship with creatures” (177). Conversely, Teilhard might not have been adept at using analogy and predication of divine names the way Aquinas was. Nonetheless, “There is very little, if anything, that Aquinas says about God with which Teilhard would disagree” (181). Even if Teilhard does not write about God’s incomprehensibility as clearly as Aquinas does, understandably so since his own emphasis is on how the God of creation and the God of evolution is the Alpha and the Omega, he still very much speaks the language of Aquinas in a different way. One of G.’s essential arguments here is that in Teilhard there is “something deeply traditional… and something radically new” and “sculpted for a new age” (189).

If G. has whetted our appetite with his treatment of Aquinas and Teilhard, the two creative thinkers who together help us see the relationship of the Christian message to culture, he even whets it more with his treatment of other creative thinkers and his engagement with their thoughts. The new voices engaged are from different traditions and epochs. G. uses his engagement of these voces and traditions to give us an idea of what intra-ecclesial, intra-cultural, inter-cultural, and inter-religious dialogue might look like. Some of the voices are even compared or put in apposition: Eleanor Stump’s doctrine of atonement v. Khaled Anatolios’ doctrine of deification; Charles Taylor’s secular age v. Jacques Maritain’s integral humanism, are a few good examples. These contemporary thinkers also help address and answer questions that Aquinas and Teilhard might not have addressed or answered. The questions these contemporary thinkers asked and the answers they provided are within the orbit of what G. carefully tells us his book is about, i.e., “the promotion of dialogue between tradition and modernity, between religion and science, between faith and reason, with the goal of building bridges among those searching for truth” (209).

G. is neither idealistic about the two authors he adores, Aquinas and Teilhard, nor does he romanticize the views of Aquinas and Teilhard on the various subjects he treats in the book, as many contemporary Thomists and Teilhard-scholars often times do. While he respects and cherishes their contributions, he is also quick to admit their limitations. At the same time, he also acknowledges why there have been some misunderstandings of their works and their aims. He painstakingly sheds light on these misunderstandings, and where possible, offers a corrective. Teilhard, for example, was accused of pantheism. With respect to this accusation, G. helps the reader to understand that Teilhard had a vision of the God-world relationship that is “more organic along the lines of the vision of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians where God, the Center of centers, will be all in all” (182).What Teilhard wanted to do was “avoid a theology of God, and of the world governed by God in a juridical fashion” (183). G. also sheds light on how Teilhard’s work, at least at the time, posed a challenge to classical metaphysics. This can be seen in Teilhard’s often quoted idea “that creation must bring some ‘completion’ or ‘fulfillment’ to the absolute being” (186). Explaining how Teilhard’s spirituality is profoundly Ignatian, G. again helps the reader to see how Teilhard uses the text of 1 Cor. 15:28 to explain how God will be all in all or the “God of evolution,” to use Teilhard’s favored language of eschatology. In addressing all these matters, along the way the book clarifies and answers a number of contemporary questions, including one important question posed by Charles Taylor, “Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God, say, in 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable (323). Here G. also uses the works of Aquinas and Teilhard to clarify what an evolutionary view of the world means for our understanding of the core Christian teachings, like grace, predestination, merit, and redemption.

Up to this point, the book has been about convergences and unity in the thoughts of Aquinas and Teilhard. In some case, G. has even taken it upon himself to rehabilitate some of the teachings of Teilhard that many might still find contentious – showing how Teilhard’s teachings resonate in Aquinas and compatible with mainstream Catholic teaching. In fact, many C.S. Peirce scholars will, for this reason, appreciate reading this book because many of the evolutionary ideas of Teilhard have resonances in Peirce, particularly the Peircean idea of tychism and agapism—that the great evolutionary agency is love. The last chapter of the book, titled “Disputed Questions,” is a little different. It seems like a theological equivalence of hot-takes. Here G. boldly delves into some hotly contested issues and offers his own opinions on them. One of the hot-takes is the question regarding whether there is hell and whether universal salvation is possible. Two of the G.’s interlocutors here are Hans Urs von Balthasar, who developed a theology of hope to leave himself open to the possibility “that all will be saved” (242), and David Bentley Hart, who thought that the traditional Christian teaching on hell is itself “the single best argument for doubting the plausibility” (243). To illuminate the discussion, G. draws from Teilhard to answer these questions. It is always startling when the question of the possibility of universal salvation is raised. Here one cannot help but raise some questions. For example, faith-based organizations and people dedicated to fighting bigotry, injustice, and human inhumanity to one another cannot but have questions on the possibility of universal salvation. How is the Jewish victim of the holocaust to imagine the possibility of the salvation of those that dehumanized them and sent them to the gas chamber? How are the black victims of racism, especially those lynched under Jim Crow laws, to imagine the possibility of the salvation of the very people that lynched them? The conundrum is not so much in the suggestion that Bentley Hart’s perspective on the two questions “is a perspective that would resonate with Teilhard de Chardin as well” (243) or in the suggestion that Hart’s view on the possibility of universal salvation “seems more consistent with Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of the universe and his understanding of the nature of the human person (245). The puzzlement is on the subliminal suggestion that even those that have committed the most heinous crimes against humanity can be saved, something hard to imagine if you are on the victim’s side. Another hot-take that G. takes up is the issue of human sexuality. The matter is discussed in the second half of the chapter. G. probes whether there is a need to reconfigure our understanding of human sexuality in the light of the contemporary understanding of the evolutionary universe. He uses Teilhard’s emphasis on amorization to engage the matter: “How is sexuality to be understood in the light of Teilhard’s emphasis on evolution as amorization?” (248). G. works with the understanding that the question is very important in the contemporary context. He, therefore, thinks that “Thinking through difficult questions dialogically becomes a moral responsibility” (248). In the end, this is a marvelous book. It has a good bibliography and an index. A must have for research libraries.