Truth on the Block

In Teilhard de Chardin, and the sudden rage for him, we see re-enacted one of the saddest delusions of history: the delusion that if one accepts all the fashions and quirks and catchwords of one’s day, and strives to insert abiding principles into this trivial kaleidoscope of intellectual fads, one somehow “brings truth into the market place.” The result, obvious in every age, is that one begins with the aim of extending the acceptance of truth among men, and ends by extending the definition of truth, dispersing its inner structure and demands; ends, that is, in betrayal. The irony is that men receive only the perversions, extensions, and gaudy clothing of the truth that was to be made available.

An old story: as old as the Doce-tists with their acceptably unincar-nated Christ; or, in time and the turning of fashions, as the Fraticelli with their literal incarnation of a second Christ. A new story, too, as new as the beatnik minister in California who calls Christ “Daddy-o,” new as Norman Vincent Peale’s hygienic platitudes.

In Teilhard de Chardin, and the sudden rage for him, we see re-enacted one of the saddest delusions of history: the delusion that if one accepts all the fashions and quirks and catchwords of one’s day, and strives to insert abiding principles into this trivial kaleidoscope of intellectual fads, one somehow “brings truth into the market place.” The result, obvious in every age, is that one begins with the aim of extending the acceptance of truth among men, and ends by extending the definition of truth, dispersing its inner structure and demands; ends, that is, in betrayal. The irony is that men receive only the perversions, extensions, and gaudy clothing of the truth that was to be made available.

An old story: as old as the Doce-tists with their acceptably unincar-nated Christ; or, in time and the turning of fashions, as the Fraticelli with their literal incarnation of a second Christ. A new story, too, as new as the beatnik minister in California who calls Christ “Daddy-o,” new as Norman Vincent Peale’s hygienic platitudes.