ll discuss Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's idea of man's place in the universe, as presented in a variety of his works. I will be using mostly primary sources for my research, as well as talks delivered at the Centennial Teilhard de Chardin Symposium at Georgetown University, and books written by Teilhard's friends or contemporaries.
             In most of his works, Teilhard establishes a link between anthropology and metaphysics, between science and religion. They are an attempt to understand the universe through man, who is very much part of it. In them, we can see Teilhard's vision of harmony of duality of the universe, which is composed of matter and spirit. Union of matter and mind, of the cosmos and the spirit of the universe, and the evolving of one into the other is one of the main ideas behind all of Teilhard's works. He tries to prove that life didn't emerge by accident, but was a product of evolution. And man has his own place in the evolution of the universe.
             First of all, universe is not static. That is, there is no permanence in it. Everything is in the constant process of change, and a particular kind of change - evolution. How did man come to be, asks de Chardin. And the only plausible conclusion he can make is, that human being is a link in a chain of evolution. What was before man? And how does God fit into the whole picture? Let us follow Teilhard in his understanding of the universe through ourselves, human beings.
             Has there always been conscious life in our universe? No, would be Teilhard's answer. Emergence of consciousness was indeed a breakthrough in the evolution of the world. But what kind of a breakthrough? What is the primordial element that gave rise to life in the universe? What is it composed of? As a Catholic priest, he should say, "well, the universe was created by God out of nothing in six days, and culminated in the creation of man out of earth." And this Old Testament myth, however sur...