Food for thought

Faith & Science

Featuring some recent talks on science and its relationship to the faith.

Faith and Science | Featured Tracks

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Apologetics

This lecture was delivered to the Boston University chapter on April 13, 2021. 

For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. 

About the speaker:
Sarah Byers is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. She received a masters and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, and her interests include St. Augustine, Hellenistic philosophy, and the history of ancient and medieval ethics and metaphysics. She is responsible for many publications, including Perception, Sensibility, and Moral Motivation in Augustine: A Stoic-Platonic Synthesis, a book that argues that Augustine assimilated the Stoic theory of perception into his philosophy.

How Is Genesis Compatible With Science? Insights From Augustine | Prof. Sarah Byers

People call Daniel Raphael a "wizard," for reasons that may become apparent in this interview. He weaves an inspiring life story with his work with the body, subtle energies, and spiritual teachings. We touch on topics of perception and reality, self-forgiveness, and the limitations of the modern view of the real.

More about Daniel, please visit:  www.danielraphael.org

A New and Ancient Story

Daniel Raphael: The Wizard's Path (E58)

This lecture was delivered for the Vanderbilt University chapter on 4/20/2021.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:

Karin Öberg is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. Her specialty is astrochemistry and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the chemical habitability of nascent planets. Dr. Öberg obtained her B.Sc. in chemistry at Caltech in 2005, and her Ph.D. in astronomy, with a thesis focused on laboratory astrochemistry, from Leiden University in 2009. She did postdoctoral work at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a NASA Hubble fellow, focusing on millimeter observations of planet-forming disks around young stars. In 2013 she joined the Harvard astronomy faculty as an assistant professor. She was promoted and named the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor in Astronomy in 2016, and promoted to full professor with tenure in 2017. Dr. Öberg’s research in astrochemistry has been recognized with a Sloan fellowship, a Packard fellowship, the Newton Lacy Pierce Award from the American Astronomical Society, and a Simons fellowship. Her recent TED talk explaining some of her research can be found here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/karin_oberg_the_galactic_recipe_for_a_living_planet

Science And the Theology Of Extraterrestrial Life | Prof. Karin Öberg

This talk was given at the 10th Annual Aquinas Philosophy Workshop, on  Knowledge, Truth, and Wisdom in Aquinas.

For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:

Prof. John O'Callaghan is the Director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame as well as a permanent member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. He served as the past President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. His areas of scholarly interest include Medieval Philosophy, the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Thomistic Metaphysics and Ethics.

Prof. O'Callaghan earned his BS in Physics from St. Norbert College in 1984, an MS in Mathematics from the University of Notre Dame in 1986, and his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame in 1996.

First Truth, Truth, and Truths: Analytic Philosophy and Thomas Aquinas | Prof. John O'Callaghan

This talk was given on September 11, 2021 at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC, as part of the Annual Fall Thomistic Circles Conference, on "Virtue and Divine Grace"

The handout for this lecture can be found here:: https://tinyurl.com/bnpbvj23

About the speaker: Dr. David Decosimo holds a masters from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Princeton University. He is currently an associate professor of Theology at Boston University. He teaches and writes on just war theory, torture, Thomistic Ethics, and Christian and Islamic perspectives on political freedom.

Seek the Peace of the City: Courage, Grace, & Acquired Virtue | Prof. David Decosimo

This talk was given online on September 21, 2021 to The Thomistic Institute at the University of California Berkeley.

For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker: 
Michael J. Dodds, O.P., is Professor of Philosophy and Systematic Theology at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. After undergraduate studies at Seattle University, he entered the Order of Preachers in 1970 and was ordained in 1977. He then taught for three years at St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California, before doing his doctoral studies at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, from which he graduated summa cum laude in 1986. He has served as Academic Dean of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Convener of the Theology Area at the Graduate Theological Union, and Regent of Studies and Vicar Provincial of the Western Dominican Province. He is the author of The Unchanging God of Love: Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology on Divine Immutability (2008), and Unlocking Divine Action: Contemporary Science and Thomas Aquinas (2012), both from The Catholic University of America Press.

Are Science and Faith Compatible? | Fr. Michael Dodds, O.P.

This talk was given on November 11, 2021 at Trinity College Dublin.

Click here for Prof. Carroll's slides: https://tinyurl.com/2p94tjtx

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org

About the speaker:
Dr. William E. Carroll is Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Philosophy at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (Wuhan, China) and Senior Research Fellow at the Collegium of Anton Neuwirth (Bratislava, Slovakia). His specialty is the relationship among the natural sciences, philosophy, and theology, with an emphasis on Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the doctrine of creation. He is the author of works and articles including Creation and Science: Has Science Eliminated God?; Galileo: Science and Faith; and (with Steven Baldner) Aquinas on Creation. Beginning in 2013, he has spent several weeks each year giving lectures and seminars at various Chinese universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wuhan.

Creation and the Origin of the Universe | Prof. William Carroll

This lecture was delivered on October 28, 2021 at the University of South Carolina.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:

Christopher Frey is currently an associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of South Carolina. Prof. Frey works primarily in Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle’s natural philosophy and metaphysics. He is writing a book entitled The Principle of Life: Aristotelian Souls in an Inanimate World. It concerns the distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the unity of living organisms, nutrition, birth, death, and, more generally, what one’s metaphysical worldview looks like if one takes life to be central. He also works in contemporary philosophy of perception and mind and has written extensively on the relationship between the intentionality and phenomenality of perceptual experience. In addition to these two main areas of research, he has secondary projects in metaphysics, the philosophy of action, Medieval philosophy, Early Modern philosophy, and the history of analytic philosophy.

Why Do We Die? | Prof. Christopher Frey

View Prof. Bogardus' slides here: https://tinyurl.com/yer9hxmu

This lecture was given on February 22, 2022 at the University of Arizona.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Tomás Bogardus is associate professor of philosophy at Pepperdine University. He was born in Long Beach, California, and earned his BS in biology at UC San Diego, his MA in philosophy at Biola University, and his PhD in philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He works mainly in metaphysics and epistemology and is most interested in the mind-body problem and the rationality of religious belief.

Are We Just Accidents? Evolution in the Light of Faith | Prof. Tomás Bogardus

This lecture was given during a conference on Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers at Ave Maria University, that was held January 26-27, 2018, entitled: "Christ and the Trinity at the Transfiguration" This event was hosted by the Aquinas Center and the Thomistic Institute.

Christ and the Trinity at the Transfiguration | Fr. Dominic Legge OP

The full title of this lecture is: "The Middle Ages: Dark Ages of Superstitious Backwardness, Golden Age of Catholic Harmony, or Neither?" It was delivered by Dr. Brad Gregory of the University of Notre Dame on March 1st for the Tulane chapter of the Thomistic Institute.

The Middle Ages: Dark Ages of Backwardness, Age of Catholic Harmony, or Neither? | Dr. Brad Gregory

This talk was offered on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, March 7th, by Fr. Thomas Joseph White OP at Heythrop College, London.

Thomas Aquinas and the Harmony of Faith and Reason | Fr. Thomas Joseph White OP

This lecture was offered at University College Dublin on February 6th, 2019. For more information about upcoming TI events in North America visit: https://thomisticinstitute.org/events-1/
For Europe, visit: https://angelicum.it/thomistic-institute/thomistic-events/


Speaker Bio:

Fr. Thomas Joseph White is the Director of the Thomistic Institute at the Angelicum. He did his doctoral studies at Oxford University, and has research interests in metaphysics, Christology, Trinitarian theology, and the theology of grace. His books include The Incarnate Lord, A Thomistic Study in Christology (2015) and The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism (2017). He is co-editor of the academic journal Nova et Vetera and in 2011 was appointed an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

When is Religious Belief Irrational? On the Harmony of Faith and Reason | Fr. Thomas Joseph White OP

This talk was offered on February 16th, 2019 at Princeton Theological Seminary. It was one of the talks offered at the "Faith, Science and Nature Conference" co-sponsored by the Thomistic Institute, the Scala Foundation and PTS.

For more information about upcoming TI events, visit: thomisticinstitute.org/events-1

Speaker Bio:
Professor Stephen Barr teaches at the University of Delaware in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. His research interests focus on elementary particle theory, supersymmetric grand unified theories, and cosmology.

Dan Gordon's Album

Creation and the Big Bang | Prof. Stephen Barr

On July 10th- 14th the Thomistic Institute held our first annual "Student Leadership Conference" at the Dominican House of Studies
on the theme "Faith, Reason, & the Mind’s Ascent to God"

Aquinas offers a robust account of faith and reason, and the way that human beings can come to real knowledge of the divine. Understanding these truths is central not only to the Catholic faith, but to all knowledge of reality because God is the transcendent cause of all being, the source of intelligibility, and truth itself.

PRESENTERS INCLUDED:
Fr. Dominic Legge, OP (Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and the Thomistic Institute)
Prof. Ed Feser (Pasadena City College)
Fr. James Brent, OP (Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception)
and a keynote address by R.R. Reno (First Things)

For more info about upcoming TI events, visit: www.thomisticinstitute.org/events

Responding To Contemporary Atheism  | Fr. James Brent, O.P.

This lecture was given by Prof. Gaven Kerr at University College Dublin's Newman Building on 19 September 2019.

About the Speaker:
Gaven Kerr is a married father of three and a third order Dominican. He has degrees in scholastic philosophy and philosophy from Queen’s University Belfast: BA, MPhil, and PhD. His doctoral research was on the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant. Gaven currently teaches theology at Mary Immaculate College Limerick.

For more information on this and other events, go to https://thomisticinstitute.org/events-1

God, Evolution, and the Big Bang: The Theology of Creation according to Aquinas | Prof. Gaven Kerr

This lecture was given on September 17, 2019 at John Hopkins University.

Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. serves presently as the Assistant Director for Campus Outreach with the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He served previously as an associate pastor at St. Louis Bertrand Church in Louisville, KY where he also taught as an adjunct professor at Bellarmine University. Born and raised near Philadelphia, PA, he attended the Franciscan University of Steubenville, studying mathematics and humanities. Upon graduating, he entered the Order of Preachers in 2010. He was ordained a priest in 2016 and holds an STL from the Dominican House of Studies.

For more information about upcoming TI events, visit: www.thomisticinstitute.org/events.

Does Science Discredit Faith? | Fr. Gregory Pine, OP

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Creation and the Origin of the Universe | Prof. William Carroll

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