"A Helen and Kurt Wolff book."

Translation of Comment je crois.

Includes bibliographical references.

Foreword by N. M. Wildiers -- Note on the Physical Union Between the Humanity of Christ and the Faithful in the Course of their sanctification -- On the notion of creative transformation -- Note on the modes of divine action in the universe -- Fall, redemption, and geocentrism -- Note on some possible historical representations of original sin -- Pantheism and christianity -- Christology and evolution -- How I belive -- Some general views on the essence of christianity -- Christ the envolver -- Introduction to the Christian life -- Christianity and evolution: suggestions for a new theology -- Reflections on Original Sin -- The Christian phenomenon -- Monogenism and monophyletism: an essential distinction -- What the world is looking for from the Church of God at this moment -- The contingence of the universe and ma's zest for survival -- A sequel to the problem of human origins: The plurality of inhabited worlds -- The God of evolution -- My litany*

If it were possible to sum up in a few words the basic message of Teilhard de Chardin it would go something like this: The average believer lives in a world which is regarded as more or less tangential to his religious activity. The average agnostic lives in a world which is self-contained, self-explanatory, certainly having no meaningful relation to the ideas of traditional Christian teaching. Words like Incarnation, redemption, Original Sin are to him like empty incantations. Yet such a dichotomy is contrary both to the central truth of Christianity and to the scientist's belief in the value of all human experience. All his life, Teilhard, as a believing scientist, picture that would enlarge his religious vision and to the scientist a statement of religious ideas which would locate them within his understanding of reality. This new volume of the Teilhardian corpus contains some of his most valuable work in this field. Of special importance are the three papers on the Fall and Original Sin. There is also a special interest attaching to his Note on possible historical presentations of the doctrine of Original Sin, a a piece of theological speculation which got him into trouble with his superiors and was the origin of the long story of misunderstanding and suspicion from which he suffered all his life. A question of topical urgency–the possibility of other worlds than ours being inhabited–is deal with briefly but suggestively in the penultimate paper, while the title of the last one–"The God of Evolution–ïs in itself a challenge. This is the translation of volume 10 in the Collected Works, entitled in French Comment je crois. --translated by René Hague