Pope John Paul II and Universal Salvation

The Second Vatican Council teaches

Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis. Gaudium et Spes 5

For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. ...All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.(31) For, since Christ died for all men,(32) and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.

Such is the mystery of man... GeS 22

To understand Pope John Paul II's doctrine on [what appears as universal] salvation, it is necessary to pull out these vagaries from Vatican II. The mystery of man doctrine proceeds from Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, a thoroughly modernist theologian suppressed by Pope Pius XII and elevated to a Council perito (theological expert) who also affirmed the theology-fiction [Etiene Gilson] of Teilhard de Chardin. Redemptor hominis, Pope John Paul II's initial and signature encyclical is erected entirely on the mystery of man doctrine. He quotes from GeS in establishing the concept that through nature and not supernatural grace gratuitously distributed by the Father, Christ is "united in some fashion to every man."

The mystery of man proceeds thusly: God made a covenant with Man that can never be broken. In this covenant, He has provided all humanity with "transcendence" of being, by which man can comprehend God, or at least the notion of a personal God, by the imago dei and similitudo dei (the image and likeness of God) which he says in RH are still intact (Scholastic philosophy holds that the likeness is lost and the image is wounded by original sin). In the mystery of man, Christ reveals the Father to man, and by this, He reveals man to man himself. Thus, man's great dignity subsists in his eternal sonship, in his unconditional election achieved by Christ's Incarnation. The task of the Church in the Modern World then becomes the raising of consciousness in the minds of all men whatsoever their religion or ethical bent so that they may realize their immense worth and dignity rooted in the Father's love.

The Father's great act of love then becomes the Incarnation, by which all men are united to Christ.

...the real, "concrete", "historical" man. We are dealing with "each" man, for each one is included in the mystery of the Redemption and with each one Christ has united himself for ever through this mystery. RH 13

This may of course be interpreted in a way that does not significantly offend Catholic doctrine. The danger lay in the imprecision ('some fashion') both in the Council's 'pastoral' language and the verbose and circular style of allocution attributable to Pope Wojtyla. It also is easily explained by Teilhard's hatred for the supernatural and adoration of nature. For if men are saved through evolutionary processes (see quote from GeS above), then the Incarnation becomes the great [evolutionary] game-changer for the cosmos. By His incarnation, Christ has become one with the created cosmos and thereby all men now have 'existence in Christ.' This flows very naturally from an existential explanation of 'reality' in which man's own inner life is the source of all progress in consciousness. Teilhard taught that faith is the consciousness men have arrived at in which they realize their part in the evolutionary process. Of course, we know that both St. Pius X's Pascendi and Pope Pius XII's Humani generis condemned these views forthrightly.

The confusing thing about Pope John Paul II is that while these strange and alien doctrines, rooted in Vatican II (which again was influenced inordinately by Teilhard, especially GeS) make up a large portion of the Pope's theology and philosophy, he was adept at bookmarking these ideas with orthodox concepts that will give the reader the impression that all this flows very naturally from the Deposit of Faith. In fact, John Paul II saw the Council in a revolutionary way:

"Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council, which John XXIII convened and opened and which was later successfully concluded and perseveringly put into effect by Paul VI, whose activity I was myself able to watch from close at hand."

Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis

So when we analyze the Pope's unabashed enthusiasm for evolutionism, his Teilhardian influence, his focus on man's dignity (the mystery of man) and a universal salvation that flows not from Calvary but from Bethlehem, it makes sense that God must make the access to salvation the positive property of all men (individually). This of course swells and enlarges Rahner's confused "anonymous Christian" doctrine into a new definition of man himself, and requires a re-tooling of the Gospel mission itself into 'dialogue' and 'ecumenism' whereby man's consciousness may be aroused so that he may realize he is already in the Church whether he knows it or not or whether he wills it or not.

I do not profess to understand the teaching of Pope John Paul II with anything approaching clarity. Such understanding seem rare today. Fr. Johannes Dormann has dived deeply into the Pope's theology in his Trilogy of books Pope John Paul II's Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi. His analysis is that the Pope did incorporate ideas into his doctrine that are at odds with tradition. For me, I am merely trying to follow the way of salvation which appears to have been redefined by the Council and its enfatuation with man, the world, and evolutionary 'progress.' I could be wrong and I ask for fraternal correction if I have erred or calumniated the Pope in any way.

Welcome Catholic Johnny.

It's a bit like a Quentin Tarantino movie here at present but feel free to join the cast.

I second the welcome of Columba; it’s nice to have you on board.

That was a very thought provoking post.

There is another aspect to Pope JPII's theology that I think we tend to overlook; and that is the influence of the Eastern Fathers whose teaching on “by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man” has a much deeper theological tradition than that of the West; which, let’s face it, focuses more on the “massa damnata” than on any mystical union with Christ that bestows on every man a dignity as a member of Christ, which in turn translates to a certain “right” to the grace of incorporation and divine sonship.

This is all part of the universal salvific will of God, and not “universal salvation” in the literal sense. I believe JPII attempted to do for new philosophy what the Angelic Doctor did for the pagan philosophy of Aristotle -- Christianize it. How and if JPII succeeded is anyone’s guess.

Let me pull out my old notes and tracts (when I can get to it) and I’ll see if I can provide some sample texts of the Eastern Fathers … and from Fr. Scheeben whose own theology is Thomistic, but with a pronounced Eastern flavor. I appreciate the way he melds the respective theologies of the East and West and draws from the riches of each.

Again, Catholic Johnny, welcome.

Don't worry about the side show; it always blows over.

Columba, MRyan, thanks for the warm welcome. I was invited here by another member and I am quite impressed with the depth I see here. I look forward to learning from the members and hopefully refining my grasp of the Truth entrusted to the Catholic Church by interaction with you and others.

Am I understanding you, MRyan, that this idea of Christ being united with "each man, every man" is rooted in the Eastern Fathers? Why then does GeS couch this in terms of 'progress' and semi-mystical language instead of a clear reference to the Fathers? My understanding is that only the Baptized can be united to Christ, in that union with Christ means to be 'in Christ', viz, partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). This distinction between the elect and all mankind is constantly blurred and obscured in Pope Wojtyla's writing. Especially troubling are the references to the 'destiny of man as one' which sure sounds like Teilhard's Omega Point, which IMHO is heretical. This too is often blurred in the Pope's encyclicals and allocutions - referring to 'man' and not 'men' - which is to say, yes, God wills 'man's' destiny for glory, but its misleading to speak this way because as St. Paul teaches, not all men have faith. To say that the Redemption was accomplished for all men is very true; to then in the same sentence suggest that all men have the same destiny is false. All men are NOT destined for glory. In fact our Lord laments, "when the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?"

I am also quite suspicious of the Ressourcment movement in Europe during Pius XII's Pontificate. While the partisans of the Nouvelle Theologie claimed to seek the more ancient forms and roots that pre-date Aquinas, it is telling that they all brought their a priori conclusions to that search. For almost to a man they opposed the concrete metaphysics of Scholasticism, and imbued their writings not with citations from early tradition, but with Teilhardian 'progressivism' and every manner of philosophy destablized by the impact of Tyrrell and Teilhard who were by their own words, pantheist. Pope Pius XII sternly warns against this destabilzing of philosophy in Humani generis:

Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy which, rivaling idealism, immanentism and pragmatism, has assumed the name of existentialism, since it concerns itself only with existence of individual things and neglects all consideration of their immutable essences.

At first I thought the mystery of man was DeLubac's, whom Fr. Wojtyla admitted a great respect for, but eventually traced it to Schillebeeckx, who tacitly if not explicitly embraced Bultmann's grotesque errors, including the denial of the bodily resurrection of Christ. I have no patience with these men who fulfilled the warnings in Pascendi as though though were following it as a program. It was to these Modernists that Fr. Reginal Garrigou-Lagrange's paper Where is the Nouvelle Theologie Leading Us? was directed. If I am wrong, please correct me.

In closing, Pope John Paul II attempting to Christianize Sheler, Hegel, Kant, or any of the phenomenologists may appear as a service to modern man (whom I hold does not exist) and that may be viewed as comparable to the Angelic Doctor's treatment of Aristotle, the fact is that Aristotelian philosophy was venerable by the time St. Thomas adapted it, and these malleable, unstable, contemporary (and I might add in many cases contemptible) philosophical theories are already fading.

I am deeply suspicious of Pope John Paul II. Full discosure: I do not believe in evolution, and Pascendi forcefully demonstrates it's corrosive effect on philosophy and theology. Pope Pius XII continues this doctrine in his condemnation of evolutionism in HG. And then as soon as Pope John XXIII is elevated, all the evolutionists come into the light of day and purport to completely overturn the previous magisterium by the infiltration of the Modernist ideas promoted by the Rhine Group, the partisans of the Nouvelle Theologie, and most devastatingly, by those who published and promulgated Teilhard's theology-fiction even though his works were condemned by the Papal Monitum in 1962 and again in 1981. The sad situation today is that Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI now openly quote from and praise this heretic, to add even more doubt to the already confused fog of neoModernism that envelopes the Western Church today.

I do thank you for tolerating my ranting. I am sincerely trying to make sense of the contemporary magisterium which both agrees and disagrees with previous magisteriums. Something is definitely wrong here. May the Holy Ghost bring us light, wisdom and child-like trust in the heavenly doctrine, for the salvation of our souls and those who will believe through our witness.

Please correct me where applicable, brothers.

No problem with the lengthy "ranting".

Let me see what I can come up with, I think some context is important. I have to call it a night; I'll look at your post tomorrow and try and break it down into some manageable responses.

'Night all

Catholic Johnny wrote:
Am I understanding you, MRyan, that this idea of Christ being united with "each man, every man" is rooted in the Eastern Fathers? Why then does GeS couch this in terms of 'progress' and semi-mystical language instead of a clear reference to the Fathers?

The idea is not exclusively Eastern, but it finds there a much deeper and richer pedigree. There is nothing novel about it and I hope to bring this to light in a subsequent post.

However, I do not see where GeS couched “by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man” in terms of “progress” and "semi-mystical language". It is Christological to the core. The cited passage is from Part I, The Church and Man’s Calling, and is at the end of Chapter I, THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON, and there is nothing semi-mystical or “progressive” about it.

Here, again, is the passage:

For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. ...All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.(31) For, since Christ died for all men,(32) and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.

The very next and concluding paragraph says:

Such is the mystery of man, and it is a great one, as seen by believers in the light of Christian revelation. Through Christ and in Christ, the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful. Apart from His Gospel, they overwhelm us. Christ has risen, destroying death by His death; He has lavished life upon us(33) so that, as sons in the Son, we can cry out in the Spirit; Abba, Father(34)

Footnote 33 to “Christ has risen, destroying death by His death; He has lavished life upon us” is taken from “The Byzantine Easter Liturgy”. And if we back up to “For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. ...All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.(31)”, footnote 31 is “Cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 2, n. 16: AAS 57 (1965), p. 20.”

Chapter 2, The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, n. 16 says:

Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things,(127)

Note 127 is a reference to Acts 17:25-28:

Neither is he served with men's hands, as though he needed any thing; seeing it is he who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things:26 And hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation.27 That they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and are; as some also of your own poets said: For we are also his offspring.

As I said, I do not see where “GeS couch[es] this in terms of 'progress' and semi-mystical language”; I find instead a deeply Christological and Scriptural basis for man’s dignity being rooted in the Incarnation, by which all men are united to Christ “in some fashion”, which in turn finds its fulfillment in our Lord’s death and Resurrection, to which all men are called.

The “Saints Gregory” sums this up quite beautifully:

St. Gregory of Nazianzus says that God became man "to sanctify man, and to be, as it were, a leaven for the entire mass; and by joining to Himself what has been condemned, to free the whole from damnation." (Or. 30; no. 21; PG, XXXVI, 132)

St. Gregory of Nyssa, says: "The pure divinity of the only-begotten, knowing naught of corruption, was in human nature, that was mortal and subject to corruption. But from the whole of human nature, to which was joined divinity, arose, as the first fruit of the common mass, the man who is in Christ, by whom all humanity was united to divinity." (Or. de verbis I Cor. 15-28 (PG, XLIV, 1313)

Let’s address your other citation from GeS, which is actually taken from its “INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT THE SITUATION OF MEN IN THE MODERN WORLD”, the fifth paragraph of section 5:

Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis.

The context of this passage is quite clear where “evolutionary” is a reference to a “kind of evolution” that “can be seen more clearly in those nations which already enjoy the conveniences of economic and technological progress, though it is also astir among peoples still striving for such progress and eager to secure for themselves the advantages of an industrialized and urbanized society.” (6)

This “kind of evolution” is a result of “the changing conditions of life” which can be attributable to the fact that “intellectual formation is ever increasingly based on the mathematical and natural sciences and on those dealing with man himself, while in the practical order the technology which stems from these sciences takes on mounting importance”; to how “Technology is now transforming the face of the earth”; and how “the human intellect is also broadening its dominion over time: over the past by means of historical knowledge; over the future, by the art of projecting and by planning” and to “Advances in biology, psychology, and the social sciences”; and to the fact that “History itself speeds along on so rapid a course that an individual person can scarcely keep abreast of it.”

In other words, sections 5 and 6 must be read as a seamless whole in order to get the full flavor of “This kind of evolution” and the challenges this presents to the Church in addressing these evolutionary-types of rapid changes.

I’ll end the post here, and will address your other comments subsequently. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.

Let me close by stating a bit of my personal philosophy in all of this. Trying to get into the minds of Popes JPII and Benedict XVI by reading their books and other theological musings outside of their official functions as Peter is all well in good (as frustrating as delving into the phenomenology and personalism of JPII, for example, can be) and can give us some insight into how other philosophies and the new theology have influenced their thinking and their pastoral approaches to these many issues; but, when the Pope acts as Peter in his Primacy as universal Pastor and Doctor, I don’t much care about his theological musing as a private Doctor, for now he must speak as Peter, and that’s a whole different ball game for he must now speak in the collective “we” when presenting to the universal Church doctrinal matters on faith and morals. Doctrines of faith and morals he presents to the universal Church are, and must be, Catholic.

As Peter (the public person), I believe with divine faith that Our Lord's prayer for Peter that his faith fail not holds just as true today; and that without this special charism, Peter could not be trusted to secure his brethren in the faith or to remain, by divine constitution, the foundation upon which the entire temple and the unity of faith and communion rests; and thus, our Lords promise, as VCI declared, that He would act through His Vicar on earth even “to this day” in guiding the Church would be an empty promise if Peter’s faith can desert him by his having fallen into obstinate heresy.

Where Peter is, there is the Church; and it is “de fide” that the Holy See remains free from any stain of error.

Sorry for the digression, I’ll get back to your comments shortly ... time permitting.

When I was in RCIA, the instructor praised Rudolf Bultmann, who denied the bodily resurrection of Christ. Mike, is it de fide that Christ rose bodily from the dead?

Jehanne wrote:When I was in RCIA, the instructor praised Rudolf Bultmann, who denied the bodily resurrection of Christ. Mike, is it de fide that Christ rose bodily from the dead?

Of course.

Continuing:

Catholic Johnny, when I began by saying “The idea is not exclusively Eastern, but it finds there a much deeper and richer pedigree”; I want to impress upon you that the “idea” is a doctrine of the Church that finds its more mature or fuller expression in the Eastern Fathers and Tradition.

Catholic Johnny wrote:
My understanding is that only the Baptized can be united to Christ, in that union with Christ means to be 'in Christ', viz, partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

This is where we must draw the necessary distinctions. It is de fide that only those who have been regenerated (born again) into Christ can be transformed into the supernatural life of divine sonship, to which all men are called.

So yes, there is a real distinction between becoming a “member” of Christ by nature (analogically by virtue of His Incarnation), and entering into true divine sonship through grace whereby our natures are elevated with a supernatural share in His divinity.

Perhaps it would be easier to have you digest the following passages from Fr. Matthias Joseph Scheeben taken from The Mysteries of Christianity, Chapter 28, The Real Mission of the Divine Persons in Sanctifying Grace:

57. FIRST SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GOD-MAN AS HEAD OF THE RACE: COMMUNICATION OF DIVINE NOBILITY; FOUNDATION AND CONSUMMATION

… The essential characteristic revealed in the assumption of the human race to the person of the Son and its incorporation in Christ, is not one of compensation, but of elevation and enhancement. As head, the God-man raises the whole race up to a height of nobility, life, and activity that is immeasurable and inconceivable; and this height to which He elevates the race enables it to fill up all the gaps and make good all the defects that have ever made their appearance either because of its natural baseness or in consequence of its culpable fall. Liquidation of the debt by payment in full is a natural result of the exalted dignity thus imparted to the race; but the guilt is extinguished in this fashion only for the purpose that that race may be raised untrammeled to the plane which is intended for it by the incarnation, and may abide there securely. (p. 376)

The next extended passage will be taken from pages 378-384, and I will forego the forum “quote” box for ease of reading. Make note of the many citations and references to the Eastern Fathers:

Fr. Scheeben (all but one footnote removed):

‘"God has become man," says St. Augustine, "that man might become God." St. Hilary declares: "If God laid hold of us by means of our bodily nature, by being born as man and becoming what we are, at a time when we were far removed from His nature: so now it is incumbent on us to endeavor to become what He is, in order that our eager striving may penetrate into that splendor and thus grasp that whereby we were seized, by acquiring the nature of God, seeing that God has shown us the way by acquiring the nature of men." "As the Lord became man by putting on our body," says the great Athanasius, "so shall we men be deified, assumed by His flesh." St. Leo declares: "The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil; and He so united Himself to us and us to Him, that the descent of God to the human level was at the same time the ascent of man to the divine level." St. Peter Chrysologus speaks more beautifully still; he marvels, as at an indescribable wonder, that so intimate an interchange could suddenly take place between heaven and earth, between flesh and God, that God should become man and man God, that the Lord should become a servant and the servant a son, and that a close and eternal relationship should spring up between divinity and humanity in so ineffable a manner. Similarly St. Maximus Martyr: "The Word of God, become man, has again filled with knowledge the nature which had been emptied of the knowledge committed to it, and fortifying it against corruption, has made it divine, not insubstance but in quality. He has sealed nature with His own Spirit to preserve it against its defects, just as one mixes water with the quality of wine, to enable it to share in the latter's strength. He became man in all truth, in order to make us gods by grace."

‘2. In general the Fathers regard the elevation of man to divine dignity and glory as the counterweight corresponding to the infinite condescension of God, and hence as an objective worthy of the latter. As a rule they express this by saying that the Son of God has become the Son of man in order to make the children of men children of God; and that the natural consequence of the Incarnation is to confer on men the right and power to become the children of God. Sacred Scripture had pointed out this truth to them in explicit words. "God sent His Son, made of a woman," the Apostle said, "that we might receive the adoption of sons." And in his magnificent description of the genesis of the mystery, the disciple who more than any other had been initiated into the secrets of the God-man, emphasizes as its chief effect that the Logos, in coming unto His own, gave to all who received Him the power to be made the sons of God."

‘Thus in his day Irenaeus could teach: "The Word became man for this reason, that man by accepting the Word and receiving the grace of sonship might become the son of God." And again: "In His immense love He became what we are, in order that He might make us what He is." St. Cyril of Alexandria explains in more ample detail: "Through the Word, who joined human nature to Himself by means of the flesh united to Him, but who is by nature joined to the Father . . . servitude is raised to sonship, being summoned and elevated by its participation in the true Son to the dignity which pertains to Him by nature." We could adduce countless passages which bring out the same doctrine, especially from St. Cyril.

‘We wish to set down only a few more, which accurately stress the way the communication of Christ's perfections takes place in the human race, considered as His body. St. Cyril interprets the words of the Evangelist, "and [He] dwelt among us," as follows: "He [the Evangelist] fittingly remarks that the Word dwelt in us, and thereby made known to us this great mystery, namely, that we are all in Christ, and that the totality of mankind comes to life again in Him. For He is called the new Adam because by sharing in our nature He has enriched all unto happiness and glory, as the first Adam filled all with corruption and ignominy. Thus by dwelling in one, the Word dwelt in all, so that, the one being constituted the Son of God in power, the same dignity might pass to the whole human race according to the Spirit of holiness, and that through one of us these words might have application for us, too: 'I have said, You are gods, and all of you the sons of the most High.' In Christ, therefore, servile nature truly becomes free, by being raised to mystical union with Him who bears the form of a servant; in us it becomes free by imitation, and by our resemblance to that one, on account of our kinship according to the flesh. Why else did He take to Himself, not the nature of the angels, but the seed of Abraham, wherefore it behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, and to become truly man? Is it not clear to all that He lowered Himself to a menial condition not to gain anything for Himself by so doing, but to give us Himself, so that we, raised to His own inexhaustible wealth by our resemblance to Him, might be rich by His poverty, and be made gods and sons of God by faith? For He dwelt in us who is Son and God by nature. And that is why in His Spirit we cry: Abba, Father." (33)

(33) St. Cyril of Alexandria, In loan. (lib. I, c.o, no. 24; PG, LXXIII, 161). No less beautiful is another selection from the same Father (Thesaurus de sancta et consubstantiali Trinitate, assert. XX; PG, LXXV, 333): "Christ is glorified and anointed and sanctified for our sake; through Him grace comes to all, and is even now conferred on nature and granted to the whole race. The Savior Himself indicates this in the Gospel according to St. John [17:19]: For them do I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified.' Whatever Christ has, that becomes our portion, too. For He did not receive sanctification for Himself, seeing that He is the Sanctifier, but that He might acquire it for human nature; and so He has become the channel and principle of the goods which have flowed into us. This is why He says: 'I am the way,' that is, the way by which divine grace has come down to us, exalting and sanctifying and glorifying us, and thus deifying human nature in the first Christ."

‘… Similarly St. Leo: "In Christ `dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead corporeally, and you are filled in Him.' The entire divinity fills the entire body; and just as nothing is lacking in that majesty by whose habitation the domicile is filled, so there is no part of the body which is not filled with its indweller. But as for the statement, 'and you are filled in Him,' our nature is of course meant, since we should have no share in that repletion unless the Word of God had joined to Himself both a soul and a body derived from our race." Accordingly the truth is well established in the teaching of the Fathers that the head of the race, who as the only-begotten Son of God has been anointed with the fullness of the divinity, can and will transfer His divine dignity to His members, and with it a corresponding splendor and holiness.

‘3. Even without the Incarnation, God could have adopted us as His children and made us brothers of His natural Son, by conferring grace on us. For we are children of God by the very fact that we are like to the only-begotten Son of God by participation in His nature. But without the Incarnation this dignity would have lacked a basis in us, and would have been less perfect in its value for us. It is too high above us; so much so that of ourselves we could not have even the slightest prospect of ever possessing or acquiring it. It is pure grace, motivated exclusively by God's overflowing kindness: and by itself alone this grace would not be powerful enough really to usher us into the personal relationship of the Son of God to His Father, in such wise that in Him and through Him this Father would in very truth be our Father also.

‘By the Incarnation, however, we are in all truth embodied in the person of God's Son and have become His members. God looks upon us no longer as situated upon the low level proper to our own persons; He sees us in His Son, and His Son in us. He beholds us substantially united to His Son, and kin to Him. Consequently we are perfectly worthy, and not merely worthy in some indefinite way, to be adopted as His children. Indeed, the very fact of our union with His only-begotten Son virtually confers this sonship on us.

‘Because of Christ this sonship is no longer a mere adoptive son-ship, since we receive it not as strangers, but as kinsfolk, as members of the only-begotten Son, and can lay claim to it as a right. The grace of sonship in us has something of the natural sonship of Christ Himself, from which it is derived. Because we are not mere adoptive children, because we are members of the natural Son, we truly enter into the personal relationship in which the Son of God stands to His Father. In literal truth, and not by simple analogy or resemblance, we call the Father of the Word our Father, and in actual fact He is such not by a purely analogous relationship, but by the very same relationship which makes Him the Father of Christ. He is our Father in somewhat the way that He is Father to the God-man in His humanity by the same relationship whereby He is Father of the eternal Word. Therefore we are not mere brothers, or comrades admitted to the majesty and eminence that belong to the eternal Word by nature, but are in some sense one single son of the Father in the Son and with the Son. Because of this oneness we become like and conformable to Him in His glory.

‘This difference has been formulated by St. Cyril in all its sharpness: "The same person," he remarks, "is the only-begotten and the first-born. He is the only-begotten as God, and the first-born inasmuch as He has dwelt among us and many brethren as a man intimately united to us, that in Him and through Him we also might be made children of God according to nature and grace: according to nature, in Him and in Him alone; but according to grace through Him in the Spirit."

‘We shall be able to gain a clearer idea of this great mystery if we revert to the special character of the corporal union between us and Christ, and again have recourse to the analogy of matrimony. Does not the wife of one's real son become the daughter of her husband's father in a far higher sense and in a more perfect manner by her union with her husband, than a stranger who is simply adopted by this same father? The relationship of the latter is purely extrinsic, formed only according to the analogy of real filiation; but that of the former is closely connected with real filiation, and is actually based on it; it is but an extension and expansion of this same relationship. Let this be applied to the relationship into which the human race has entered with Christ's Father by means of the Incarnation.”

[END of citation]

I hope you can see, Catholic Johnny, that where GeS said "‘by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man”, JPII was not speaking in terms of “progress” and "semi-mystical language", he was speaking in terms of an established doctrine.

This is not say that the doctrine is easily understood or that caution is not always necessary when making these critical distinctions, but the doctrine is in fact there and has a rich heritage in the East. Considering the manifest Pelagian heresies and the heresies against the natures and the Person of Christ, it is no wonder the Latin Church avoided to a large extent this easily misunderstood doctrine.

I have seen some radical traditionalists of the sede persuasion even call it “heresy” because they don’t know any better.

My purpose is to demonstrate that there is no reason to assume that Pope JPII was delving into some new quasi-heretical bit of universal salvationism, but was simply repeating a long established, but easily misunderstood doctrine.

I’ll leave it there for now, and will pick it up again when I can.

I would be interested in your thoughts on what has been presented thus far.

OK, MRyan, you have given me a lot to reflect on, which will take time, so this will not be a complete respose as yet. But to quickly capture my initial reaction, a short taxonomy:

1. Concur on Peter as Peter, ex cathedra and de fide.
2. Ample evidence that GeS's citation of the Incarnation uniting all men in some fashion to Christ is locatable in the Greek Fathers.
3. The real issue I wished to delve into is the impact Teilhard had on the Ressourcement movement which Msr. Garrigou LaGrange believed was not sincere in any real hunger for primitive sources, but for justifications for departing from Thomism.
4. I disagree with St. Cyril's conclusion that the Word indwelt all - which would lead to the same conclusion that all then are not only redemeemed but justified. This is unsupportable from Scripture and Tradition. I believe he is utilizing abstract language here, while John Paul II goes out of his way to apply the unity of Christ with "concrete man, each man, every man..." (RH).
5. John Paul II as Bishop Wojtyla was one of the primary drafters of GeS. I believe that many of its themes and ideas belong to Teilhard.
6. Disagree about the context of the word 'evolution' in GeS 5. While you are 100% correct in the linguistic context, and the thematic context, the term itself is loaded with meaning far beyond technological development and urbanization. In fact, Teilhard himself taught that technological progress was a sign of evolution and urged even a Marxist theory of aiding such progress.
7. The fact that Pope John Paul II was the first 'public' evolutionist-Pope and that he quoted Teilhard on the anniversary of his 50th year of ordination leads me to believe that he has a completely different understanding of nature and supernature than the preconciliar Popes. Teilhard rejected the supernatural, and saw grace as a necessary perfecting of nature, by the processes of natural selection and dialectics.
8. Again, the confusion between 'man' and 'men.' Man is the abstraction in reference to the will of God that all should be saved "and come to the knowledge of the truth" (as the passage reads in its proper context); Men refers to individuals who must appropriate the means of grace through faith in order to be justified. Justification is the only real way to define 'union with Christ' for me. For it obviously leads to confusion, even syncretism to dwell in the abstraction too long and to fall into universalism. "As many as received Him, gave he them power to become sons of God." Again, "He came to His own, and His own received Him not." Finally, in His priestly prayer in the Garden, our Lord startlingly prays "not for the world, but for those you have given me out of the world. (Jn 17)
9. Fr. Scheeben's quote likewise portends to universalism. There is no room in his analysis for hell, judgment, obstinancy, rejection of grace, etc... The "race" can only "dwell securely" in "immeasurable...dignity" if the race, viz, all humanity that has ever existed or ever will, is justified. This simply cannot be located in Sacred Scripture unless one Teilhardizes certain passages in Romans, Colossians and Ephesians which seem to speak comprehensively of creation as a whole. These passages cannot be rendered in any meaningful way to support universal justification.
10. I guess you missed my comment about GeS conflating universal redemption with a universal destiny. Destiny of course is not a precise theological term; its employment here is gratuitous because it fails to distinguish between the universal salvific will of God with man's will individually applied to the terms of the Covenant. To say that the destiny of man is God can easily be Teilhardized into a natural and universal evolution of homo sapiens into the Omega Point where God and Men become one with the natural universe, a view condemned by Pius XII in HG as Monism and Pantheism.
11. Then the entire issue of consciousness as discussed in Pascendi. In this encyclical, Pope St. Pius X condemns the Modernist view that consciousness and revelation are nearly synonymous. Pascendi teaches that consciousness in general and the convergence of a 'collective consciousness' in particular are the way the Modernist perceives the development [read: evolution] of dogma. RH comes perilously close to discussing the council in this way as Pope John Paul II cites a "completely new awareness" of the church thanks to the council "that never existed before." This is either a very imprudent hubris or a dangerous opening to exploit the council's imprecise and ambiguous language to even more heterodox ends than it has already been exploited by the enemies of the church from within.

I will have more to say soon. I do thank you for that mountain of valuable research and these excellent quotes and citations. Your insights are quite stimulating and I am in your debt for this colloquy. Pax tecum,
cj

I remember listening to a Science Friday episode years ago where the obsevation was made that there was "no practical difference" between the theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and that of modern atheism.

Jehanne,
Atheists, Modernists, and those enamored with scientism love Teilhard. He is the most revered name in the contemporary new age movement. Pagans love him for his adoration of the earth. Deitrich von Hildebrand condemned Teilhard's doctrine as not only unCatholic but unChristian. His ideas are rightly called by Etienne Gilson, "theology-fiction." Pope Pius XII alludes to this terminology in Humani generis.

All one needs do is trace Teilhard back to his master, Fr. George Tyrrell, S.J., who died excommunicated by St. Pius X. It is telling that the 1992 CCC has 130+ quotations from Pope John Paul II and zero by St. Pius X. Coincidence?

Check out the list from Pope Pius IX -- it's like The Syllabus was never written!