Wolfgang Smiths's Critique of Teilhard de Chardin
Discussion
(as argued in his book: Theistic Evolution: The Teilhardian Heresy, 1988; originally published as: Teilhardism and the New Religion.)
From the Wikipedia:
"Wolfgang Smith, an American scientist versed in Catholic theology, devotes an entire book to the critique of Teilhard's doctrine, which he considers neither scientific (assertions without proofs), nor Catholic (personal innovations), nor metaphysical (the "Absolute Being" is not yet absolute),[54] and of which the following elements can be noted (all the words in quotation marks are Teilhard's, quoted by Smith) :
* Evolution: For Teilhard, evolution is not only a scientific theory but an irrefutable truth "immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience "; it constitutes the foundation of his doctrine. Matter becomes spirit and humanity moves towards a super-humanity thanks to complexification (physico-chemical, then biological, then human), socialization, scientific research and technological and cerebral development;[57] the explosion of the first atomic bomb is one of its milestones,[58] while waiting for "the vitalization of matter by the creation of super-molecules, the remodeling of the human organism by means of hormones, control of heredity and sex by manipulation of genes and chromosomes [...]".
* Matter and spirit: Teilhard maintains that the human spirit (which he identifies with the anima and not with the spiritus) originates in a matter which becomes more and more complex until it produces life, then consciousness, then the consciousness of being conscious, holding that the immaterial can emerge from the material.At the same time, he supports the idea of the presence of embryos of consciousness from the very genesis of the universe: "We are logically forced to assume the existence [...] of some sort of psyche" infinitely diffuse in the smallest particle.
* Theology: Affirming that "God creates evolutively", he denies the Book of Genesis, not only because it attests that God created man, but that he created him in his own image, thus perfect and complete, then that man fell, that is to say the opposite of an ascending evolution. That which is metaphysically and theologically "above" - symbolically speaking - becomes for Teilhard "ahead", yet to come; even God, who is neither perfect nor timeless, evolves in symbiosis with the World,[note 1] which Teilhard, a resolute pantheist,[65] venerates as the equal of the Divine. As for Christ, not only is he there to activate the wheels of progress and complete the evolutionary ascent, but he himself evolves.
* New religion: As he wrote to a cousin: "What dominates my interests increasingly is the effort to establish in me and define around me a new religion (call it a better Christianity, if you will)...", and elsewhere: "a Christianity re-incarnated for a second time in the spiritual energies of Matter". The more Teilhard refines his theories, the more he emancipates himself from established Christian doctrine: a "religion of the earth" must replace a "religion of heaven". By their common faith in Man, he writes, Christians, Marxists, Darwinists, materialists of all kinds will ultimately join around the same summit: the Christic Omega Point."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin#Wolfgang_Smith)