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Toward The Future

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This book, like many of Teilhard's works, focuses on mysticism and pantheism in the sense that God is at work in every little thing, including tragedy and the shadow. In other words, Teilhard's pantheism is the idea of God in everything, while his idea of mysticism is that EVERYTHING IS ALL GOOD, including the seemingly tragic. Not only this, Christ is basically responsible for everything. This is what Teilhard would describe as "panchristism" or the idea that not only God but Christ is at work in every little thing. Some evangelical theologians find this concept of panchristism/ panthism to be too much of a departure from the orthodox concept that God and Christ are pure light and are not responsible for the shadow. But Teilhard believes that it is preferable to have God and Christ be in control of everything. "Toward the Future" helps to establish this idea of God and Christ in everything by making arguments that diminish evil. In other words, Teilhard eliminates the evangelical objection to pantheism (which is based on the complaint that pantheism attributes evil and the shadow to God) by eliminating the idea of evil. He does this by explaining the redemptive qualities of tragedy and evil in terms of creating higher consciousness. When we realize that tragedy leads directly to the evolution of compassion, it is not so difficult to connect everything - including the tragic - to God and Christ, especially if we wish to prove that God and Christ are responsible for creating higher consciousness. This is Teilhard's Christian mysticism, which has aspects of natural theology. Evangelical theologians: Please stop complaining and join the 21st century! God is in everything and everything is all good!