The UPEI Department of Religious Studies’ popular Theology on Tap series returns on January 28 with a talk titled “More than Optimistic: Hope and Teilhard de Chardin” by Dr. Libby Osgood, Congregation of Notre Dame and Associate Professor in Sustainable Design Engineering. Dr. Osgood’s talk will take place at 7:00 pm at the Salvador Dali Café, The Arts Hotel, 155 Kent Street, Charlottetown. 

“People often use the words ‘hope’ and ‘optimism’ interchangeably, but hope requires much more than optimism,” said Dr. Osgood. “Hope is not naive. It is not sitting back and waiting for something to change, nor is it easy. Based on the writings of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a paleontologist and Jesuit priest who helped discover an ancestor to homo sapiens, we will explore the need for hope during these challenging times of ecological change.”

Born in Sarcenat, France, in 1881, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest and an accomplished paleoanthropologist who researched human beginnings and wrote imaginative, mystical writings on the evolutionary nature of the world and the cosmos. Though his Jesuit leadership did not allow him to publish during his lifetime, his writings were published by his secretary Jeanne Mortier after his death in 1955. Since then, generations of theologians and scientists have been inspired by his desire to find God in the world and how he embraced evolution. He asked, “Who at last will give evolution its God?” At times, he was criticized for being naively optimistic. Dr. Osgood suggests that Teilhard de Chardin is much more than optimistic—he is hopeful.

For more information about the series, contact event coordinator Alexandra Durant at alexandrajdurant@gmail.com, or follow Theology on Tap PEI on Facebook.