„Kościół jako oś powszechnej konwergencji”
“Church, the Central Axis of the Universal Convergence”

A Reflection on Teilhard’s Approach to the Mystery of the Church

Summary/Abstract: There is one point that all scholars emphasise in Teilhard’s thought: it is the notion of “axis” (l’axe). It expresses the idea of a central stream of the evolutionary process around which everything evolves and is related to. According to Teilhard the process of “convergence” – another important concept in his thought – in which non-Christian religions play an important role operates “on the Christian axis” (sur l’axe chrétien). He writes: “When I speak about the convergence of religions (...) this convergence has to be done on the Christian axis; in the faith in Christ the other Creeds find the just expression of what they have been looking for in their movement towards the Divine.” I find very attractive the idea of Christianity and the Church as the axis on which the whole movement of gathering and convergence is effectuated in human history. The question is how this idea should be properly understood. Following this basic intuition of Teilhard the rest of the article is an attempt to answer this question by suggesting that the Church is the final cause of creation and salvation of the world. Saying that the Church is the final cause of self-communication of God to the world is to state that all the gifts of light and grace working for salvation outside the visible boundaries of the Church, even though are not given through the Church, nonetheless are not given without her because they were and are given in view of the Church and they orient people toward the Church. As conclusion, we join here the idea expressed by Teilhard de Chardin that the Church is the central axis of the universal convergence.

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