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The Thomistic Institute

Are Science And Religion Compatible? | Fr. Michael Dodds, O.P.

The Thomistic Institute

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Religion &Amp; Spirituality, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8729 Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2021

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This lecture was given to the University of Edinburgh on January 26, 2021. The handout for this lecture is available here: tinyurl.com/tncfnsfe


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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.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This talk is brought to you by the Thomistic Institute.

0:03.3

For more talks like this, visit us at tamisticinstitute.org.

0:11.1

In 2015, the geneticist Jerry Coyne published a book titled Faith versus Fact, why science and religion are incompatible.

0:24.5

And he commented on the book in an interview in the National Geographic later on, and he said this,

0:31.3

if you teach evolution, as he does, you're teaching the one form of science that hits Abrahamic religions in the solar

0:41.1

plexus. There are a number of things about evolution and science that undermine religion. First of all,

0:50.1

the fact that the Genesis story is wrong.

0:55.0

There's no evidence that there's any qualitative different between humans and other species.

1:04.0

We're not special products of God's creation.

1:08.0

We're learning a lot about the universe and what we're seeing is all a naturalistic

1:12.6

process. We are creatures of physics made of molecules. Therefore, our thoughts and behaviors

1:19.6

are also the results of molecular motions. One of the meanings of superstition in the Oxford

1:25.1

English Dictionary is a belief that is unfounded or irrational.

1:30.3

Since I see all religious belief as unfounded and irrational, I consider religion to be superstition.

1:40.3

Well, his words suggest that science and religion may not always be on the best of terms.

1:49.5

They're not only incompatible, but they are themes even openly hostile to each other.

1:59.7

Something like a punch in the solar plexus, he says. In his book, he uses the word war

2:06.1

to describe the relationship. He says, I maintain that religion and science are engaged in a kind of war,

2:13.2

a war for understanding, a war about whether we have or should have good reasons for what we

2:20.2

accept as true. Now the idea of a war between science and religion is nothing new. It goes

2:27.3

back at least to the 19th century marked by the publication of two books. One was the history

2:32.9

of the conflict between religion and science

...

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