“These (false) evolutionary notions, with their denial of all that is absolute or fixed or abiding in human experience, have paved the way for a new philosophy of error ...”
“And so it is with these moderns: they go so far, some of them, as to raise serious doubts about our theology and its method. The demand is for their wholesale reform. This, we are told, would make for a more effective spread of Christ’s Kingdom all over the world, among men of whatever culture, of whatever religious opinions ...”
“Many, among the younger clergy especially, will be led astray by this bad example, and Church discipline will suffer. In published works some caution is still observed, but more freedom is shown in books privately circulated, in lectures, and in meetings for discussion ...”
“The same divine truth, they tell us, may be expressed on the human side in two different ways, even in two ways which in a sense contradict one another, and still. really mean the same thing ...”
“But if reason is to perform this office adequately and without fear of error, it must be trained on the right principles; it must be steeped in that sound philosophy which we have long possessed as an heirloom handed down to us by former ages of Christendom. These principles on which it is based have been made, by the teaching authority of the church, into the touchstone of Divine Revelation ...”
“The mind of man, when it is engaged in a sincere search for truths, will never light on one which contradicts the truths it has already ascertained. The Christian will weigh the latest fantasy carefully, making sure that he does not lose hold of the truth already in his possession or contaminate it in any way, with great danger and perhaps great loss to the faith itself.
In view of all this it is not surprising that the Church will have her future priests brought up on a philosophy which derives its method, its system and its basic principles from the Angelic Doctor (C.I.C. can. 1366,2). One thing is clearly established by the long experience of the ages: his teaching seems to chime in, by a kind of pre-established harmony, with Divine Revelation: no surer way to safeguard the first principles of the Faith ...”
“Philosophical tendencies too must come under the Church’s watchful care, otherwise the whole of Catholic Doctrine may be undermined by false assumptions ...”
Pope PIUS XII
Humani Generis, 12th August 1950
Broadly speaking, a philosophy is an outlook on life. It encompasses one’s attitude to truth, morality, life and death, man and his mind in relation to God and religion. In the hands of a professional, this outlook on life becomes a systematic study and research into the various fields mentioned: their reason for existence, their interrelationships and their ultimate finality. There are, of course, as many popular philosophies as there are human beings, but these are all modifications, adaptations and mixtures of only a handful of “systems” of philosophy, or world philosophies.
A philosophy must never be confused with a theology. A theology is much more difficult to popularise. It is by nature systematic and deals essentially with truths as revealed by God, or believed to be revealed by God. This is good to remember, as the natural knowledge of God, according to St. Paul and echoed by the papacy, rightly belongs to philosophy.
By its very nature a theology presupposes a philosophy: not a vague, popular outlook, but a systematic, thought-out science. A good theology is built on a good philosophy, but erroneous philosophies will only support fallacious theologies.
If it does not pay to confuse a philosophy, however good and systematic, with a theology, even more havoc results if theology is made synonymous with faith: the acceptance of a body of articles or dogmas, as held up by the Church to be believed. To be more specific: Catholic theology is a systematic reflection on Revealed Truths, but even Catholic theology cannot give faith in these supernatural truths. Theology does not supplant Faith nor does it take over its role and function. Nowadays it certainly does not come as a shock to many simple Catholics that some modern theologians appear to have lost altogether their Catholic Faith ...
When a person states:
“God does not exist,
so life after death does not exist,
so I do not have to worry about the fate of my soul
(if I have one),
so I can do what I like,
subject to man-made laws,
which can be changed if enough pressure is put on the Government;
so I combine with others to put more pressure on the Government,
in order that it will change the law to my liking,
so I can be freer to do as I please.”
then one could call such an effort a crude personal philosophy. But, although considered wrong by many people, it would nevertheless be consistent, and, in that sense alone, logical. And so this little exercise becomes a system which must either be totally accepted or rejected. It is in this sense that one of the great scholars on Teilhard de Chardin, Cardinal Journet, wrote in Nova et Vetera (October-December 1962):
“Teilhard’s synthesis is logical and must be rejected or accepted as a whole.”
We cannot pick out bits and pieces here and there to our liking.
What is missing of course in the little “system” above is evidence and insight based on evidence. The absence of these will make even the most “logical” system completely erroneous. The first sentence is always the most important, because all the others are made to follow from it. In reasoning only, it is called a “premise”, or “major premise”; in a system it is called a “first principle” or “fundamental principle”. It is obvious that it is of the utmost importance for the whole system, that this first sentence is true and based on evidence.
The Catholic Church, conscious of Her guardianship over matters of Catholic Faith, the Depositum Fidei, has absolute and final power over Catholic theology, and so also over the underlying philosophy, be it more indirect. Not surprisingly, after tending to the sheep for 2000 years, a distinct Catholic philosophy has developed in which the Catholic Church feels at home. According to the Popes this did not come about “without the promptings of the Holy Spirit”.
The Catholic Church has persistently taught the acceptance within the Church of the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Aeterni Patris, Leo XIII, 4th August 1879, Encyclical ;
Doctoris Angelici, St. Pius X, 29th June 1914, Motu Proprio;
Quod de fovenda, Benedictus XV, 19th March 1917, Letter (to Jesuits);
Studiorum ducem , Pius Xl, 29th June 1923, Encyclical,
are four major Papal works entirely devoted to St. Thomas and the study of his works.
Furthermore there is the clear directive of the Sacred Congregation of Studies of 7th March 1916, and further extensive directives laid down in another two papal encyclicals:
Pascendi dominici gregis, St. Pius X, 8th September 1907, and
Humani Generis, Pius XII, 12th August 1950.
In Pascendi, e.g., the Holy Father clearly talks about attempts being made to introduce into the Catholic Church a new, modernistic theology; about the strong link between philosophy and theology, and he points out that the new (bad) theology is required by a new (bad) philosophy as follows:
“Lastly, the modernists continuously and openly rebuke the Church on the grounds that She resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate Her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy, while they on their side, having for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavour to introduce a new theology which shall support the aberrations of philosophers ...”
And in Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII clearly states that contamination of the philosophy of St. Thomas, will lead to serious disorders in Faith itself and even to loss of Faith. (Note that the Pope does not say: the contamination of the Theology of St. Thomas. No, for disorders in Catholic Faith to become evident, it is according to the Magisterium of the Church, sufficient to have a contamination of the Philosophy of St. Thomas.)
It is against this formidable background of persistent, unerring teaching by the Teaching Authority of the Catholic Church, that the introduction of any new system of philosophy/theology/Faith into the Church must he examined.
Catholics, when dealing with Teilhard, must keep in mind that they are reading the works of one of whom it can truly be said that the Church has resolutely refused to submit and accommodate Her Dogmas to the opinions ofhis ‘philosophy’. Teilhard has no fewer than fourteen known and official interdicts; prohibitions and outright condemnations against his name and his works, and at least one Encyclical: Humani Generis; easily a record in modern times. Furthermore, the Magisterium has been consistent in the rejection of his books and his theories for over fifty years. If it appears to be impossible, even for a Saint, to introduce into the Catholic Church a new system of philosophy acceptable to the Magisterium, what chances has a man got censured so many times ...? And yet, not only has Teilhard been hailed by millions as a new St. Thomas Aquinas, he is being seriously studied within the Catholic Church as if he was one ... No wonder Catholics are paying dearly for this betrayal and disobedience.
Lastly, in dealing with the Dutch Catechism, Catholics again must keep in mind that the book is so erroneous, that its publication was forbidden by the Holy See. Extensive alterations in the presentation of Catholic doctrine were required. These were never made by the authors. The next best thing then was, that a Commission of Cardinals made extensive recommendations, which were never incorporated in the original text, as requested. They were finally published separately. Without these, the D.C. remains of course just as erroneous as it ever was. Anyone who will not heed the numerous mutations of Catholic doctrine contained in the original and who pays lip service to the necessary alterations made by the Commission, is reading a dangerous book and is culpable of endangering his God-given Faith and of disobedience to the Magisterium in a serious matter.
In this documentation I will bring out the fact that the works of Teilhard and the D.C. contain a ‘philosophy’ in the stricter sense: a system with its own ‘first principle’. I will compare both systems with the tenets of the Philosophia Perennis or Everlasting Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and arrive at some pertinent conclusions.
When the editor of Triumph made the remark in the November issue of 1971:-
“Teilhard did not dare to assert his doctrines in the works he attempted to have published during his lifetime. His ‘system’ can be understood only by studying the privately circulated works. They are the norm.”
He was echoing the very words of Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis: “In published works some caution is still observed, but more freedom is shown in books privately circulated, in lectures and in meetings for discussions.” However, his post-humously published oeuvre must not be discarded in such a critique, for at one stage these books too were the privately circulated and discussed cahiers the Holy Father speaks of.
When Dietrich von Hildebrand made the following observation about Teilhard in his famous Appendix to his book Trojan Horse in the City of God:
"I do not know of another thinker who so artfully jumps from one position to another contradictory one, without being disturbed by the jump or even noticing it..."
he states a puzzling fact without pursuing the matter further. However, the question is valid:
If Teilhard did notice the jumps and is apparently not perturbed by them, could this be because he has adopted (invented?) a new fundamental principle which allows this unperturbed jumping from one position to a contradictory one as the foundation of a new philosophy?
An investigation into this matter, and its startling results, form the subject-matter of this first chapter.
What is Teilhardism ? How is it different from any other system? And more specifically: where is the catch? If there is a catch, it must be possible to detect it and to express its difference from other systems in simple words that anyone can understand. How could the Catholic Church condemn him unerringly as far back as 1922? How could She tell the difference? How could She maintain Her impla-cable opposition to his philosophy and theology for more than fifty years, while Her own children by the millions pored over his works and passed them around ?
In three separate papers meant only for private circulation: ‘Original Sin’ (first paper, 1922) ‘The Human Sense’, (1929); and ‘Original Sin’ (second paper, 1947), Teilhard clearly poses the problem and submits his solution.
(His 1922 essay landed by mistake in Rome where it caused a storm of indignation. After its discovery Teilhard was never permitted to teach. His highly polished second paper on the same subject of 1947 shows, that Teilhard himself never abandoned his system, and personally kept its dissemination and study alive. But the most secret of the three, the 1929 paper The Human Sense is the most embarrassing of them all. Until 1971 it had not been published in any language: it contains Teilhard's formal break with the Church.)
In quoting from these three papers I will simply identify them by year. What appears in brackets ( ) was also shown by the publisher of Teilhard's work as such. If I deem emphasis necessary during, quoting, I will use italics. If Teilhard himself uses emphasis, I will show that underlined.
Section A
In the very early stage Teilhard starts by posing the problem like this'
"I ask myself whether a single man, today, can fit together his view of the geological world evoked by Science, and his view of the world commonly presented by Holy Writ. One cannot keep the two representations, except by passing alternatively from one to the other. Their combination jars; it sounds false. In uniting them on the same plane we are surely victims of an error of perspective" (1922).
We will all readily admit that it is not easy to look at our world with our natural eyes and scientific knowledge, and to look at the same world with the eyes of Supernatural Faith, the way God sees it, as reflected in Holy Writ. However, that is not a new problem. Because of a change in outlook, Teilhard now goes one step further: "One cannot keep the two representations. And what is this change in outlook ? The answer, we will understand more clearly every time, lies in what Teilhard means by on the same plane: evolution. He clearly expresses here his initial uneasiness of having to maintain two. He is well aware that even if we try to unite them in the one world-view of evolution, we still have two.
"Since there is no place in the scientific history of the world for the turning-point of Original Sin, since everything happens in our experiential series as if there were neither Adam nor Eden, it follows that the Fall as an event is something unverifiable" (1922).
Here we see Teilhard trace the modern problem (of having to maintain a scientific outlook and a Supernatural view in the same plane: evolution) directly to its origin: Original Sin. And he will stay there, until he has obtained his solution right there. Here at the origin the "two" that caused him so much trouble is the combination of an apparent absence of a physical discontinuity in the evolution of the human race with a presence in Faith of a supernatural discontinuity of the first magnitude: the Fall. It now starts to become clear that, if for him "two is a crowd", then which of the two has to go:
"Without exaggeration one can say that Original Sin, in the formulation still current today, is one of the principal obstacles to the intensive and extensive movements of progress in Christian thought. An embarrassment or scandal for those of goodwill who are hesitating, and at the same time a refuge for narrow spirits" (1947).
So, the absence of a physical discontinuity (although only apparent) to him becomes the reason to reject a Supernatural discontinuity: Original Sin. And what went on in his mind between 1922 when he rejected the philosophy underlying the Dogma of Original Sin ("there is no turning-point in human history") and the rejection of the Dogma itself in 1947? His 1929 paper "The Human Sense".
"The Human Sense believes in a magnificent future of the tangible world, the Gospel seems to disdain it. The Human Sense preaches zest and effort in the conquest of things, Christianity calls for indifference and renunciation. The Human Sense perceives a Universe emerging radiantly from the milieu of struggle for being; Christianity keeps us in the perspective of a nature fallen and fixed. Between the Gospel of the theologians and preachers, the Gospel of the Encyclicals or episcopal letters and the Human Sense there exists at present a deep discord. The Church no longer gives the impression of "thinking with humanity". Such is the profound reason for the atmosphere of hostility and disdain which floats around her. And such is also the explanation of her present sterility...."
"How will he (i.e. the Christian) continue to find in the same images and the same promises the same satisfaction and the same ardor? He can try to persuade himself that he still believes in the primacy of the Fall, the expiation and the scorn of temporal things: already he is forcing himself and also he is falsifying himself. It is a question of perspectives which we will no longer admit, because they have become foreign to the human soul. No one has ever been able to rekindle a love that has burned out" (1929).
From what I have quoted any Catholic will readily recognize that Teilhard has great difficulty with what trained philosophers call the Distinctio Realis of St. Thomas: the "real distinction", one of the fundamental principles of thomism and incorporated by the Catholic Church in Her teachings. To St. Thomas and the Catholic Church there exists a real distinction (not only a distinction in the human mind, but also in reality) between God and creation, between matter and spirit, body and soul, between a physical act ("of eating an apple") and the moral act of disobedience to God's known Will ("Sin and Fall"), between the natural (the Human Sense, the physical world, science) and the Supernatural (completely unattainable by natural means). Between the Spirit of the Gospel and Holy Writ on one side, and the spirit of the world on the other side. The Catholic Church teaches that "contrary ‘truths’ cannot exist" (Pope John XXIII, ‘Ad Petri Cathedram’ 1959), and so it cannot be true that the Natural and the Supernatural are simultaneously really distinct and really not distinct or the same. It must be either one or the other. But they can form a union since they do not contradict each other, but only over the abyss of the "real distinction", and then only if the higher one calls the lower one….
Teilhard is of course well aware that his groping for a solution satisfactory to him must be within a new system with a new fundamental principle. He appears to be equally aware of the consequences: the destruction of thomism. (See e.g. the final part of the last quote above, 1929, "How will he…."). Also there is the following:-
"A collective optimism, realistic and courageous, must definitely replace the pessimism and individualism, whose overgrown notions of sin and personal salvation have gradually burdened and perverted the Christian spirit.... Let us then acknowledge the situation honestly: not only the Imitation of Christ but also the Gospel itself needs to undergo this correction, and the whole world will make them undergo it. Why not say so?" (1929).
"What increasingly dominates my interest is the effort to establish within myself, and to diffuse around me, a new religion (let's call it an improved Christianity, if you like) whose personal God is no longer the great, neolithic landowner: (also referred to as the proprietor) of times gone by, but the soul of the world, as demanded by the cultural and religious stage we have reached". (quoted in "Letters to ZANTA", p. 114, January 26, 1936).
And what is he prepared to pay for all this? As can be expected: nothing of his own, but only that which had already been paid for by Infinite Love and the Most Precious Blood:
"I have come to the conclusion that, in order to pay for a drastic valorisation and amortisation of the substance of things, a whole series of reshaping of certain representations or attitudes, which seem to us definitely fixed by Catholic dogma, has become necessary, if we sincerely wish to Christify Evolution. Seen thus, and because of ineluctable necessity, one could say that a hitherto unknown form of religion is gradually germinating in the heart of Modern Man, in the furrow opened by the idea of Evolution" (1953, "Stuff of the Universe", two years before his sudden death in 1955).
Not even with the wildest stretch of the imagination can Catholicism be called a "hitherto unknown form of religion". So it is not Catholicism that Teilhard is talking about here as gradually germinating in the heart of modern man. No wonder that Pope Pius XII wrote about "those false evolutionary notions paving the way for a new philo-sophy of error".
With this we have papal support in our endeavours to show teilhardism up as a philosophy, with its own fundamental principle, and to condemn this ‘philosophy’ by its proper name: a "philosophy of error".
One thing has now become all-important: if teilhardism in essence means "rejection of the thomistic, Catholic principle of the real distinction", and if he is well aware that that means a complete new (that is, as we saw, a non-Catholic) philosophy, theology, religion even, then on what new fundamental first principle is he going to build all this, so that teilhardism becomes, as Cardinal Journet assures us it is, a perverted synthesis which must be accepted or rejected as a whole ?
Let us then start following him in his groping towards this new principle; let us watch him produce it, brush it up and pay for it....
"Original Sin expresses, translates, personifies in a dated and localised act, the perennial and universal law of failure which is in Humanity by virtue of its situation of being "in fieri" (in evolution). One might go so far as to say, perhaps, that since the creative act (by definition) causes being to mount toward God from the frontiers of Nothingness (that is to say) from the depths of the multiple, that is from some matter), all creation entails, as its risk and shadow, some fault, which is to say that it clothes itself inevitably with some Redemption. In this conception, the drama of Eden would be the very drama of all human history packed into a symbol profoundly expressive of reality. Adam and Eve are the symbols of Humanity on the march towards God. This way of understanding Original Sin obviously eliminates all difficulty of a scientific order (sin becomes bound up with the Evolution of the World)" (1922).
Remember my remark about brackets and italics. All the above is Teilhard de Chardin. No wonder this 1922 paper caused a storm in Rome. In passing I draw attention to the fundamental position of Evolution: that God cannot create from nothing, "ex nihilo", and this, according to Teilhard, by definition!. And now some comments:
If two things are not really distinct, they must be more or less the same. Here we see Teilhard groping towards sameness: he is blurring the edges between the Super-natural and the natural, between Science and Faith all taking place in the same evolutionary process. He is obviously looking for some identity between all that is really distinct in Thomism, but nevertheless forms a unity. If, as he says, the Fall is nothing more serious than a mistake made in difficult beginnings, then it is essentially the same as all other mistakes. The idea of sameness (identitas in Latin) is already clear in his mind, hut he cannot yet announce to the world that God and His creation, the Supernatural and the natural, Spirit and matter are identical ‘processes in evolution’, since obviously they are not. The wording of the principle still escapes him, but give him time....
"We have just noted that, in the course of a first phase, the official Church tried vainly to bar the path to the natural religion of Effort and Progress. Let us ask if there is not a way of saving both at once (not artificially, but really), of saving the one by means of the other: the Human Sense and the Christian Spirit. A maladroit course of action has let these two forces come into opposition. Should there not be a means of placing them in natural conjunction, no longer as hostile forces but as hierarchically arranged energies?" (1929).
"Isn't it true that for the informed eye the traces have already appeared, insensibly: Original Sin becoming little by little more like a laborious beginning than a Fall; Redemption coming closer to a liberation than to a Sacrifice; the Cross becoming more and more evocative of a laborious progress than of expiatory penitence?" (1929).
So there it is, at last, a sameness in opposition, a sameness at the same time non-sameness: identity in opposition. What was in natural opposition must now be made to appear to be also in natural conjunction. This either means a natural conjunction with a sham opposition ("an adroit course of action", an unfortunate course of action made the natural and the Supernatural only appear to be in opposition), or else contradiction itself has now been made into the new principle of evolution.
This impressive sounding principle was worthy of being presented to the world. Teilhard wanted sameness of the natural and the Supernatural without any interference from the hated distinctio realis, and this new principle covers the void left by its dis-appearance. And since no one can live for too long from (or even with) a contradiction, the "in opposition" part would soon be dropped in practice, and only identity, sameness, would remain, exactly as he wanted it. But the tag "in opposition" sounded impressive enough to ward off the critics.
With this "principle" Teilhard went through the sound barrier of reason and allowed himself, and all who followed him through the breach, to jump from one statement to a contradictory one seemingly unperturbed, in one great orgy of sacrilege.... Original sin must be more and more seen as not Original Sin; the Cross must become more and more not the Cross, but something else. But in his system he would also like to see it more or less remain as it was: a real identity in opposition, a real contradiction What he meant was identity with a very weak opposition and so only identity. But the identity between the natural and the Supernatural remains a contradiction, even with the tag "in opposition". A unity between God and creature over the abyss of the distinctio realis is totally different from an identity between God and creature, even if tagged "in opposition". If these two ways of putting this relationship were the same then Teilhard would never have been in need, for the sake of his precious evolution, to do away with the real distinction.
." . . of saving one by means of the other . . ."
we just heard him say. This means we can now give to this newly found principle yet another name: "mutual priority".
If one can be saved by the other: if the Supernatural, the Holy Spirit of the Gospel, can be saved by the natural, by science, and the spirit of this world, and vice versa, then they are both "equally first", equally prior. This is another way of putting that same contradiction. Teilhard had no longer the slightest doubt that both orders are one and the same thing. And if there is any priority at all - such is his contempt for the Supernatural - then he will not hesitate to proclaim "that Dogma must come to mesh with scicnec" (1947), which to him means: with evolution . . .
That Teilhard really meant this mutual priority explanation of his first principle (and so remained unrepentant in his rejection of the priority of the Supernatural Order, and wanted to make the natural, i.e. evolution, "Le Milieu Divin") is very clearly expressed in his last essay "Le Christique" which he only finished one month before his death, in 1955:
"Christ saves. But must we not hasten to add that Christ too is saved by evolution?"
"Mutual Priority" does away with the real distinction. It gives the true meaning to "identity in opposition": no real opposition, only sameness.
Armed with this absurd but impressive looking principle Teilhard can now present to the world an equally absurd but impressive looking system:
"Let us pose as a point of departure the fact that, since the Multiple (that is, non-being in a pure state) is the sole rational form.of a creatable non-being ("creabile"), the creative act is only intelligible as a gradual process of arrangement and unification. (This ‘fact’ leads one to admit that to create is to unify. And really nothing prevents us from holding that union creates. To those who object that union presupposes elements already existing, I would answer that Physics has just shown (in case of mass) that experimentally the movable does not exist except as engendered by its own motion). In virtue of this postulate. . . " (1947).
Contradictions, jumping to contraries, all rolled in one. The most classical way of expressing the fundamental contradiction is to state: "non-being is", non-being exists. For this asserts that something simultaneously is and is not. According to Teilhard, non-being is in a pure state. And also, since we may replace "Multiple" by "non-being", we may also read: non-being is the sole rational form . . . making use of the fundamental contradiction to make the statement that something that does not exist, a non-being (even in a pure state) at the same time is something: "is a form . . .". If his new principle demands this sort of thing: an identity to being and non-being, then his first principle itself is a contradiction, which according to Teilhard means that at the same time it is and is not.
He again denies God the power to create from nothing, as again he clearly teaches that "to create" means the rearrangement and unification of a pre-existing primordial mass of non-being....
"In such a universe in which the Multiple is the primordial non-sinful creatable form of Nothingness, (the functional equivalent of the first Adam, source of statistical evil), the (intellectual) problem of evil disappears. Since in this perspective, in effect, physical suffering and moral faults are introduced inevitably(his stress) into the world, not because of some defect of the creative act, but because of the very structure of participated being (that is, under the heading of a by-product) statistically inevitable(his stress) of the unification of the multiple . . etc. etc." (1947).
"In this explanation Original Sin undoubtedly ceases to be an isolated act . . ." (1947).
It also undoubtedly ceases to be a sin.
Not much is left over of the "First Adam". He turns out to be nothing but Nothingness, the Multiple, a primordial mass, a source of statistical evil. It does not make the "Second Adam" look very impressive either.
And so we stumble on yet another name of this "mistical" principle: "Unity in Opposition". If the creative act of Almighty God ceases to be really distinct from any other (human) act of unification, since God's act presupposes exactly the same as any human act of unification: something pre-existing to be unified, then we in evolution, helping God along with science in the unification of the universe, are thus creating. This is the foundation of Teilhard’s pantheism.
We are now in a better position to appreciate the vital concern expressed by so many Popes, about the dilution of Thomism, to say nothing of its wholesale abolition. The result is sheer nonsense.
Before we deal in the next chapter with the vital question: Did any of this ever get a foothold in any of the Philosophy courses, or even in the Theology, of any Catholic Teaching Institution anywhere in the world? (to which, regrettably, the answer is yes), I would like, in this fourth section, pause for a moment, and let the enormity of what we have discovered sink in.
It seems obvious that throughout the world millions of Catholic and Protestant Christians have been caught up in this system and have been affected by its poison, yet they never got it from reading Teilhard. In fact many would not even notice that their whole thinking has been put in a different direction aligned on a different ‘cornerstone’.
Teilhard taught the world at large how to live from a contradiction, and the world in turn taught its children. How to direct one's thinking from a contradiction. How to call at last the Supernatural, ‘natural’. How to call sin "a statistical mistake" or "an inevitable by-product of creation". How to call impurity "a new form of love". How to see the difference between Catholics and non-Catholics as a "unity in opposition" with very little opposition and a lot of fundamental "sameness", the basis of the false ecumenism. Or: how to call "following your own conscience" a new and higher form of obedience to the Church or to one's Superiors. And finally, how to call "love for the world" the new and even higher form of love for God…..
No wonder his message spread like wildfire through the length and breadth of a mesmerised world, which deliriously drank in his "gospel of liberation" from the yoke of the old christianity-gone-wrong thinking they were doing a favour and service to God…. Who still cares about all the rest of his absurd system: the creabile, the multiple, the noosphere? What matters is, that contradictions no longer count, that sin is no longer sin, and that the more we plough into this world and embrace it in evolution to help it along a bit with science and social works, the more we apparently please God and ‘discover’ Him. If this evolution is this new ‘christianity’, then surely this evolution must be good.
Thus each one can now build his own popular philosophy on his own popular contradiction: conscience, the pill, free love, making money,…. on the authority of this new prophet, call it the "new" philosophy, the "new" theology, the "new" morality, the "new" Christianity, and lo behold you are part of this "new" faith in the world and evolution. "until the dawn of nothingness"…..
To make matters decidedly worse for Catholics: Walter M. Abbott, S.J., in his "The Documents of Vatican II", pp. 269-270, footnote, declares categorically that we have no hope of understanding "this document of Vatican II" ("The Church Today": ‘Gaudium et Spes’), unless we read Teilhard's "Le Milieu Divin", and understand his "Nouvelle Théologie". So, what the Holy Spirit gave us in Vatican II must be seen and understood through the writings of a man with more than fourteen censures and con-demnations (including at least one encyclical) against his works from the same Holy Spirit! If that is not "directing one's thinking from a contradiction", then I don't know what is. "Le Milieu Divin" has been steadfastly refused an Imprimatur from the Holy See ever since it was conceived in 1926, notwithstanding relentless pressure from all sides. And this was not the first time that Fr. Abbott tried to interest his readers in Teilhard: another footnote with his name in it appeared earlier, on p. 204.
What proved impossible during the Sessions of Vatican II: that the Council would be wrenched away from the direct protection by the Holy Spirit against heresy, was to a large extent accomplished afterwards, when the thousands of sympathisers and admirers of Teilhard got hold of the interpretations of Vatican II (IDOC) and made us look at Vatican II from his fundamental contradiction and evolution. Fr. Abbott is a classic case in point.
Since no one can live for too long from (or even with) a contradiction as already stated, all the popular "identities in opposition" or "unities in opposition" philosophies, many of which had sprung up after the Council under the direct inspiration of Teilhard, soon dropped their "in opposition" part with several grave consequences:
"I shall put enmity between thee and the Woman and between thy seed and Hers".
With these words God, "before whom a thousand years are but one day", indicated that the fundamental contradiction between Good and Evil would remain absolute, so that never evil could be good, nor good could ever become evil, no matter what future generations would call it, or would try to make it appear to be. He also pointed out that there is a high (although only created) intelligence behind evil and that it is to be expected, that over the history of the world, this intelligence behind evil would finally be capable of mounting a highly organised drive.
Organized global evil cannot tolerate next to itself, and not under its control, the existence of two things: (i) a Supernatural, Catholic Faith, and (ii) an Infallible Pope. According to Vatican I, echoing the Council of Trent) the first one is the beginning, root and fundamentum of all Supernatural Life and Sanctification, the latter is the root and foundation of Absolute Truth. The more Catholics will be imbued with the spirit of evolution, the more they will be weaned away from these two fundamental bulwarks against a global victory of evil.
How does Teilhard and his system fit into this?
The thwarting of these plans for world domination is obviously a Grace of truly global dimensions in its effects. Like all graces, this one too is not forced upon us, but is to be prayed for and to be prepared for. For Catholics, the external temptation, as a test for their sincerity towards the preparation and reception of this singular grace, was Teilhard and his "system". God would make it clear right at the start of these absurd ideas and theories (1922) and at every major stage of their development (more than fourteen times) that these theories could not be listened to, accepted and spread about unless in disobedience to the lawful teaching authority within the Catholic Church. But like all great temptations with their corresponding repercussions one way or the other, these theories and ideas constituted a real delight for the proud Modern Mind....
The penalty for yielding to the temptation became, inevitably, in the natural order an abject mental blindness of no longer recognising as degrading the acceptance of a contradiction for the direction of one's life. And in the Supernatural Order it became a spiritual blindness resulting from the loss of one's Catholic Faith. On both scores, they, to whom the continuation of the work of Salvation had been entrusted, became themselves easy prey for the global enslavers.
Make no mistake: God is not mocked. After the Original Sin of our first parents, God revealed the most fundamental real distinction of them all: the contradiction between good and evil. It follows immediately that all who follow Teilhard in his second Original Sin: teaching the rejection of a real Adam, a real Eve and a real Sin committed by them, in order to accept his unscientific evolution, that all those are not only punished by God, they are also passing on the fruits of their ‘original sin’ to our children in the form of spurious catechetics....
The rule is very simple. Any Catholic who no longer lives by, nor fully accepts the teachings of Pope Paul VI on artificial means of birth control, nor the teachings of Pope Pius XII on teilhardism and evolution, right down the line to, say, the Council of Trent, including all that which the Popes have taught us on thomism, such a Catholic sees Vatican II through the eyes of Teilhard and was almost certainly taught to do that. Invariably. one will find such a Catholic believe in a contradiction He may not even be aware of it. People like that usually explain and exaggerate the unity of all things to such an extent, that there is no longer any room for a real distinction (mainly in the area of "Catholic Faith" and "Christian faith") which then leads to contradictions.
On the other hand: if you can find a person who still prayerfully accepts all the Catholic Church’s teachings, including Vatican II and the Church’s condemnations of Teilhard de Chardin, you will find that such a person will look: at Vatican II with the eyes of Catholic Faith, and that he or she will see and explain Vatican II in the Light of the Holy Church’s infallible Tradition.
It is of the utmost importance to study the spread of Teilhard's ideas from the very beginning. The acceptance of his ideas, theories and principles is as worldwide as the global conquest of organised evil. The conclusion has become inescapable that it is now part of that evil. Teilhardism proved to be the only weapon in the arsenal of the plotters capable of penetrating to any great extent the Catholic Church through the least likely bastions: THE SEMINARIES.
If there are readers who find the contents of this chapter a bit tough, they can let the matter rest for a while and consider it with their God. They can come back to it later and take their time. But even lay people will need to understand why the seminaries are empty, and why the difficult search for a good seminary is of paramount importance if they have sons who have received from God the inestimable gift of a vocation to the Priesthood.
It is the task of this second chapter to see in detail how the principles of Teil-hard have penetrated the philosophy courses of the Jesuit College "Berchmanianum" in Nijmegen, Holland. No doubt the capture of Louvain, in Belgium, came first, as Teilhard had there two of his very few trusted friends within the Society of Jesus: Père Charles and Père Maréchal. But the rapport between Nijmegen and Louvain had always been cordial.
I will be quoting from the official notes and theses as handed down as early as the beginning of the 1940s by the Jesuit Professors of Logica major (the study of Truth and its principles), of Psychologia Rationalis (theoretical psychology or anthropology: the study of man), and of Ethica (or Ethics: the study of the principles underlying the actions of man in his striving after his final destiny; the principles of the moral order).
To see this in context: it was already in 1946 that the Jesuits of Louvain, after having studied and debated for years the privately circulated documents of Teilhard, set up in Brussels the "Lumen Vitae" course in modern catechetics entirely on his principles. It was Fr. Charles who, according to Teilhard himself in his letters, did everything possible to have his "Le Milieu Divin" published with Ecclesiastical approval. Since 1948 Louvain was quite openly teaching "polygenism" or "polygenesis", the theory that the human race originated in several places at once over the globe, thereby showing ready acceptance of one of the foundation stones of Teilhard's synthesis.
With the insertion of this chapter I hope to highlight three important aspects:
1. If the philosophy taught there in Nijmegen and Louvain during all those years, had become contaminated, then it could only support later on an erroneous theology with grave danger to Catholic Faith, as warned by the encyclicals and letters of many Popes.
2. And since it was this new, erroneous ‘theology’ which gave birth to the Dutch Catechism (DC) with its worldwide repercussions, then the DC too will contain the basic flaws and contradictions of Teilhard's system.
3. This, finally, shows up the fallacy in the following "line of defence" sometimes adopted: "This whole Teilhard business is of no concern to anyone who never read his books". Unfortunately, this is not so. Teilhard's aberrations have been spread about so insidiously and so thoroughly in all sorts of publications, seminars and classrooms in defiance of the Church's clear directives, that his system is almost breathed in, soaked up, wherever we go. We need a continuous conscious effort not to acquiesce with some contradiction according to these immortal words: "The mind of man, when it is engaged in a sincere search for truths, will never light on one which contradicts the truths it has already ascertained. (‘Humani Generis’, 1950). For "Contrary ‘truths’ cannot exist" (Pope John XXIII in "Ad Petri Cathedram", 1959).
The course in Logic, (Metaphysica Veritatis, or the Philosophy of Truth), was divided into two main parts: "Does Truth exist?" (An sit veritas) and "What is Truth?" (Quid sit veritas). Since the two questions are intimately related, one has to start with a working definition, which, according to St. Thomas is: "Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus", or: Truth is an adaptation of a thing and an intellect; a matching. Two things are brought out here: (a)St. Thomas knows that, on the created side of things, there is a real distinction between an object known and the mind knowing it. And (b) St. Thomas also knows the word "identitas", sameness in every respect, and does not hesitate to use that word, if necessary. Here he uses another word: adaequatio, a matching, an adaptation or agreement. If, according to St. Thomas my knowledge of an object matches the object itself, then there is an agreement between an object known and my knowledge of it. I can now call that relation Truth, and the knowledge of it truthful.
At the end of the first part of this course, consisting of three theses concerning the existence of Truth, the next pages are entirely devoted to the study of the first principle, a theory so new and unheard of, that, although it ought to have been a complete thesis with its formal proofs, it was not ready yet to be presented as a thesis.
However, it was treated and presented as anything but a theory. . . .
For the benefit of interested experts who may read these pages, I will quote the original text verbatim in the Latin in which it was presented to the students next to my English translation.
Thesis Quarta
Primum principium metaphysicum est principium identitatis quo identitas idealitatis cum realitate exprimitur. Iustificatur ex hoc quod est expressio ipsius naturae intellectus; eo ipso etiam patet cur sit principium immediate evidens.
4th thesis
The First Principle in Philosophy is the principle of identity by which the identity between ideas (in the mind) and reality (outside the mind) is expressed. Its justification lies in the fact that it expresses the very nature of the (human) intellect itself. It is for that very same reason clear why it is an immediately evident (self-evident) principle.
Comment.
We remember that St. Thomas knew the word identity as well as its meaning. In human knowledge the Angelic Doctor did not use that word to express the relationship between the knowledge that is in the mind and the object outside the mind. To express a truth relationship between the two, St. Thomas wisely used the word adaequatio: a matching, adaptation, agreement. By making this identity self-evident, the architects of this first principle think with relief that they they are relieved of the duty to explain it.
1. Vidimus affirmationem veritatis quae est expressio realitatis, esse necessariam. Vivit enim illa afflrmatio in omni actu cognitionis, quatenus in omni afflrmatione, nega-tione, dubitatione cet. affirmatur absoluta relatio intellectus ad ordinem objectivam realem.
1. We saw that affirming the existence of truth, which gives expression to reality, cannot be withheld. For the simple reason that this affirmation is found in every act of knowing, as in every affirmation, denial, doubt, etc., the absolute relation between the intellect and the real, objective order is acknowledged.
Comment.
We must keep the use of the word absolute in this context in mind. It is just as revealing of the thinking of these professors as is their use of the word identity.
Questioni "an sit veritas" affirmative respondemus. Haec necessaria relatio exprimitur per principium quod vocatur principium identitatis: "esse est cognoscibile", "veritas est", "verum est ens", "ens est verum", vel uti generaliter ponitur: "esse est". "ens est ens", "quod est, est".
To the guestion: "Does truth exist?" we replied in the affirmative. This necessary relation is expressed by the principle which carries the name the principle of identity:: "being is knowable", "truth exists", "what is true must exist", "what is, must be true", or as it is usually expressed more generally: "to be, is"; "a being (in reality) is a being known (in the mind)", or simply "that what exists, is".
Illud principium est non tantum lex fundamentalis idealitatis (logicae) sed etiam realitatis (ontologicae) quse in hoc principio communi ita uniuntur, ut omnis scepticismus radicitus refutetur.
This principle is not only the fundamental law of what exists in the mind (law of logics) but also of the real (law of ontologics) which, through this principle they have in common, are united in such a way, that all scepticism is radically refuted.
The remaining seven subdivisions of this thesis are devoted to the development of these ideas. Explanations are sustained with numerous quotes from contemporary authors known as supporters of Teilhard: Fr. Maréchal (Louvain), with quotations from his strange "cahier": "Le Point de Départ de la Métaphysique", Blondel, Fr. Rahner, S.J., Fr. Gény, S.J., Prof. Dondeyne (Louvain), etc. The most striking aspect of this whole "thesis" is that occasionally St. Thomas gets a mention but is never quoted in his own words. Instead, he is ‘presented’ through the words of all these modern authors. Only reference numbers of places are quoted from St. Thomas where if you are interested, you can look up what St. Thomas has to say. That this is not only misleading, but definitely open for misrepresentation and even fraud, will soon come to light.
The reason why St. Thomas is not quoted in his own words is obvious: he cannot be quoted to sustain what is being developed here. St. Thomas speaks about an adaequatio, which is a synthesis over an underlying real distinction. He never speaks of an ontological identity on the human level, nor between the natural and the Supernatural. His ideas are totally unacceptable to the framers of this fourth thesis, which does not teach thomism as requested by the Popes. A quick run-through will show this.
2. (Referring to (1) on the previous page). This is a short explanation of the notion of this first principle. No quotes from St. Thomas.
3. This is the most important subsection which deals with the ontological identity (a complete sameness in being)between the principle of knowing and the principle of existing. It starts with the remark that many authors admit various first principles as no single principle can adequately express the enormous complexity of existence, being. But then the author hastens to add immediately that underneath this variety of princi-ples, there is nevertheless only one first principle: this principle of identity. "Otherwise" so the reasoning goes, "the underlying unity cannot be explained". By now he is forced to call it an absolute identity between what is in the mind (idealitas) and what is outside the mind (realitas).
Theses precedentes iam in lucem posuerunt absolutam relationem inter cogno-scere et esse, inter idealitatem et realitatem.
The previous theses have already brought to light that there exists an absolute relation between knowing and being, between what in the mind and in reality.
A quote from Fr. Carl Rahner's book: "Geist im Welt" ("Spirit in the World") then follows to substantiate this doctrine. We have now reached the climax. It is so important that I will quote verbatim what follows next:-
Ad hoc autem requiritur ut adsit quaedam originaria unio inter esse et cognoscere ita ut, ubi sit esse, ibi sit cognitio et vice versa. Haec unio non potest esse quaedam relatio quae tum esse tum cognoscere subsequeretur, quia tunc factum unitatis inter esse et cognoscere in omni actu cognitionis intelligi non posset.
Haec etiam est doctrina constans St. Thomae.
For this, however, it is required that there exists some original union between "being" and "knowing" so that, wherever there is being, there is knowing and vice versa. This union cannot be just any relation to which both being and knowing would comply, as then the fact of the unity between to be and to know in every act of knowing could not be understood.
This is also the consistent doctrine of St. Thomas.
And now, at last, we may expect to get some quotation from the Angelic Doctor himself. But no, what we immediately get is a quotation in German from the same book of Fr. Rahner telling us what Fr. Rahner thinks is the meaning of St. Thomas. I will quote him in English:
"Being and knowing are in an original unity. Knowing is not an approximate ‘hitting on’ its object. St. Thomas expressly rejects the vulgar notion of knowing as ‘merely coming across’ something. Knowing does not happen by contact of the intellect with an object that can be known. On the contrary, according to St. Thomas ‘to be’ (or being) and ‘to know’ (or knowing) are the same: idem intellectus et intellectum et intellgere. The intellect, that what is understood, and understanding itself are identical)."
Strong language. The mind of the Professor and the mind of Fr. Rahner could not be expressed more clearly. But the world-famous place in St. Thomas where the Saint teaches that the mind, the object in the mind and the act of understanding are all the same, identical is not indicated by Fr. Rahner. The Professor in his notes then goes on:
"In amongst many places of St. Thomas, you can, if you wish, look up in his Summa Theologica I, qu. 14, art. 2, c.; qu. 27, art. 1, ad 2; qu. 34, art. 1, ad 3; qu. 55, art. 1, ad 2; qu. 85, art. 2, ad 1; qu. 87, art. 1, ad 3".
After these it was then stated, rather nonchalantly:
"There are also several texts in ‘de veritate’ (another work by St. Thomas), Summa contra Gentiles (another work again), etc."
That's all. No specifications where, in these other works, these supremely impor-tant statements can be found. So I looked up the texts in St. Thomas as quoted above, and I found Fr. Rahner's quotation of St. Thomas: "idem intellectus and intellectum" (the mind and what is in the mind are identical) in Summa Theologica I, question 34, article 1, ad 3 (as quoted above), where St. Thomas says:
"In Deo autem importat omnimodam identitatem, quia in Deo est omnino idem intellectus et intellectum , ut supra ostensum est (qu. 14, art. 2 and 4)".
which translated gives the true mind and doctrine of St. Thomas:
"In God, however (knowing, understanding) brings out an identity in every respect (omnimoda), because in God the Intellect and what is in the intellect (what is known) are completely identical, as we have shown earlier in qu. 14, art. 2 and 4".
And that makes all the difference! Only in God according to St. Thomas, can we speak of an identity between ‘idealitas’ and ‘realitas’. Exactly the same doctrine of St. Thomas is set forth in the other places mentioned. No wonder the Professor and Fr. Rahner did not quote the words of St. Thomas. These two wanted us to believe, by mis-quoting St. Thomas, that the Angelic Doctor teaches that always, and everywhere, the intellect and what is in the intellect are identical. With Teilhard, they want identity to be the foundation of every created union, and also they want to show themselves to be thomistic. But St. Thomas will never admit to an "identltas" between creation and God nor between the acts of the creatures and their faculties. This fourth thesis is no longer the teachings of St. Thomas, but of Teilhard. To make this quite clear, this subsection 3 of this fourth thesis concludes precisely on thin note:-
Si autem inter idealitatem et realitatem, inter cognitionem et esse, adest identitas, omne ens est ideale quid, et omne ideale est aliquid reale.
If however between idealitas and realitas (between what is in the mind and what is outside the mind) there exists an identity, as in between "that what is known" and "that what exists", then all existing is somehow ideal, and all that is in the mind exists in reality….
Next, in Nos. 4 and 5. the serious charges of contradiction and "panpsychism" are touched upon and simply denied.
No. 6 deals with the obvious problem that, although we are an identity between idealitas and realitas (but not according to St. Thomas, as we saw) we do not know everything. As can be expected from the followers of Teilhard, this brings out the opposition aspect in the identity, based on an imperfect intuition. But the Professor hastens to undo the meaning of this opposition, in case the true meaning of real distinction would come out: by stressing the underlying unity, exactly as Teilhard did. Otherwise, if the opposition was real, the underlying unity could not be understood.
Ut autem intellectus illam synthesim exprimere possit, requiritur ut ipse intel-lectus natura sua sit synthesis idealitatis et realitatis.
By the mere fact that the intellect can express this synthesis, it is required that, by its very nature, the intellect itself is he synthesis between "the ideal" and "the real".
Get real, Professor!
And in No. 7:
Ita lumen quod nosmetipsi sumus, fundamentum est omnis cognitionis nostrae, non autem adhuc ultimum fundamentum. Detegimus (hisstress) enim nosmet-ipsos ut identitatem inter idealitatem et realitatem. Hoc est not intuitive sed judicative.
And so the light that we are ourselves, is the foundation of all our knowledge but not yet our final foundation. We discover (his stress) ourselves as an identity not by intuition but by judgement.
The Proud Modern Mind….. We are our own identity. We are our own light.
That this is not an unfortunate choice of words to explain in modern ways the fundamental doctrine of St.Thomas, is borne out by the fact that the fundamental doctrine of St. Thomas, the real distinction, is being suppressed as totally out of place in the complete switch in fundamental positioning. What St. Thomas only applies to God, we saw the modern Fr. Rahner apply indiscriminately to all created knowledge. The result is pure chaos. It is clearly a fundamental contradiction to declare that the non-God (the creature) = God. Thus, in order to stress Teilhard’s fundamental identity, the equality between God and non-God, must be surreptitiously spirited away. This boils down to a denial in the major premise of this type of reasoning that creature is synonymous with being non-God. So then we end up with an equation like this: creature = God, which is the foundation of Teilhard's pantheism. And just as much a contradiction.
Clearly, in this ‘philosophy’ there is no longer any room left for the reality of the Supernatural. ‘Le Milieu Divin’ is then the milieu in which the god-creatures evolve to god-omega. There is no room left for the Fall, for Sin; no need for the Cross, Expiation, Redemption, or even personal salvation (that perversion, as we heard Teilhard call it), no room for Dogma (‘we are our own light’), no Catholic Church. Not even room for a personal God.
The philosophy of the fourth thesis is Teilhard de Chardin. And it became the philosophy in preparation for the Dutch Catechism.
After our rather extensive treatment of Teilhard's influence on the Philosophy of Truth, we can now be satisfied that nothing fundamentally different will be taught in the other disciplines which make up the complete philosophy course of Nijmegen and Louvain: a course in philosophy around Teilhard’s fundamental identity. So, in the treat-ment of the next two examples, I would like to draw attention to aspects peculiar to each, which shed abundant additional light on Teilhard's influence.
In his already mentioned Appendix, Dietrich von Hildebrand (as you might know, a Professor of Philosophy himself for many years), draws attention to a characteristic of Teilhard's system where it sharply differs from Thomism:
"Teilhard sees ‘self-consciousness’ as the only difference between man and a highly developed animal. But the comparison of the limited type of conscious-ness that can be observed in animals with the manifold aspects of a person's consciousness shows instantly how wrong it is to regard the latter as merely an addition of self-consciousness.... But the marvel of the human mind.... is altogether lost on Teilhard because he insists on viewing human consciousness as merely an awareness of self that has gradually developed out of animal consciousness. The Scholastics, on the other hand, accurately grasped the dimensions of personal consciousness by calling the person a being that possesses itself".
From this misconception of the human person, Teilhard draws the only logical (but nevertheless equally erroneous) conclusion: that a collective consciousness would constitute a higher state of evolution, as "explained" clearly in "The Phenomenon of Man", where the acceptance of a non-individual consciousness is one more example of his fundamental contradiction.
Why I quote all this becomes immediately clear, if one reads the very first thesis in this second course, which purports to deal with the most fundamental concept of man. (Again: whose fundamental concept?).
Thesis Prima
Homo, qui in vita sese experitur tamquam totalitatem sui consciam, ope reflectionis sese detegit tamquam aliquid substantiale.
First thesis
Man who in his life experiences himself as a totality aware of himself, with the aid of reflection discovers himself to be self-subsistent
1. Agitur in hac thesi de astruendo fundamento totius psychologiae.
1. With this thesis we mean to lay the foundation of the whole psychology course.These last words make it clear that this Professor wants to base the foundation of the whole psychology course, which is a fundamental course on man, on self-awareness. At least this man is honest enough to admit that, in doing this, he is not following St.Thomas, when he confesses at the end of his formal proof:-
5. Quoad textus S. Thomae dicendum est argumentum in forma quam dedimus non inveniri.
5. As for texts of St. Thomas, it must be stated that, in the form in which we put it, they cannot be found.
So Professor Hildebrand was right: thomism does not put the human person, in his distinction from animals, merely on a basis of self-awareness. It is by now equally obvious that the construers of this thesis were familiar with the more fundamental principles of Teilhard's system, where these ideas are found. I will now very briefly touch on his second thesis, where the fundamental doctrine on identitas is faithfully adhered to.
"In the second thesis it will be admitted that
….in homine adest quaedam duplicitas quae tamen unitatem non subvertit."
in man there exists some duality which does not upset the unity".
The thesis starts the explanation ofthis by pointing out "that the human substance (substantia humana) has revealed itself to us in the first thesis as an identity between subject and object, or between idealitas and realitas". However, in man this identity is in opposition. The basis of this opposition is again blamed on the imperfect way in which intuition is realised in man. And then follows the classic teilhardian way in which the distinctio realis, the real distinction isdone away with:-
Unde in substantia concrete partes hae tum realiter a se distinguuntur tum etiam realiter idem sunt.
And so, in the concrete existence of the human subsistence, the composing parts are not only really distinct. they are also really the same, with a splendid contradiction. And all the talk about distinctio realis is nullified by the deliberate teaching of the "mutual priority" principle between the composing parts which make out man. There is no talk about soul, psyche, from which Greek word the course derives its name…..
Finally, St. Thomas gets the same short shrift as in the Logics course: merely a mention where something that is being taught here can be found. And so it goes on....
This course too had its own particular modernistic aspect, apart from the general debility so manifest in the other two disciplines already mentioned. To put this in perspective,
I will first quote from Pope Pius XII's Encyclical "Humani Generis" (on Modern Errors) of 12th August 1950, remembering that this Ethics course was studied in 1946. (I do not know if it was subsequently rewritten in the light of this Encyclical).
"No wonder if this spirit of innovation has already borne poisonous fruits in amongst every sphere of theology....Others destroy the gratuitous character of the Supernatural Order, by suggesting ‘that it would be impossible for God to create rational beings without equipping them for the Beatific Vision and calling them to it’".
But this is precisely the doctrine of this Ethics course. It is a bit beyond the scope of this treatise to go into detail of how the desiderium naturale versus super-naturalitatem (or the natural longing for the supernatural) was proved to be connatural to man. But from this it follows that human nature could not be conceived as to exist without it. Even if the thesis dealing with this aspect (the third thesis) expressly declared "that the beatific vision exceeds the natural powers and demands of man", the contra-diction inherent in the two statements when taken together:
"that the beatific vision is connatural to human nature" and
"that it exceeds the natural powers and demands of man"
according to the Pope destroys "the gratuitous character of the Supernatural Order".
It is beyond philosophy to touch on the contents of Divine Revelation and so it has no knowledge of the beatific vision of God which is part of that Revelation. Even on that score alone, this Ethics course is out of its depth, let alone when it teaches that it is essential to human nature to strive for the beatific vision.
With the first three theses the evolutionary trend of the course was established, showing Teilhard's influence in the blurring of the edges between the natural and the Supernatural, as right from the start the real distinction between the natural ultimate goal of man and his Supernatural end was denied. Since the author of this course boldly declares that St. Thomas is on his side, and since - again - he too refuses to print the very words of St. Thomas, and only indicates where they can be found, I will print the beginning of the third thesis in full.
Thesis Tertia
Beatitudo simpliciter perfecta hominis speculativa sumpta consistit in cognitione intuitiva Divinae Essentiae; haec tamen beatitudo superat omnes vires et exigentias naturales hominis et omnis naturae creatae.
Acriter scholastici de hac parte theseos inter se disputant.
Nobiscum consentiunt: (a) S. Thomas: I, 12,1; I-II, 3, 8; Sum. c. Gent. III 50.
Nobis adversantur: (b) R. Garrigou-Lagrange…..
Third Thesis
Put simply, the perfect happiness of man as seen by philosophy consists in the intuitive knowledge of the Divine Essence. However this happiness lies beyond the reach of all the natural powers and demands of man and of whatever created nature.
Scholastics contend bitterly amongst themselves about this part of the thesis.
Amongst those who agree with us are (a) St. Thomas in his Sum. Theol. I, 12,1; I-II, 3,8; Sum. c. Gent. III, 50.
Amongst those who disagree with us are …. (b) R. Garrigou-Lagrange….
If one looks up the places referred to here in St. Thomas all we read there is that St. Thomas teaches that man has a natural desire to know God naturally, on his natural level. He wants to come to a knowledge of God here on earth, because of the inquisitive nature of his intellect and because he discovers that God is the ultimate Good. (This is nothing but the doctrine of St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans). Nowhere does St. Thomas say that man has an innate, natural longing to have an intuitive vision of God’s Essence in the Supernatural Order. The Saint was philosopher enough to know that philosophy cannot make any pronouncements about that level. All he says about it is: if someone denies that the Saints in Heaven can see God, then that is not true....
And so it is clear that Pope Pius XII, in refuting the claim made by this modernistic author, is certainly not contradicting St. Thomas. The real distinction between the natural order and the fully gratuitous Supernatural Order (which begins with the Supernatural Act of the Infused, Divine Catholic Faith) is complete, absolute, and wholly maintained by St. Thomas.
This gave us a second example of a deliberate misquoting of St. Thomas to "prove" him on the side of Teilhard de Chardin errors.
This concludes the second chapter of this documentation, showing from internal evidence and criticism that the philosophy course studied in those days, was definitely modernistic; incorporated the fallacies and pitfalls of Teilhard the Chardin, was guilty of misquotations of the authentic teachings of St. Thomas, and contained elements in need of rebuke and correction by the Church’s Magisterium. It proved to be a foundation of straw for the subsequent theology which gave to the world the Dutch Catechism.
If the Dutch Catechism (DC) is built on a Teilhard de Chardi philosophy and "theology", then, according to Cardinal Journet, it will form the same synthesis or system, it will be built on the same contradictions and will prove to be just as "uncompromising" as Teilhardism itself. The difficulty the good Cardinals experienced in trying to "fit some thomistic theology into it" proves this point. Maybe they could have saved themselves the trouble; but it certainly appears as if the catechism must be rejected or accepted as it stands. But strong pointers as all these things are, they only amount to circumstantial evidence, as does the long list of its shortcomings. The DC stands accused by all this; gravely accused. But in order to be rejected in toto it must stand condemned. It must be proven guilty. If the DC is Teilhardism in catechetical garb, then it must yield its secret and reveal the same contradictions as were discovered to lie at the root of the "master-vision", and found at the bottom of everything inspired by it. In order to make it do this, we will turn our attention first to the DC's most vulnerable part: its ‘philosophy’ of Man.
The author, the Dutch Jesuit Fr. Piet Schooneberg, S.J., bases himself here on evolution. We also see him use words which we know have a special meaning in the philosophy, theology, and dogma of the Catholic Church. We may call this system "Hallowed Thomism". (Thomism as a philosophy only, remains a philosophical system; but if the Catholic Church takes up the meaning of a term, or a doctrine, in thomism for the formulation of Her Dogmas, then we can truly speak of "hallowed thomism"). In chapters one and two of this documentation I compared the philosophical system called "Thomism" with a philosophical system called "Teilhardism". In the discussion here on the DC we must accept thomism in its wider sense, and compare the doctrine of the DC with what I call here "hallowed thomism".
If one thing has not yet become fully clear: that evolutionism and thomism are absolutely incompatible, then a study of the DC will achieve this. Both are systems, using their own principles and language (jargon). One destroys the other because they are contradictory systems. Now, right throughout their DC, the authors try to explain an evolutionist religion using thomistic terms, hallowed by their use in the Catholic Church, such as life, body, God, creation, man, Christ, Resurrection, spirit, soul.... They use these thomistic terms trying to give meaning to a contrary system. But "contrary ‘truths’ cannot exist" (Pope John XXIII, 1959): evolution and thomism cannot be both true. The result, as was to be expected, is an abysmal failure to explain either system. The lip service paid to the doctrine of the Catholic Faith fails dismally to save the essence of Catholic Faith (as if it was in need of "being saved"), and fails equally to make the contrary doctrine of evolution come to life. Modernists never allow us to show how their theories contradict Dogma and Revelation, because to them neither Dogma nor Revelation ought to be expressed in thomistic terms, no matter what the Popes have said about that. Meanwhile they make full use of the liberty of expressing their ideas in thomistic terms, which by their use in the Church have received definite, all-time meanings pertaining to the salvation of souls, which meanings are hopelessly lost if used to explain a contradictory system.
Since they select to fight this battle on thomistic use of words but with evolutio-nistic meanings, we accept the challenge and show up their contradictions using the same words with their normal and hallowed meaning.
But make no mistake: there is hardly a single word in the whole of the English language which has the same meaning in evolutionism as in thomism. They intend to write a catechism of the future, where the whole of dogma (so they claim) will be retranslated in the words and meanings of evolutionary theory, as postulated by Teilhard himself as we saw, when he said:
"I have come to the conclusion that, in order to pay for a drastic valorisation and amortisation of the substance of things, a whole series of reshaping of certain representations or attitudes, which seem to us definitely fixed by Catholic Dogma, has become necessary, if we sincerely wish to Christify Evolution."
The present DC is a first attempt to break the barriers and to get us used to it. They fervently hope that, once Thomism is destroyed with its real distinction principle the formidable, ugly contradiction, on which evolution is built, will cease to exist and disappear forever. But they forget that dogma is "Verbum Dei", and no longer thomism.
And now back to our first quotation, above. It is a case in point: evolutionists mean by "life" and "body" something completely different from ordinary Christian use. So the authors will try to explain and explain, going round and round in circles, endlessly, writing a 500-page book with very little substance in it. (Sorry about that thomistic word.)
I'll start once more:
"The life in my body comes from the beasts"
This means two things:
life and body are not the same, so a distinction is made here by the authors;
at least one of them: life, comes from the beasts.
(Remember that, even if Teilhardists make a distinction, they totally reject a real distinction. Will it be the same here?).
"And richer and richer finds showed still more clearly the great drama of the spine slowly straightened up, and the skull that took on a greater volume as the beast developed into man" (p. 10).
We are told here quite clearly by the use of words such as ‘spine’ and ‘skull’, that the body of man also came from the beasts. Since soul is not to be admitted quite explicitly in this catechism as we will see, they tell us here that the whole man comes from the beasts. (Remember also that we are not allowed to show that they contradict Catholic Dogma; that is meaningless to them. This being so we will do something far more "deadly" to them: we will show how they contradict themselves.)
To reinforce their evolutionary doctrine, we are told on p. 470:
"Death is the end of the whole man as we know him".
We know him as having life and body: all that comes from the beasts, so according to this catechism, quite logically, he ends up as the beasts. All this must of course be "squared off"; with "thomism and dogma", hence the pages and pages of writing to explain away their contradiction that there is such a thing as "Resurrection". Resurrection is no difficulty in thomism and the Catholic Church: it becomes a grave contradiction in evolutionism. Before I go on to a discussion on ‘soul’, I would like to select a few more quotations on "life":
"On the contrary: it gives us life...." (p. 500).
Nowhere does the author talk about "divine life": there is no room for it since we have no soul, so life is identical with Life. There is no real distinction between the natural and the Supernatural. But that "it" here which is supposed to be giving life, is not referring to the beasts, so ‘beasts’ and ‘non-beasts’ are giving us life.
". . . as they give new life to the child" (p. 382).
The "they" here are the parents. So, apparently, my parents are beasts, since p. 10 told me: "The life in my body comes from the beasts". And if my parents are not beasts, then the life in my body comes from beasts and non-beasts at the same time: a classical contradiction. Anything at all except the truth: God created me.
As can be seen from what we have uncovered so far: just, as Cardinal Journet assured us, one cannot pick and choose from Teilhardism, neither can that be done from Catholic Dogma, or Thomism. One fundamental contradiction is enough to evoke a whole army of them. E.g., how do they see the Conception of Our Lord? Does the life in His Body ‘come from the beasts’? Did His Mother ‘give Him life’? Has He got a Soul?
Of Christ, the DC says on p. 279:
"God created a human life which in the full simplicity of service fulfilled the end of creation. It was the life of his Son, his Image".
And that is all, so help me God. Nothing about Incarnation, since that involves the creation of His Soul; nothing, about the role His Mother played in that, nothing about His Soul; nothing about the Immaculate Conception of His Mother: is any more needed to show how deep-seated the rejection of the human soul is lodged in these evolutionists ? Since there is such a lot they don't say, and since they absolutely reject any criticism about what they don't say, we turn our attention on what they do say about soul:
"It was once usual to say that God creates each soul directly each time. But this manner of speaking fails to do justice to two things: one, that creation itself is a reality which strives upwards, and two, that body and soul are not to be divided"
"Up to quite recent times, a solution (to the "problem" of after life) was often sought in the simple distinction between "body" and "soul". After death, it was thought, the soul continues to exist separately, while the body perishes. At the Last Judgement, the body is gathered from the clay. This clear picture was an effort to render faithfully the data of the Bible. But an effort must be made to express them otherwise" (p. 473).
"Sometimes Jesus uses the word ‘soul’. ‘Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul’ (Mt. 10: 28). But He does not mean to refer to a human spirit which floats free, as it were, of the body. As elsewhere in the Bible, the meaning is rather ‘life’ ‘the living kernel of a man as a whole, body and soul’. Our Lord means that there is something of man, that which is most properly himself, which can be saved after death. This ‘something’ is not the body which is left behind. But Our Lord does not say that this which is truly man is entirely disassociated from a new body. It is not biblical usage to speak of a purely disembodied soul of a man. How then are we to understand the texts (referring to resurrection: I Cor. 15: 22; ibid. v. 6; "today you will be with Me in Paradise"; 2 Cor. 5: 8)? They speak of a ‘today’ with reference to something which is not entirely without a body. And at the same time they speak of those who shall live after death. What message is to be read here? It seems to be that we are to think of the ‘today’ as something that has already begun, and that it is not without the body. In other words, existence after death is already something like the resurrection of the new body. This body of the resurrection is not molecules which are buried and scattered in the earth. Man begins to awake to a new man" (p. 473).
I have quoted these passages at length, so that the many contradictions can be clearly brought to light. I am mainly concerned with the last quote.
1. This passage contradicts Christ's teaching. Christ knew the difference between "life" and "soul" and told us so. This passage is private interpretation of Scripture. No evidence is brought out.
2. This passage also contradicts what was stated on p. 470 where the authors stated:
"(In death) Man returns to earth like an autumn leaf or an animal. Death is radical. Here the deniers of immortality are right. Death is the end of the whole man as we have known him."
In this passage nothing but a memory remains, in the one on p. 473 a kernel survives. At least the authors of the DC "know man to have a kernel", so how can they say on p. 470: Death is the end of the whole man as we know him; stating on p. 473: as far as they know man, not the whole man dies....
3. p. 470, just quoted, contradicts p. 472: "man is not made to vanish like the beasts".
4. If soul means life as its true biblical meaning, then we must read the statement on p. 10: "the soul of my body comes from the beasts . . ."
5. If, however, soul means: surviving kernel as is also stated here, then the authors simply shifted the problem: what is the difference between a surviving kernel and a surviving soul ?
6. If, according to the long passage above, Christ means by soul: life or surviving kernel, and this is biblical, then according to the Bible life in man and surviving kernel are the same. Since the whole man, according to the DC consists of life and body, and since the whole man dies in death, then life and body die, but life as synonymous with kernel, survives. So life dies and life remains.... And this most confusing and contradictory concoction is the "biblical doctrine on soul" . . According to the DC both the Bible and Christ are confused about soul. If it is not biblical to speak of a soul which survives after death, and if Christ teaches us about a soul which cannot be killed after the body is killed, then either Christ and his teaching are no longer in the Bible, or if Christ's teaching is biblical, then it is "biblical usage" to talk about a surviving soul. Or else Christ did not know what He was talking about and did not know His Bible....
7. If this innermost kernel (which is "man most properly himself" even without body and soul and life) cannot be without a body and immediately on death takes on another body not of molecules, so that now a new man (not as we know him) exists already risen today, then all this is nothing but a pure contradiction of the Gospel which explicitly states that Christ rose on the third day. It is even in the Creed. All of a sudden it has become of the utmost significance that the DC never states that the Risen Christ had reunited with His Body that lay in the grave. Now we know why they need more than nine pages to explain away the truth of the Resurrection. Christ, according to this teaching here, had already immediately resumed another, un-earthly body not of molecules. But then what happened to His Sacred Body in the grave? In testifying briefly to the empty tomb the authors then must believe the lie that some one else took His Body.... It is now also of the utmost significance that the DC is completely silent on the fact that Christ showed His wounds. That He asked His disciples to touch Him, to feel His bones. And finally, to show that he was still made up of molecules, He asked for something to eat, and He ate before their eyes. St. Paul clearly teaches that this corruptible must take on incorruptibility……
Due to its faulty philosophy of man the DC has got itself completely tangled up in a minefield of contradictions, against which Reason and Faith have guarded them-selves for over 2000 years. Exactly as the Popes warned us would happen. As far as I am concerned it can stay there until it blows itself up.
Lastly, I must draw attention to a passage in the DC where everything I have stated previously in this documentation is wound up in an easy to remember example. Here it is, taken from p. 125:
"There is a level of our being which is deeper than the intellect, more personal than feelings, more human than the subconscious. It is the level on which the unity of the two great aspects of our being, knowledge and love, exist. There man's effort to lay hold of truth is inseparable from his striving after goodness. In this primal unity, knowledge is not a cold light and love is not a blind urge. Knowledge is full of love and love itself has vision".
Of this "level of our being" it is stated here:
that it isdeeper than our intellect, so intellect is absent there.
It is the level where knowledge and love exist in unity, so intellect is present there.
It is the level where love has vision, so intellect extends further than this level; in extending "vision to love" it must extend further than love. If love has vision at that level and there knows what it is doing, and this level is more human than the subconscious, then below the subconscious and deeper than the intellect, love knows what it is doing. This makes this mysterious level totally contradic-tory and totally unintelligible.
The catechism then goes on:
"It is the level of our being on which we love, where conscience resides".
Here the authors seem to stick to their original assertion that this level is "deeper than the intellect", because it is the level where we love. But conscience has a lot to do with the intellectual act of judgement. Why this unintelligible level is "invented" here, comes finally out in the next sentence:
"To this core of our being Jesus addresses himself when demanding faith.... This does not mean that the intellect is excluded or ignored.... And so we come back to describe this central unity with the biblical term belief, that is faith. The word belief is etymologically connected with love.
All this is necessary to "explain away" the supernatural nature of the freely infused Gift of Divine Faith, the "Fides Divina et Catholica" of Trent and Vatican I. It has now become a human act on the human level. And what is more, faith is no longer an act of the intellect, but the name given to this unity, "which is a unity on the level where we love, deeper than the intellect, but it does not mean that the intellect is excluded or ignored". In other words, it is the most crude attempt to introduce into this catechism Teilhard's most fundamental contradiction: the identity between the natural and the Supernatural in order to have only one level: this mysterious unity, to which now is given the name faith. The word Supernatural does not even rate a mention in the Topics Index of the DC.
It is this passage where, more than anywhere else, the naked Teilhard doctrine comes to the fore. This description destroys man as he was created by God: as he came from God; Teilhard wanted absolute identity between the natural and the supernatural, or better still: he wanted neither natural nor Supernatural: just one level, one plane, evolution. Here he got that taught in a catechism. But the penalty for getting it is, that the level results in contradictory verbiage and so proves its non-existence. And so his unity between intellect and will in the absence of the real distinction, and his identity of the natural and the Supernatural, again in the absence of the real distinction, become figments of the imagination. And the dearest, most precious casualty, the one we can least afford to lose, is the most treasured gift of Almighty God to man here on earth: the gift of Supernatural, Divine, Infused and Catholic Faith. Because this non-existing sameness of the natural order and the Supernatural Order to the one human order, makes every act of faith a natural act of the natural intellect, resulting in a natural faith on the human level, which completely destroys Catholic teaching in the gravest of all matters: that of Faith being the Initium (beginning), Radix (root) and Fundamentum (foundation) of all Supernatural Life, Sanctification, Sanctifying Grace, Justification and God's inhabitation in the human soul (Trent and Vatican I).
The Popes were right: tamper with thomism, then tamper with dogma (thinking it is still thomism), and you end up with the loss of the priceless Gift of Catholic Faith.