Does Evolutionary Theory Disprove Christianity? | Fr. Michael Dodds OP
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2018
⏱️ 78 minutes
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Summary
This lecture was given on November 5th, 2018 at UC Berkeley. For more information about upcoming TI events, check out: thomisticinstitute.org/events-1/
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 | The students invited me to talk on does evolutionary theory disprove Christianity? |
| 0:05.0 | And if I wanted to, I could make that a really short lecture. |
| 0:10.0 | That might be good. |
| 0:12.0 | It goes something like this. |
| 0:15.0 | Does evolutionary theory disprove Christianity? |
| 0:19.0 | Nope. |
| 0:22.3 | That's it. |
| 0:23.2 | That's over, huh? |
| 0:28.0 | But the Atomistic Institute might not be pleased with something quite that short. |
| 0:34.0 | So I'll try something a little longer, but longer is always a little bit dangerous when it comes to lectures, especially a lecture on a broad topic like evolution and Christianity, |
| 0:41.1 | but we'll try it. |
| 0:42.5 | But I'll first give you a few ideas about where this lecture is headed. |
| 0:46.7 | So suppose we start with evolution. |
| 0:49.3 | If we do that, I think we'll soon find that the apparent conflict between Christianity and evolution doesn't |
| 0:56.2 | spring from the theory of evolution or the science of evolution, but from certain accretions |
| 1:02.5 | that have happened to that, that seem to deny God's providence. |
| 1:08.1 | We might also find that those accretions are not the product of science as such, |
| 1:12.5 | but an ideology known as scientism. And then if we turn to Christianity, we might find it's not |
| 1:19.0 | Christianity as such that may clash with the theory of evolution, but certain brands of Christianity, |
| 1:25.0 | perhaps creationism. And perhaps we'll find that just as |
| 1:30.3 | Scientism in the guise of evolutionary science |
| 1:33.3 | seeks sometimes to disprove Christianity. |
... |
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