ABSTRACT
The Jesuit geologist, paleontologist, poet, and mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) brought together faith and science through a synthesis of Christian doctrine and evolutionary theory. All his life he felt he had seen something new: God as Christ in all things. He began writing during the First World War when he worked as a stretcher-bearer at the Western Front. His first essay of 1916 is called “Cosmic Life.” It culminates in a great prayer to the cosmic Christ where he writes, “To live the cosmic life is to live dominated by the consciousness that one is an atom in the body of the mystical and cosmic Christ.” He described his deeply changed perception of God and the universe, the interdependent unity and organicity of all living things animated by the spirit of God and the presence of Christ. My chapter discusses Teilhard’s key texts on the cosmic Christ and examines their wider significance and interpretation by different scholars within the wider context of Teilhard’s works and his understanding of contemporary spirituality.
