Abstract

This dissertation compares and critically analyzes the christologies of G. W. F. Hegel and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and lays the preliminary groundwork for a synthesis of the two thinkers. ;Primary sources from Hegel and Teilhard have been used throughout the dissertation. Secondary sources have also been utilized to provide critical interpretations, analyses, and evaluations of both thinkers' ideas. ;Throughout the dissertation, Teilhard's thoughts are analyzed and evaluated against the background of Hegel's thoughts. Hegel's thoughts are historically antecedent to Teilhard's thoughts and also have a more methodologically structured and comprehensive frame of reference. The discussion in this dissertation facilitates and strengthens an understanding of Teilhard's ontological foundation, and enriches an understanding of Hegel's phenomenological superstructure. ;The Introduction to the dissertation gives a sketch of the background of both theologians, introduces the primary sources of their respective positions, and delineates the historical significance of Hegel and Teilhard as philosophical theologians. The Introduction traces the historical and conceptual link between Hegel and Teilhard and discusses their relation to the tradition of process thought. Chapter I examines the Christological and methodological significance of the two theologies and lays a philosophical foundation for theological discussions that follow in the succeeding chapters. Chapter II investigates the ontological christologies of both thinkers, using the context of the Trinity and the incarnation. Chapter III discusses the Christological developments of both thinkers in terms of the cross, the resurrection, the Church, and the consummation. The final Critical Analysis compares, analyzes, and evaluates the christologies of Hegel and Teilhard based upon the discussions of the previous chapters; it also discusses the possibility of developing a new Christology for the third millennium based on a synthesis of Hegel and Teilhard. ;The principal conclusions reached in this dissertation are that Teilhard's hyperphysical reconstruction of Christology follows the basic structure of Hegel's speculative Christology, though it is modified by a new and expanded paradigm of a different scientific age, and that Hegel's speculative orientation tends to sublate Christ within the Trinity through the Spirit, while Teilhard's hyperphysical orientation tends to consummate both the world and God through the Cosmic Christ