Science, Reason... and Beyond – Prof. Alexander Pruss

The Thomistic Institute

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

4.8 • 873 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

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Summary

Prof. Alexander Pruss argues that science is powerful but limited, because it depends on presuppositions about logic, rationality, uniformity of nature, and value judgments that science itself cannot justify, and because human fulfillment ultimately points beyond reason to faith in an infinite being.

This lecture was given on April 14th, 2026, at Florida State University.

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About the Speakers:

Alexander Pruss is professor of philosophy at Baylor University. He has two PhDs, one in mathematics and one in philosophy, and does research in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mathematics. Much of his work is centered on showing how pretty much everything in reality points to the existence of God. His books include The Principle of Sufficient Reason, Infinity, Paradox, and Causation, and One Body: An Essay in Christian Sexual Ethics. In his spare time, Pruss engages in a variety of hobbies including electronics, software development, and indoor rock climbing where he recently got two Guinness World Records.

Keywords: Aristotle, Faith, Happiness, Human Nature, Infinity, Logic, Rationality, Science, Uniformity of Nature, Ultimate Origins

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tumistic Institute podcast.
0:06.0	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.0	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Tumistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:18.0	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at
0:21.6	Thomisticinstitute.org. So I have two theses that I want to argue for today, and so I'm
0:31.8	very happy to be here. I think it's actually my first time in Florida ever. It's lovely. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you
0:40.3	for coming out. So the first thesis is going to be that there's more to human reason than
0:48.3	scientific reason. And there's two reasons for this. One is that science itself has its limits. And I'll talk a little bit about what those limits are. And that when we think through the limits of science, it points us to things that we can reason about that are beyond science. And secondly, that reason itself, I think, points to something that goes beyond reason itself,
1:13.3	namely towards faith.
1:14.6	So I'll talk a little bit about that.
1:17.0	I don't want this to sound like I'm beating up on science.
1:20.6	I love science, but I think it's not the only game in town.
1:26.1	I love badminton as well, but I think it's not the only game in town. I love badminton as well, but I think it's not the only game
1:30.3	in town. I don't think everybody should play badminton, and I think Pio should play other sports as well.
1:37.3	Likewise with science, I don't think everybody should do science, and there's other things to do that are reasonable as well.
1:47.3	So let's talk about the limits of science, but before that, let's just talk about things science
1:52.8	doesn't know. There's like limits of, you might say limits of current science, right?
1:58.6	There's stuff that science currently doesn't know, but it's definitely in the domain of science. It's the kind of stuff science, right? There's stuff that science currently doesn't know, but it's definitely
2:02.0	in the domain of science. It's the kind of stuff science, you know, is interested in.
2:07.2	What is dark matter come from? Where does this protein family do? You know, stuff like that.
2:14.8	We can don't know right now. Hopefully one day we'll know. We'd like to know.
2:21.1	And there's no like principled reason science couldn't one day figure this out. It's just right now we don't have a story about this.
	...

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