Suter Science Seminars
Co-Sponsor: Shenandoah Anabaptist Scientific Society
Monday, March 16, 2009
4-5:30 p.m., Science Center 106
Evolution and Faith: What Is at Stake?
John F. Haught, Ph.D.
For many people today Darwinian biology challenges religious trust in a providential, infinitely wise God who purposefully creates, influences and eternally cares for the world. Our religious ancestors knew nothing about biological evolution, so is it possible that their sense of God is now out of tune with our new scientific understanding of life?
Darwin's science seems to extend the story of life and life's suffering (and creativity as well) far beyond traditional religious and theological awareness. In what sense, then, after Darwin, might we still trust in divine providence and wisdom, if at all? Is it possible that evolutionary portraits of life may open up fresh ways of thinking about divine creativity, providence, and wisdom? After Darwin can we have a plausible understanding of God that is consistent with traditional beliefs while at the same time being adequate to evolution?
Respondents
Ervin Stutzman, Ph.D., Seminary Dean & Professor of Church Ministries, EMS, Harrisonburg, VA
Richard Bowman, Ph.D., Professor of Physics & VMC Overseer, Bridgewater College, Bridgewater, VA
About the Presenter
John F. Haught, Ph.D.
John F. Haught (Ph. D. Catholic University, 1970) is Senior Fellow, Science & Religion, Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University. His area of specialization is systematic theology, with a particular interest in issues pertaining to science, cosmology, evolution, ecology, and religion.
He is the author of numerous books including: God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2008); Christianity and Science: Toward a Theology of Nature (Orbis Press, 2007) and Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
John and his wife Evelyn have two sons and live in Falls Church, Va.
