[…] The new subject that attracts me at the moment would be a study on the birth of a new morality : ” Morality of balance, and morality of movement “. It seems to me that the ” neolithic ” morality of the Decalogue on which we have lived until now is all based on the mutual respect of property (God being simply conceived as the ” Supreme Owner “). But now the limits are fading between what belongs materially to each : each one tends to become (with a coefficient) co-owner of the Totality. A first result of this transformation is that the essence of morality, instead of consisting in respecting the rights of the neighbor, appears in a different form : is moral what favors and assures the harmony of the human Whole. But at the same time, another, even more profound change of perspective occurs. The ” All human ” is not a static system (a Confucian China) ; it is a growing organism. Its balance is not that of a lake, but of a river. Is therefore moral, finally that which has a value of spiritual progress. The use of money is moral, not when we give everyone his due, but when we make money work ” spiritually ” (even if we give it up). And so of the ” leisure “. And so of individual freedom. And so with the powers of the heart. Not only (what so many people do not want to see) there is at this moment a movement of morals ; but we are accessing a ” moral movement “. And even more, I would add, we begin to conceive a ” Moral of discovery “, tended towards the exploration and the conquest of the unknown psychological compartments and the untried social combinations that the ” Moral of balance ” tended to leave carefully on the other side of the wall. The moral world is certainly more vast than the world of matter ; and the coming century will be occupied with penetrating this Terra Nova. Christianity would be lost if it did not feel the change coming, and if it did not lead it. What do you think ? […]
In all friendship. Teilhard
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Le rayonnement d’une amitié – Correspondence with the Bégouën family (1922-1955), Lessius, 2011, p. 105.
This excerpt of correspondence is proposed by Jacqueline Barthes.
***
A News at read on our site www.teilhard.fr – And if the fight against the COVID 19 revealed the LOVE-ENERGY of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin … by Robert Mayet.
***
