Evolutive creation

Abstract

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was by profession a geologist and Palaeontologist but he was also a Christian and a priest. Thus in his work he was influenced both by the physical phenomena he observed and the truths of Revelation he believed in. In this work of his he was mainly after a study of man such as had never been undertaken before. As he wrote in The Vision of the Past, There is a science of the universe without man and there is also a science of man as marginal to the universe; but there is not yet a science of the universe that embraces man as such. In the foreword to the book the Phenomenon of Man Teilhard sums up his work as an attempt to see and make others see what happens to man, and what conclusions are forced upon us when he (man) is placed fairly and squarely within the framework of phenomenon and appearance." Of course Teilhard's originality lies in his having sought to describe the whole phenomenon of man, excluding no part of it and also treating it as a whole.