In my opinion, it is truly necessary to establish a healthy reconciliation between God and the World, between the desires for detachment from the world, which are inherent to Christianity, and the unquenchable passion that awakens us whole when we experience something from the soul of the great Whole, of which we are an undeniable part. (…) You rightly see great support in St. Paul. He is the most reliable theorist with a hint of a certain Christian pantheism. For him, all forces in depth come together, unite, and the humanity of our Lord takes hold of them and transforms them into a transcending and personal unity. St. Paul speaks in relation to the world at least as much as in relation to the individual. And that is one of the reasons why I find his reading more interesting than all others.
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ /1881–1955/, letter from the front, to his cousin, February 2, 1916;
quoted from the book Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Birth of Thought. Letters 1914–1919, Malvern 2021)
