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T

TAO I S M. See DAOISM.

TAWHID. The Islamic belief in God’s
oneness. This is often held up in discus-
sions with Christians about Jesus, who
Muslims believe to be a prophet and
not a “partner with God.” See also
MONOTHEISM.

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, PIERRE
(1881–1955). Teilhard was born near
Clermont-Ferrand, France, the fourth of
eleven children to the great grandniece
of Voltaire and a man interested in
natural science. He attended Notre Dame
de Mongre boarding school where he
decided to become a Jesuit. Although he
had a passion for Jesuit scholarship, his
passion for geology and paleontology
(inspired by his father) played a strong
role in his life. He had a teaching intern-
ship at the Jesuit college in Cairo in 1905,
lived as a Jesuit scholar for four years
in France from 1908 to 1912, served in
World War I, and after returning to

France he completed his Ph.D. in geology.

He spent several years in China studying

fossils where he and a Jesuit friend

founded the Institute of Geobiology in

Peking, and then he traveled to the

Far East for his study of natural history.

Teilhard moved to New York with the

permission of the Jesuit Superiors for

the last years of his life; he died Easter

morning of 1955.

Teilhard’s philosophy was formed on

his passions for both science and religion,

of which his Jesuit leaders were not fond.

He claimed that consciousness and mat-

ter are of the same reality and that evolu-

tion is the growth of consciousness and

complexity of beings. He argued that a

belief in evolution does not mean a denial

of Christianity because as human beings

(and life in general) evolved, conscious-

ness evolved as well, and, quoting the

Bible passage “I am the Alpha and the

Omega” (Revelation 1:8), he said that

humans become more divine through

evolution as consciousness grew from

alpha to omega. His most famous work is

The Phenomenon of Man (1955).