by the world. (And yes, when we recall Teilhard's statist inclinations, this does now sound very much like Hegel.) Who then is consecrating whom? Which is really the critical phylum? Does it even matter, or is that a distinction without a difference? If Christ and cosmos can be run together, and Christ and Church, what can separate Church and world? The whole is greater than the parts, and Christ is that whole. "Always from the very first it was the world, greater than all the elements which make up the world, that I was in love with; and never before was there anyone before whom I could in honesty bow down."

Teilhard's monistic drive explains the fact that he could describe not only Roman Catholicism, but also fascism and communism as being, "in line with the essential trend of cosmic movement."6 It is true that, after the Second World War, he could be found criticizing faceless and dehumanizing collectives. However, his Cosmic Christneither fully human nor fully divine, but itself a faceless tertium quid-pulled him steadily toward the reefs of the impersonal. "Even as late as 1946," notes John Passmore, Teilhard "was still prepared to write that it was too early 'to judge recent totalitarian experiments fairly,' to make up our minds whether 'all things considered, they have produced a greater enslavement or a higher level of spiritual energy.""7 Teilhard was not blind to the fact that the unification of human society seemed to be producing not harmony, but turmoil and suffering-what Irenaeus called "minglings without cohesion"-but he had a kind of chaos theory by which to account for this: "Incoherence is the prelude to unification." Meanwhile, we must "look for our essential satisfaction in the thought that by our struggles we are serving, and leading to salvation, a personal Universe."

L'En Haut et l'En Avant Upwards and onwards, onwards and upwards!

6 Teilhard, The Future of Man, 46.7 John Passmore, The Perfecttibility of Man (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970), 246.

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The Problem with Teilhard

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