The divine milieu; an essay on the interior life

by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Paper Book, 1960

Status

Available

Description

A spiritual treasure for every religion bookshelf. De Chardin, geologist and priest, probes the ultimate meaning of all physical exploration and the fruit of his own inner life. "Extraordinary."--Karl Stern

User reviews

LibraryThing member StephenBarkley
"The heavens declare the glory of God," wrote the Psalmist (Psalm 19:1 ESV). Or to use Paul's language, "For [God's] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:20
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ESV). The Divine Milieu explains, in mid-20th century philosophical language, just what those verses mean.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit Priest/geologist/paleontologist who saw the glory of God shining through every part of the natural world he studied. In this slim-yet-deep volume, he describes how we can understand this without lapsing into pantheism. The Divine Milieu is something we are encompassed by, and drawn into. This is mystical reflection at its best.

I would try to summarize his arguments here, but honestly, I'm ill-equipped for such a task. This is a book that will take several readings to digest fully. That said, the meal's well worth the effort.
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LibraryThing member the_awesome_opossum
"In the divine milieu all the elements of the universe touch each other by that which is most inward and ultimate in them. There they concentrate, little by little, all that is purest and most attractive in them without loss and without danger of subsequent corruption. There they shed, in their
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meeting, the mutual externality and the incoherences which form the basic pain of human relationships.... Let us leave the surface, and, without leaving the world, plunge into God."

Teilhard is clearly a poet as well as a theologian. The Divine Milieu is about the spiritual growth of the world toward God, who is both the beginning and endpoint for creation's destiny. It's mystical and idealistic, in the best sort of 'dedicated dreamer' sense, to see the universe being shaped and shaping itself according to the divine. And it's even more amazing that Teilhard believes so steadfastly in the goodness of the world: he saw and was involved in the horrors of WWI, not naive by any stretch of the imagination, yet he can faithfully affirm that the world is good and God is participating in its fullness. His theology for his time is progressive, affirming the growth and mutability of God, which paves the way for process theology later. It's very readable and very uplifting for readers seeking God within rather than apart from the world.
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LibraryThing member ostrom
Impressive. He attempts to reconcile faith and science.
LibraryThing member michaeladams1979
I wasn‰ĂƒÂ›Ă‚ÂȘt sure what to expect from this. Very overtly Christian observation of the meaning of earthly life, fraternity, and one‰ÛÂÂȘs life‰ÛÂÂȘs work in the grand scheme of religious meaning. There is a poetry to the language, but most of the meaning will only work if one
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already has a Christian perception of the world.
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LibraryThing member goosecap
If it were mine to say, I would have called it ‘The Holy Environment’; I may not speak French, but I can speak English, and ‘The Divine Milieu’ is just hiding behind translationese. It’s want of courage; it’s blending in, the actual content of Pierre’s working is strikingly different
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from classic Hellenistic theology, but with a word without an obvious meaning to most people, you hide that behind this vague idea of class, basically
. Pierre wasn’t hiding from the new world, though, even if he was a Christian, and he didn’t lack courage.

For me it’s religion—interfaith—Christianity and secularism.


. On the one hand I wouldn’t want to be a recentist—I suppose that technical science is a sort of recentism, but the /meaning/ of it isn’t
. “I’ve never believed a single word you say, goosecap”~ That’s right; I know you don’t, hahaha—but on the other hand, I wouldn’t want to imagine that this is better somehow than, say, Polkinghorne
. I don’t know; of course there will always be that macho scientist who goes, Me And My Big Balls Will Blast Away The Past; (NOBODY listens to fun. anymore; Aim and Ignite is f*ck*ng Nostalgic, you know what I think of that! You’re going down, Millennial! You’re. Going. Down!), but it is still right to say, you know, Dust You Are, and to dust your books will return
.

Although I guess sometimes it takes a long time, longer than a single human life—it’s like a tree’s life, you know. Pierre was like a tree. He didn’t take much interest, did he, in the newspapers and newsmakers
.


. He’s quite a pretty girl; he writes pretty—although he’s bashful as Beth March. “I will only play the piano softly, Mother
.” But plenty of religious people talked about him as though he were some sort of whore, you know
.


. I don’t suppose I’ll read Pierre himself again, although perhaps (in addition to Polkinghorne etc), I will read a contemporary book About him—augmenting and commenting, and even more importantly, by doing so, cutting away the merely historical and the encrustations of mannerisms; many of these mannerisms seem to be rather augmented than ameliorated by the translator, as though la palabra mas grande, mas francesa, were what absolved it of sin, or at least were what was desirable about it, you know.

I suppose perhaps Pierre escapes out of the past into the future, but if so certainly he escapes with marks on his body—the claw-marks of some great dragon.

It makes me think about myself; perhaps those intellectually fallow years of youth, so obviously apparently disastrous, were of some use, you know.


. Pierre was literally a scientist, and it’s good for scientists to try to not be exclusively in their exclusivist-naturalist orthodoxy and recentism, BUT, I also TOTALLY would get a scientist of today not liking this book. 👌
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LibraryThing member JBreedlove
A wordy "omnia Deus", God in All things. This the first work of the redoubtable PTC. He lived his religion and passion and combined the two. Not really discovered by the greater world until after his death his deep thinking on his Jesuit Catholicism tied to explain modern cosmic science within
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Catholic themes. A lot of words trying to describe the indescribable but still an interesting read with some Jesuit gems within.
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