The heady amalgam of Science and Christianity posited by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin-which struck the Catholic world like a whirlwind around the time of the Second Vatican Council and continues, however stealthily, to the present day-has rendered Catholics vulnerable to various heretical and heterodox tenets. This ideology clad in scientific garb is what Wolfgang Smith takes to task in the detailed and rigorous argument of this book. In addition to his definitive refutation of Teilhard's "science-fiction theology," the author reintroduces vital metaphysical and theological truths of the Greek and Latin Fathers to a contemporary audience.

Darwin. Dawkins. Dennett. – This voluble triumvirate has gained an oracular status for many scientists and laypersons in the contemporary world. But though the edifice of thought they have erected over and against tradition and faith has gained currency in today’s nihilistic mind, it is now rapidly eroding in the serious world of ideas. But what of that heady amalgam of Science and Christianity first put together by Teilhard de Chardin, which struck the Catholic world like a whirlwind around the time of the Second Vatican Council and continues to the present day in the work of such Catholic evolutionists as John Haught and Kenneth R. Miller? What as a rule has rendered Catholics vulnerable to Teilhardian tenets-apart from the fact that these conform to the neo-humanist tendencies of our age is that the theory is clad in scientific garb: in the modern world, where Science speaks, it appears even angels will listen.

In Theistic Evolution, Wolfgang Smith shows himself to be that rare person thoroughly grounded in both science and theology, and what he proves through detailed and rigorous argument is that Teilhard de Chardin has, in fact, sold us a veritable science-fiction theology. This book, however, is much more than a masterful and indeed definitive refutation of theistic evolutionism: it is at the same time an incomparable introduction to long-forgotten metaphysical and theological truths. In language at once, precise and lucid the author recalls teachings going back to the Greek and Latin Fathers and explains their bearing on questions about the nature of God and man bungled at the hands of many contemporary scientists and theologians.