Prof. Barr will argue that the supposed conflict between science and religion has really been a conflict between “scientific materialism” and religion. He will show that the science-versus-religion myth is based on misunderstandings of Christian belief, an outdated view of scientific history, and a skewed interpretation of what science has actually discovered about the universe. After clarifying some key theological concepts, he will tell the story of the relation between Christianity and science, including some dramatic facts that are relatively little known. He will then discuss several discoveries of the twentieth century, primarily in physics, and argue that they are more in line with the traditional Jewish and Christian view of the cosmos and of human beings than with materialist philosophy.
What does it mean to be a Catholic Scientist? Is it possible to be a good Catholic and a good scientist? I will reflect on these questions from the point of view of a theoretical physicist while introducing the mission of the SCS and the program for the day's conference.
Since the earliest days of the Church, Christians have pointed to the order, harmony, beauty and lawfulness of Nature as pointing to its Creator. This talk will consider this ancient argument in the light of the discoveries of modern physics.
The current working paradigm of modern biology is the neo-Darwinian synthesis…the melding of Mendelian genetics and Darwin’s model for speciation. Both the laws of genetic inheritance and the theory of evolution are supported by multiple lines of evidence derived from observations in several sub-disciplines of biology. Nevertheless, there continues to be controversy surrounding the hypothesis put forward in 1859 by Charles Darwin in his book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.” I will discuss the biological models, the nature of the data supporting these models, and the context of the controversies surrounding these issues. I will conclude by supporting theistic evolution as a framework for understanding the science of biological evolution.
The question of free will has been a longstanding philosophical and theological debate. For most people, their free will feels intuitive, but from both a philosophical and scientific perspective there are challenges with understanding how one might envision free will operating. In this talk, I will discuss some of the challenges and develop a framework that distinguishes “decision making” from “true choice” or “agency”. The framework presents a consistent picture of how free will could operate in a context that preserves the integrity of physical laws. A key element of the framework is the requirement that reality is more than just physical reality, so the framework is intrinsically non-materialistic. A key difficulty with non-materialistic models is developing a framework by which physical and non-physical aspects of reality can interact. I will propose a model that resolves many of the traditional challenges that focuses on the connection between boundary conditions and changes to systems state and/or behavior.
In discussing the future of humanity, often referred to as transhumanism, we consider three very different perspectives. First, we examine Yuval Harari’s look very far in the future in his book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, when humans are merged with robots and computers to produce a new species, which he terms homo deus, and the development of “The Internet of All Things” that manages everything in the universe. We then consider Alister McGrath’s view from his recent book, The Great Mystery: Science, God and the Human Quest for Meaning, that the inherent nature of humans, and their inclination to doing both good and evil, will limit to what can be accomplished and even that has to be carefully monitored to prevent global catastrophe. Finally, we contrast these views with reminders by contemporary Christian writers that our ultimate future rests in the promise of everlasting life in Jesus Christ.
Given recent and continuing science, positing a spiritual aspect of human nature might seem like a thin layer laid over the fabric of a material universe that is complete in itself. This view, however, fits nicely within Greek philosophy especially that of Aristotle who posited existence as material directed by form. Aquinas used this aspect to explain body and soul. A spiritual soul seems to account for several human attributes such as intellectual reasoning (abstraction) and free will (actions not totally governed by material leading to predictable behavior). Neuroscience however continues uncover more and more of the material aspect of human nature exhibiting these attributes. Thus, we can ask to what extent our belief in a spiritual component falls into a “god of the gaps” syndrome. These findings have led to a possibly more holistic interpretation of human nature which nevertheless acknowledges many special attributes to us that don’t seem to be attributable to material. The concept that humans are a single entity but with additional capabilities, called Nonreductive Physicalism has gained popularity as a potential way to understand this, which I will review in this talk. I will also touch on two other puzzling questions: 1) if a material brain is capable of intellection and free will, what is the function of a spiritual soul? and 2) at what point do humans get their souls, as a species and as individuals?
Two existential threats face us in the early 21st century: the effects of global climate change in the wake of anthropogenic carbon emissions, as well as the annihilation of civilization resulting from a hostile exchange of nuclear weapons. Although Pope Francis has issued a deeply-researched and contextualized landmark encyclical Laudato Si addressing moral responsibilities toward “our common home”, his pronouncements to-date on nuclear weapons have not been as deeply considered (and some might say “confusing”). In the midst of the Cold War, the Catholic Church began a public dialogue on the morality of nuclear weapons. In the early 1980’s, prior to the signing of the INF Treaty, a “Nuclear Freeze” movement was galvanizing pacifist sentiment that also prompted a pastoral letter on war and peace by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (“The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response”) published in May of 1983. A group of Catholic weapons scientists at Los Alamos accepted the Bishops’ challenge to participate in a dialogue on the moral issues associated with nuclear weapons and deterrence. Our response was published as Nuclear Weapons and Morality: A View From Los Alamos in late 1983. Since then the Cold War was ended and the global nuclear security environment has changed in significant ways. The world is grappling with nuclear proliferation and we are on the precipice of a multipolar nuclear world, very different than the one confronting us in the 1980s. However, the demise of nuclear arms control and absence of further negotiated reductions in nuclear arms, even while nuclear weapon modernization efforts continue apace, threatens a return to a new arms race in the 21st century. The Church has also evolved its traditional teachings on Just War and nuclear weaponry: from a strictly conditional moral acceptance of nuclear deterrence (JP II) in the 1980s to public pronouncements by Pope Francis questioning the morality of even the possession of nuclear weapons. This talk will briefly outline the changes in nuclear weapons strategies and postures from the early 1980’s to the present, as well as summarize the development of Church teaching on this issue.
Aristotle believed that the physical matter that everything is made of lasts forever; it is eternal. Therefore, there is no need to ask who created it and where it came from.
2 Peter 3:10: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
In Aquinas' view God is responsible not just for the origin of things but also for the form that they take. It also suggests that God has a continual involvement in the world as sustainer rather than just initiating the process. Stealing from Katie Mack’s book “The End of Everything” and Brian Greene’s book “Until the End of Time” we discuss the obvious the Big Crunch and Heat Death. The relationship to faith comes in the topics of the Big Rip and Vacuum Decay. Thomas Aquinas taught that God maintains our existence at every moment not just that God created the universe. Did you ever wonder how this could be? Apparently, the current state of the Higgs field could be in a false vacuum state and a tunneling to a true vacuum would wipe out creation instantly. This fascinates us and we’d like to share it.