Children of Heaven and Earth: Catholicity through Teilhardian Pedagogy

Abstract

Beginning with the anthropology of Teilhard de Chardin, this paper explores the need to reimagine education in light of an evolutionary cosmos. Teilhard understood the human person as deeply involved in the meaning-making processes of the cosmos, and as co-creators with God in evolution. To progress the human person must choose organization over entropy and develop a deep rooted “zest” for her own evolution. The classroom can provide an important space that allows the student to develop this zest for her own evolution by providing the student with the opportunity to envision the ways in which her own life contributes to the evolution of the world and the life of God. Religious educators and educational systems have the unique task of cultivating spaces in which students are invited to realize their own energetic centers of creativity and how this energy can be used to co-create an evolving world. Through the development of a Teilhardian pedagogy students can ultimately embrace a deeper sense of “wholeness” as God’s presence in an evolving world.

1. Introduction

In his essay, “The Christic”, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote: “we cannot move a finger without finding ourselves involved in the construction of a total human act that includes what we see and what we make” (Teilhard de Chardin 1955). The anthropology of Teilhard situates the human person in the process of evolution, and as a part of the becoming of the world. The universe, as a whole, is continually moving toward “a greater degree of freedom and consciousness” (Teilhard de Chardin 1986, p. 38). The human person, as part of the universe, is not excluded from that movement, and is also moving toward greater freedom, consciousness, and personality. This paper will explore how Teilhard conceived of the human person in the process of becoming in an evolutionary universe and consider the ways in which religious educational systems must adapt to guide students in the formation of Self1 and the activation of human energy, ultimately leading each student to contribute to the genesis of the cosmos and the life of God. As the human person is faced with the task of moving toward deeper arrangement over entropy, educators and educational systems have the unique task of creating a space in which the energetic center of each student is recognized, leading to a recognition of Self. Only through this deepening can one begin to contribute to the world in evolution, participate in the life of God, and ultimately develop an awareness of the ongoing presence of God in the self and world.

2. Results

2.1. Teilhard’s Vision

In order to consider the role of the human person in the process of evolution, and ultimately how the human person ought to be shaped through education, it is essential to first examine the role that evolution plays in the theology and anthropology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard’s theology is built on the idea that the universe is in process. He wrote:

It is clear in the first place that the world in its present state is the outcome of movement… we are forced to the conclusion that everything is the sum of the past and that nothing is comprehensible except through its history. ‘Nature’ is the equivalent of ‘becoming,’ self-creation: this is the view to which experience irresistibly leads us.

(Teilhard de Chardin 1969, pp. 12–13)

In Teilhard’s vision, everything is in the state of genesis—the world is under construction. This means that the world is not a place that already “is”, but is being born through the processes of geo-chemistry and geo-biology to a biogenesis of cells and the nervous system, all the way through the process of psychogenesis and noogenesis (Teilhard de Chardin 1975, p. 181).

While science of the 19th century largely saw the world as a collection of static entities, with space, time, matter, and motion as discrete and separate entities, (Kim 2005, p. 80) 20th century physics—the physics which Teilhard embraced in his lifetime—revealed the opposite. Contemporary physics reveals that space, time, and matter are not discrete but depend upon motion. In other words, “the world is the natural result of interrelated events, which imply process and change” (Kim 2005, p. 80). The revelation that the world is continually created from interrelated events can also be understood from a biological standpoint—life arises from matter and these events affect one another. This is the evolutionary process through which Teilhard came to understand the world in which he lived. On this topic Teilhard wrote: “At this elementary level, we may say that so far as Physics and Biology are concerned there is no longer any uncertainty. The movement that animates the Stuff of the Universe in and around us, is no mere agitation and no mere drifting into the homogeneous” (Teilhard de Chardin 1955).

In his life, Teilhard’s conception of a universe in cosmogenesis as a result of inter-related events led him to a problem that he believed ultimately needed to be spiritually addressed. He noted that evolution can be observed through two processes. The first process he calls “arrangement” which can be observed through “the gradual ‘corpusculizing’ of cosmic Energy, [that] produces the infinite variety (ever more complex and ever more ‘psychized’) of atoms, molecules, living cells, etc.” (Teilhard de Chardin 1955). In other words, an “arrangement” view of the universe points to a particular pattern in the material world; complexity gives rise to more complexity at a physical level. The second view that Teilhard suggests one could have on the universe is the idea of entropy or “dis-arrangement” “which is constantly bringing arranged Energy back to its most probable, and therefore most simple, forms” (Teilhard de Chardin 1955). The second process of the universe, Entropy, is the notion that the universe lacks order or predictability if not moving toward arrangement. Instead of moving toward greater consciousness, Entropy brings arrangement or complexity back to simple forms. While Teilhard acknowledges that, in his lifetime, science had not yet declared a definitive answer to the question of entropy versus organization, he writes that one only needs to use their eyes to recognize the phenomenon he calls “co-reflection” (Teilhard de Chardin 1955). While acknowledging the force of entropy at play in the universe, Teilhard sees that human persons “find it quite natural not only to think with ourselves but also, inevitably, to think with all other persons at the same time” (Teilhard de Chardin 1955). Humans, then, demonstrate how the universe is complexifying through this group-thinking process he calls co-reflection. Thinking not only for and of themselves individually, humans reflect collectively and in doing so become part of the construction of the universe in what Teilhard calls the “total human act” (Teilhard de Chardin 1955). The movement of the human person from reflection to co-reflection solves the question of entropy for Teilhard; for the human person, evolution does not simply “happen to” him, but in the act of co-reflection, the human community has a hand in the process of evolution. Thus, the human person is not only a part of the outflow of evolution, but is evolution becoming conscious of itself (Teilhard de Chardin 1975, p. 220). Ultimately, evolution is a process marked by novelty, creativity, and future; new energies rise up out of the old as elements become more complex. Humanity both belongs to the natural world as a part of the evolutionary process, but also stands apart from it, and gives meaning to it through co-reflection. Humanity has the opportunity to be meaning-makers.

Teilhard’s understanding of the world depended on a coherent vision of evolution and the world’s movement toward greater wholeness. As a Jesuit priest, evolution was also central to Teilhard’s theological vision, particularly in understanding the role of Jesus Christ in an evolutionary world. Teilhard names the incarnation and the Gospel message as ideas to be re-examined in light of cosmogenesis—the world in evolution. For Teilhard, incarnation and creation cannot be distinctly understood. Instead, he held that “Christ is first in God’s intention to love” (Delio 2020a) in the incarnation and understood continual creation as the outflow of God’s creativity and love. The incarnation of Christ, then, is an emergence of God’s love into the field of human experience in which Christ appears as “the axis and the peak of a universal maturing” (Teilhard de Chardin 1974, p. 88). In other words, the physical incarnation of the person of Jesus Christ places Christ as the symbol of “the remarkable cosmic point of all convergence” (Teilhard de Chardin 1974, p. 87). The Christian incarnation marks “Christ [as] organically united with all of creation, immersed in all things, in the heart of matter, and thus unifying the world” (Delio 2020a). In an evolving universe, Christ is situated as the fullness of the world in the evolutionary process. Christ is the Omega Point—the point at which the world finds its ultimate fulfillment in collective convergence of all materiality. By taking on human form, human lives are intrinsically united to the life of Christ. Thus, the incarnation of Christ from the beginning establishes a real Christic center in all matter. The anthropology of Teilhard de Chardin calls each individual to participate in a deep catholicity—united to the heart of matter, with Christ, and add to the newness of creation. Each person, then, striving toward the wholeness of Christ in the process of co-reflection participates in Christogenesis, adding to the life of God through the creation of the world.

Reevaluating the incarnation in light of an evolving cosmos also necessitates a reconsideration of what the Gospel message entails. Teilhard criticizes today’s Gospel message as being “unintelligible” and calls for a need to “adjust its spiritual code to the new shape of the universe” in evolution (Teilhard de Chardin 1974, p. 92). Because the incarnation considered in light of evolution allows one to understand that God and the world are inseparably linked together in the process of becoming, the Gospel no longer refers to salvation in a static world. The Gospel message in light of Christogenesis becomes focused on what humans are becoming and contributing to the life of God in the world. While the core message of the Gospel, to love God and neighbor, remains, the task of love takes on a new shape. For example, a new vision of the Gospel message would re-imagine a type of worship that consists of devoting “oneself body and soul to the creative act, associating oneself with that act in order to fulfil the world by hard work and intellectual exploration” (Teilhard de Chardin 1974, p. 92). The new paradigm of the Gospel message entails a worship in which individuals participate in the creative love of God through individual becoming (Teilhard de Chardin 1974, p. 92). The act of loving one’s neighbor also takes on a new form. Teilhard writes that while to love one’s neighbor formerly meant “to do him no injury and to bind up his wounds” attains its full meaning through “lives devoted to common and mutual progress” (Teilhard de Chardin 1974, p. 92). If worship and love take on a new form in an evolving universe, the Gospel message must also transform the purpose and goals of education to embrace the human person and cosmos in the act of becoming.

This brief introduction to the anthropological and theological vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin makes it clear that humanity is called to a deep catholicity. If the human is evolution-conscious of itself, each person must respond to their existence through recognizing her dependence upon the material world, while simultaneously grasping her responsibility to shape meaning in the world. One can begin to see where questions regarding religious pedagogy begin to arise. If through the process of co-reflection the human person gives shape to the world, how must the human person be formed in order to orient the world toward deeper complexity, rather than entropy? When the Gospel is reimagined in light of an evolutionary cosmos, in which Christ it the Omega Point, and humanity is called to live “lives devoted to common and mutual progress” (Teilhard de Chardin 1974, p. 92), how can this formation in the Gospel take place? Following Teilhard’s call to adjust the spiritual code of the Gospel and make it intelligible for the present age, this paper will now move to consider the methods and implications of a Teilhardian pedagogy. Informed by his Catholic anthropology, which calls for humanity to participate in Christogenesis, a Teilhardian vision of religious education must emphasize whole making through a deepening of consciousness.

2.2. Education and the Grand Option

Wendall Berry wrote that “human persons cannot be whole alone” (Berry 2015, p. 114). While writing after the death of Teilhard, it is clear that Teilhard would have agreed with Berry’s sentiment. For both thinkers, the human person is not simply a singular entity, existing in a vacuum. Nor is the person just a material body that exists for a time and disappears without having touched the world in some way. Teilhard saw “human evolution as a process of convergence due to the unyielding force of attraction in the universe, directing biological life toward maximum human organization and consciousness” (Delio 2020b, p. 22). Teilhardian scholar Ilia Delio writes that “convergence is the ongoing process of complexification and the process of convergence and complexity is the unfolding of consciousness in evolution” (Delio 2020b, p. 22). The consideration of the human person, then, must necessarily include what the person is evolving toward. Drawn to others in co-reflection, and moving toward greater wholeness, pedagogy must embrace the whole human act, and be a force of guiding a movement toward greater complexity and growth in consciousness of the whole cosmos.

The late Teilhardian scholar Beatrice Bruteau said that humans face a “grand option” of choosing to “go forward into higher levels of unities, or… fall back into the dispersed homogeneity of maximal entropy” (Bruteau 2001, p. 2). She saw that, in order to not leave the world to the randomness of entropy, humanity must consent to the next “creative advance of evolution” (Bruteau 2001, p. 2). This ultimately means that human persons, who have become complex enough to not be subject to a natural affinity to union, such as less complex beings,2 must find a way to continue to grow in complexity and consciousness through their own volition. “For this reason”, Bruteau writes, “every individual is called upon to participate in this great act of creating the next stage of evolution… no one is dispensable. Each one is of absolute and incalculable value” (Bruteau 2001, p. 13). She, along with Teilhard, saw that each person has a unique contribution that they are able to make to guide the evolving world. The question that must be asked, then, is how does one make their unique contribution to cosmogenesis, and bring order against entropy? Bruteau sees the answer in terms of union. She writes: “all our energies must interact in order for the new being to be what it ought to be” (Bruteau 2001, p. 13). Teilhard makes a similar assessment in his How I Believe in which he writes about the impact of his own life, and the activation of his own energy in union: “It is enough for me in that respect that what is best in me should pass, there to remain for ever, in one who is greater and finer than I… this transition of my self to the other is demanded both by the requirements of my action and by the successful fulfillment of the universe” (Teilhard de Chardin 1986, pp. 51–52). If it is through union and sharing of self with others that the fulfillment of the universe is truly possible, it is critical that education is examined insofar as it is the meeting place of ideas and human energy.

Before people are able to share themselves with others and reach toward the fulfillment of the universe, as addressed by Teilhard and Bruteau, it is important that one has a grasp of the self that will ultimately be poured into others. Bruteau writes that it is easy for individuals to identify themselves with “I am” statements. These statements produce comfort, usually consisting of assertions such as “I am a student” or “I am a mother” or “I am a baseball fan”. She notes, however, that “all these abstractions will not catch the true self that we are concrete beings, and that our “I” is somehow more than all these descriptions and that it would still be itself, even if the description changed” (Bruteau 2001, p. 50). In other words, knowing the self cannot simply be to understand the self in terms of abstraction. Being a baseball fan, student, or mother does not capture the self as a person and puts the person at risk of being objectified and reduced only to the roles and abstractions identified through their descriptive statement. Bruteau suggests that to begin to know the self is to remove these abstractions from the “I am” statements. Instead of identifying with the predicates of all the descriptors, she says that one should “[center] on the act of actively existing, of being the act ‘I am’... With all the predicates removed, the sense of identity will be profoundly centered in the ‘I am’ alone” (Bruteau 2001, p. 51). In and through this contemplative experience, Bruteau notes that it is possible to begin to see the inner self as radiant and energetic. Centering on “I am” alone, the student is able to envision themselves outside of a specific prescribed role exclusively. They have the freedom to imagine themselves creatively and envision how they can contribute to the creation of the whole world, not just participate in the systems with which they previously identified. While the individual might, practically speaking, continue serving in the role of a teacher, parent, or baseball fan, they can understand that these descriptors are not constitutive of their being, but are expressions of their energy manifesting in the creation of the universe. Furthermore, centering on the act of actively existing as “I am”, the individual deliberately enters into the life of God. Just as the God of Moses declared “אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה” (I AM WHO I AM, Exodus 3:14), the person, by profoundly identifying with this statement, mirrors the life of God, and can use their personhood to co-create the life of God and the universe. They break free of the confines of the systems that used to identify them and can experience identity within the wholeness of the universe. With predicates removed from the act of being, personhood can be expressed freely, spontaneously, and full of possibility (Bruteau 2001, p. 52).

The meeting of a student and teaching in a classroom is almost a universal experience at this point in the 21st century. Even if those classrooms might look different across cultures, at some point in life, each individual typically encounters a teacher–student relationship in which two personal energies meet. The classroom, as a meeting point of personal energy, becomes the space in which persons experience communion and have the opportunity to take part in the evolution of the world through the unity of consciousness. The relationship of the teacher and student in the classroom, then, must be intentional. Following Bruteau’s understanding that personhood can only be understood insofar as one removes the predicates that reduce the individual to object, the same method must be undertaken in the classroom to foster an appropriate teacher–student relationship. English Poet John Keats coined a term called “negative capability” which encapsulates the approach the teacher must have with the student upon entering the classroom. For Keats, the teacher with a negative capability is “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact reason” (Keats 2002, p. 43). In other words, the teacher is able to approach students with an attitude of “unknowing”, removing all predicates of what the student may like or identify with, which ultimately leaves the teacher “open to new possibilities in [their] engagements with the [students] [they] cares for” (Tyler 2010, pp. 200–1). While it is easy for teachers to make assumptions about their students or even attempt to relate to students on the basis of their hobbies and interests, by approaching their students in an attitude of unknowing in which they “puts aside her memories, her need for control, and to define” (Tyler 2010, p. 200), the teachers become fundamentally present to their students and can begin to see their students not as simply individuals, but as persons with an energetic center.

Recognizing the energetic center of personhood in the student and the teacher makes it possible for the classroom to be a space in which both parties can move closer to the unity of consciousness. Bruteau notes that each person is “a unique activity that directs itself towards us with its own spondic energy” (Bruteau 2001, p. 53). With this idea in mind, the teacher is not obliged to coerce the student into learning simply “for the sake of learning” but needs to attend to the spondic energy that pours forth from the student. John Dewey, a notable educational theorist, wrote that the teacher must “regard the individual differences among [students]... otherwise their education destroys the special bent and leaves a dull uniformity… we have wasted our efforts in stunting the true gifts of nature we see [the] short lived and illusory brilliance [that] we have substituted die away, while the natural abilities we have crushed do not revive” (Dewey 1966, p. 116). While most classroom experiences consist of elements such as lectures, reading assignments, and papers, a classroom in which the teacher recognizes and responds to the unique abilities of their students, and their energetic centers gives the teacher and students more agency. In this new classroom, the teacher is able to teach in such a way that the skills of her students are sharpened and celebrated. Ultimately, her students are not left to become subject to “dull conformity” but their own interior “I am” can be directed toward the future in a deepening of interior personality and consciousness of their place in the world.

The attentiveness of this pedagogical method gives rise to a new type of relationship between the teacher and the student. The role of the teacher is typically understood through a power dynamic—the teacher is the arbiter of a certain truth or at least the expert on a subject and she teaches her student what they ought to know, according to her expertise. Within this Teilhardian and Bruteau-ian framework in which the student is cared for as a unique center of personhood, the student and teacher become engaged in a mutual act of co-creation. As the teacher is engaged in care for the student, the student can also come to an awareness of the personhood of his teacher. Bruteau describes this connection in terms of a “radiant process.” She writes:

“One radiant process enters into and unites with another radiant process. ‘Together’ they ‘beam into’ a third and join it… The union of one radiant process with another radiant process never comes to an end, for we find that each one we ‘indwell’ is again radiating to all the others, so that the energy goes round in continual circulation, and each participant can truly claim to be ‘in’ each of the others, to be ‘one’ with each of the others and with the whole radiant interaction”.

(Bruteau 2001, p. 56)

While Bruteau is speaking primarily in metaphor, she provides a clear picture of perichoresis—the Christian notion of the dynamic, creative, and evolving relationship between the persons of the Trinity. In other words, in the process of learning with attention to personhood, the teacher and student mirror the life of God, while also adding to the deepening of consciousness in the world through mutual indwelling and the continual circulation of radiant interaction. Educational theorist Parker Palmer describes the process of the student and teacher entering into a relationship with one another with the Germanic word “troth”. He describes “troth” as an ancient convent in which participants vow “to engage in a mutually accountable and transforming relationship” (Palmer 1993, p. 30). This interaction does not strip one individual of their personality, but qualities of both personalities “are woven in by their fibers to consciousness”, and “what is retained in the consummation of the universe is nothing less than the properties of our center” (Teilhard de Chardin 1986, p. 53). Bruteau’s description of radiant processes uniting with one another, and indwelling one another, can be understood in the classroom through Palmer’s application of the student–teacher relationship being a “troth”. It is not enough for the teacher to stand as the arbiter of truth of the deliverer of facts, but to invite students into a mutually transformational relationship. At the heart of the classroom interaction is the deepening of consciousness through both personalities being woven into the fibers of the evolving cosmos, together.

2.3. Education and the Activation of Human Energy

What Bruteau is considering in The Grand Option is a spiritual response to Teilhard’s vision of human energy. Teilhard wrote an essay titled “The Activation of Human Energy” in which he considered the question of “where man is to find… the heart to carry through thoroughly and to the end the ever more demanding task of his co-reflection” (Teilhard de Chardin 1970, p. 391). Recognizing the unique ability of the human person to act as evolution reflecting upon itself, he asked the question of from where does the energy to engage in that reflection come? Teilhard warns that, unlike other less-complex animals, if the human person does not develop a “deep-rooted, passionate zest for this own evolution… he can no longer progress” (Teilhard de Chardin 1970, p. 391). When the human person identifies that she is in a state of evolution, she realizes she has a choice between entropy and organization.3 To activate the human energy, and develop the needed “zest for evolution”, Teilhard notes the importance of embracing the cosmos as an open system. In the beginning of his essay, he criticizes the emphasis placed on seeing the world in terms of finite resources that will ultimately run dry, resulting in a “definitive and total death” (Teilhard de Chardin 1970, p. 391). He points out that “every law of energetics insists that [the universe] shall open out ahead” (Teilhard de Chardin 1970, p. 392)—the universe is not heading toward destruction but moving toward an expansive future.

If the universe is truly opening out ahead, as Teilhard and the laws of energetics suggest, it is the responsibility of the educator to teach in such a way that embraces this universal opening. Many systems that permeate 21st century culture function as “closed” systems. Religion and politics, for example, declare concrete “goods” and dictate how one ought to live, think, and work effectively within the systems. An open system, however, allows one to live toward the future. The future is opening towards fuller life, not falling back on itself as it would in a closed system. Understanding the world as an inherently open and opening system entails a change in the way that the educator leads the classroom. Schools, by their very nature, tend to be “closed” systems—there is a set of standards for each student, a specific curriculum is enforced, and any intensive interdisciplinary study is rare. When education embraces “open-system thinking” (Betts 1992, pp. 38–41) the educator can begin to see the ways in which her students’ acts of co-reflection can intensify and differentiate in an act of convergence. In other words, instead of seeing her students as vessels to be filled and capped, she can encourage her students to see the ways in which their unique energies can contribute to the deepening of consciousness in the world. The educator’s job becomes fulfilled not in achieving learning goals, but in cultivating a zest for evolution in her students and guiding them in the activation of their own human energy in an open cosmos.

2.4. Education as Christogenesis

It is clear that, for a pedagogical method to be truly Teilhardian, it must embrace a caring relationship between the teacher and student that leads to co-reflection and fosters a “zest for evolution”, through the framework of “open-systems” thinking. Thus far, this paper has established the aims and methods of a Teilhardian pedagogy. Finally, this paper will consider the theological implications of a Teilhardian pedagogy, as it encourages the individuation of the student, and adds to the life of God in Christogenesis. By looking to Carl Jung’s psychology, one can see that education is a part of Self-formation, which ultimately directs a student to contribute uniquely to the universe and the life of God. Examining the psychology and Christology of Carl Jung helps one to understand Teilhard’s conception of the role of Christ in evolution and ultimately how education can form the student to participate in Christogenesis.

Psychologist Carl Jung described the archetype of “Self” to be “not only the center but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious” (Williams 2019, p. 24; cf. Jung 1952). In other words, the quest of the individual in Jungian psychology is to recognize the Self within by uniting the unconscious personality with the conscious, thus manifesting the individual Self. Ruth Williams writes that, for Jung, the Self is: “An archetypal image of man’s fullest potential and the unity of the personality as a whole. The Self as a unifying principle within the human psyche occupies the central position of authority in relation to psychological life and, therefore, the destiny of the individual” (Williams 2019, p. 24; cf. Jung 1952). Self lies at the core of personality, animating, motivating, and unifying the life of the individual. It is, for Jung, the goal of human life to unite the psyche, and allow this archetype of Self to serve as the guiding principle in the ultimate and unique telos of each individual human person.

The educational methods outlined above share a similar goal to Jung’s archetype of Self. Through an education in which the teacher begins with understanding and knowing her students through their experience of personhood, and then in encouraging them to think within an open system that activates their human energy, the student has the opportunity to unify their unconscious and conscious lives. The goal of a Teilhardian pedagogy is to first recognize the unconscious center and to activate the energy in that center by bringing it into contact with an open-systems cosmos. The goals of a Teilhardian pedagogical method are also inherently intertwined with the psychology of Carl Jung and his archetype of Self.

Jung’s idea of the archetype of Self also affected his views of Christology. If the Self functions as the highest unity of an individual’s personality on the whole, then the person of Christ, “exemplifies the archetype of the Self. He represents a totality of a divine or heavenly kind, a glorified man, a son of God, sine macula peccati, unspotted by sin” (Williams 2019, p. 24; cf. Jung 1951). Jesus is the exemplar of Self because if the Self is realized in the struggle to balance various forces of the psyche, Jesus’ life exemplifies how this is possible in his full embodiment of divinity and humanity. In a similar manner to Teilhard, Jung saw the incarnation of Jesus Christ to serve as a personalization of future fullness of the whole world, including the human person. Jung sees this perfect balance as making the life of Jesus attractive. He wrote: “It was the archetype of the Self in the soul of every man that responded to the Christian message, with the result that the concrete Rabbi Jesus was rapidly assimilated by the constellated archetype. In this way Christ realized the idea of the Self” (Williams 2019, p. 24; cf. Jung 1948). Christ stands as the example of perfect individuation, with a perfectly integrated psyche and thoroughly assimilated personality. Ultimately, this manifestation of Self is fully realized in Jesus’ death on the cross. Jung imagined Jesus’ death as a triumph, which consisted in a demonstration of Jesus’ “courage and absolute devotion to what he believed to be the truth” (Chapman 1997, p. 416). For Jung, Jesus’ death was the perfect demonstration of individuation and manifestation of the Self.

Ultimately, by working toward Self-individuation, Jung saw that individuals have the capacity to add to the life of God. While Jesus was the example of fully integrated life, exteriorly and interiorly, the life of God cannot be exhausted by one person. Each person, then, has the potential to add to the life of God through their own realization of Self in individuation. Because of this idea, Jung saw the human person as included in the Sonship of God with Jesus. Each person continues the incarnation of God through “courageously choosing individuation” (Chapman 1997, p. 420). Through this courageous choice of individuation, the person adds to the life of God—Christogenesis. A pedagogy that embraces the uniting of the interior life and the exterior not only results in well-formed students who have the capacity to add to the world in evolution, but ultimately culminates in participating in and adding to the life of God in Teilhard’s vision of Christogenesis. A Teilhardian vision of education unites the interior and exterior lives of students and allows students to manifest the unique archetype of Self, ultimately contributing to the life of God in the evolving world. Education within a Teilhardian method forms student in the interior life through the recognition and activation of human energy, the exterior life through embracing the world as an open system and forms the student in the archetype of Self. This formation allows the student to contribute to the creative expression of God through the Jungian formation of Self.

3. Conclusions

This paper has sought to explore how Teilhard’s vision of Christianity and evolution can inform and develop a pedagogy rooted in catholicity. A Teilhardian pedagogy challenges its students and educators to embrace their interior Christic centers, while simultaneously recognizing the ways in which both parties contribute to the cosmos in genesis through co-reflection. By examining Teilhard’s understanding of entropy and organization it is clear to see that a pedagogical method must be developed in order to help students and teachers recognize and respond to the changing cosmos. Implementing a pedagogy that recognizes the spondic energy at the core of the person, and employs “open-systems thinking,” students and teacher have the tools and methodology to activate human energy and move toward deeper organization. Through this pedagogical method, one comes to realize Jung’s archetype of Self, contributes to the life of God in Christogenesis, and is invited into a deep sense of God’s presence in the world and the individual. Ultimately, a Teilhardian vision of education invites the student and teacher to embrace catholicity in the 21st century.