Science, Teilhard and Vatican II

Abstract

This paper looks at hope in the context of science. In pre-Copernican times it was possible to look up in hope from the imperfections of human life to the perfection of the heavens. Astronomical discoveries challenged our picture of the heavens and modernity transmuted the ideal into reason or science but even that goal has been shattered by post-modernity. Yet, is is precisely in the Darwinian world of evolution that we discover a new marvel, that science itself provides a narrative of hope. Creation is unfinished but moving towards a future. This is something which Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ grasped and expounded and which was taken up by Vatican II especially in the document Gaudium et spes. Nonetheless, mainstream theology has yet to realize the full implications of Teilhard’s vision.