The works of Teilhard de Chardin are becoming more and more known. It is a truism to say that some aspects of his thought present serious prob¡ !ems for Christian thinkers. For one thing, the distinction between matter and spirit tends to be blurred in his thought. For another, how is the natural related to the supernatural? Clearly Teilhard's whole pur¡ pose is to fuse into a basic unity the various distinctions traditional in the perennial ... "in the heart of this philosophy: matter and spirit, formless mass You have nature and supernature, love planted an irrestible aml of the world and love of God. sanctifying urge which makes The serious problem is to each one of us cry out "fuse" without confusing. 'Lord, rruike us to be orw !' " us to be one!', On the one hand we must hold to the diversity in nature Teilhard de Chardin between matter and spirit. in "Mass over the World." Therefore, we cannot attribute spiritual power to matter, FRANCIS ]. if we take these conceptions in KLAUDER, S.D.B. a strict and literal sense. On the other hand we must recognize the actual powers of nature as we find it in the world, attributing its dynamic to intrinsic causes. In a wider perspective the question arises: to what extent can the spiritual and supernatural become evident in their effects on matter? Can there be a kind of phenomenology of the spiritual? This article is an attempt to answer these questions.

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