The Relevance of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin's Christian World-View to Adult Catechesis

Sage, Alan Brian (1991) The Relevance of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin's Christian World-View to Adult Catechesis. MTh(R) thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

As a Jesuit priest and palaeontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was acutely aware of the need to bring faith and the world together in the life of Christians. He developed a theological worldview within the framework of an evolutionary process. He saw this process as the expression of God's continuing creativity in the world and human activity as mankind's participation in God's work of 'building the earth'. In this perspective, Christ is viewed as the purpose of creation and the evolutionary process as the gradual formation of Christ's cosmic body. Teilhard's spirituality thus has a 'worldly' character and an orientation to the future, in expectation of the Second Coming of Christ. The world-view and spirituality developed by Teilhard serves as an appropriate and contemporary context within which to present a programme of adult catechesis, insofar as it relates the work of salvation to the realities of this world and to the concerns of people in the 1990s, particularly the challenges of Third World development and the ecological problems facing mankind today. Despite the difficulties of some of Teilhard's language and the fact that much of what he wrote dates back more than forty years, a careful selection of texts from his writings provides a basic programme for adult catechesis and an approach to faith formation which gives due emphasis to people's everyday concerns and reality. In this respect, Teilhard still has a great deal to say to us today and an important contribution to make to the literature and thinking of adult catechesis.

• Item Type: Thesis (MTh(R))
• Qualification Level: Masters
• Additional Information: Adviser: George Newlands
• Keywords: Theology
• Date of Award: 1991
• Depositing User: Enlighten Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:1991-76329
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 19 Nov 2019 15:45
• Last Modified: 19 Nov 2019 15:45
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/76329