What a Phenomenon! In Memory of Teilhard de Chardin

In 1962, I purchased and carefully read The Phenomenon of Man, the magnum opus of French paleontologist and Jesuit theologian Teilhard de Chardin, who was born 145 years ago on May 1.* Teilhard died on Easter Sunday in April 1955, the month before I graduated from high school. It was not until ’62, though, that I heard of, and was challenged by, him for the first time. 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was his full legal name when he was born in 1881. “Teilhard” was the core family surname and “de Chardin” was the inherited second surname from his mother’s noble line. The double surname originated in 1841, when Pierre‑Cirice Teilhard (his grandfather) married Victoire Barron de Chardin.

Although ordained as a Jesuit priest, Teilhard became a paleontologist (a scientist who studies past life as known from fossil remains). His research, coupled with his belief in the Creator God, led him to an evolutionary worldview that culminates at the “Omega Point,” the grand fulfillment of creation.

Here is an introduction to three contemporary scholars who were significantly influenced by Teilhard.

Brian Swimme (b. 1950) is an American mathematical and evolutionary cosmologist who teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He grew up in a Catholic tradition, which clearly impressed him, and as one reviewer says, there a strong "incense scent of religiosity" to his work. But he does not publicly claim to be a Christian now.

Interestingly, though, Swimme has adopted Teilhard’s thinking that everything in existence has both a physical and a spiritual dimension, and he believes the universe is evolving with a telos (goal or purpose) of beauty. Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation has promoted his ideas, along with other Teilhard scholars who are clearly Christians.

Journey of the Universe (2011) was co-written by Swimme, and he is the personable narrator of that beautifully done film, which clearly show his affinity with Teilhard. It portrays well the sense of evolution as a sacred, universe‑wide process moving toward greater complexity and consciousness (which is what Swimme terms beauty).

Watching Swimme’s movie filled me with a sense of the Creator's awesomeness and the universe's splendor. I highly recommend the film, which is currently available on various streaming platforms.

Simon Conway Morris (b. 1951), a groundbreaking paleontologist at the University of Cambridge, was awarded the 2026 Templeton Prize last week (on April 21). It is valued at over $1.4 million and one of the world’s largest individual awards.**

According to Religion News Service, when he was about seven, Simon’s mother “gave him an album of stamps depicting various pre-historic animals and dinosaurs. This prompted him to go fossil-hunting and inspired a lifelong fascination with the evolution of life.”

Morris has spoken publicly about coming to Christian faith and rejecting materialism. He candidly states that he is “convinced of the truth of the Gospels.” Looking at how the universe has evolved, Taylor says he believes “God is the agent of creation” and is “happy to be known as a Christian.”

Ilia Delio is a Franciscan Sister and American theologian specializing in the intersection of science and religion. She has been associated with Rohr’s Center since 2013, and he explicitly identifies her as an expert on Teilhard. She is said to have “a widely appreciated gift for making Teilhard’s brilliant but dense writings accessible.”

Delio’s Christ in Evolution (2008) is the book most scholars point to as her most sustained and direct engagement with Teilhard. In it, she works through his positing of Christ as the future fullness of the whole evolutionary process, the Omega Point, where the individual and collective adventure of humanity finds its fulfillment.

That book established Delio’s reputation as Teilhard’s premier contemporary interpreter and led to her being called “the most prolific Teilhard interpreter in the English-speaking world today.”

I close with words widely attributed to Teilhard: “Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient to reach the end,” but “it might take a very long time.”

Note: I am grateful to my friend Claude (Anthropic’s AI) for research assistance in the preparation of this article.]

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  * Teilhard’s book was first published under the title Le Phénomene Humain in 1955, and the first English translation was issued in 1959. The title of a new translation, published in 1999, is The Human Phenomenon (the title that the first English translation should have had).

** The award was established in 1972 by John Templeton (1912~2008), a Presbyterian Christian from Tennessee who became a global investor and philanthropist.