Religious Origins of Modern Science?
2017-04-06 16:30 (America/Chicago) | Kersten 120, 5720 South Ellis Avenue, Hyde Park, IL
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Cosponsored by the Department of History and the Committee for the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science
It is often thought that modern science developed largely independently of, or even in opposition to, religion. Some historians, however, have suggested that religious factors played a key role in the emergence of modern science in the seventeenth century, and were important in establishing a permanent and prominent place for scientific activity at the heart of modern Western culture. This lecture explores a number of ways in which religion may have had a positive impact on the emergence and consolidation of modern science, paying particular attention to the values needed to establish its social and intellectual legitimacy.
Copies of The Territories of Science and Religion will be available for purchase.
Prof. Harrison will also lead a discussion for students on “The Cosmos and the Religious Quest” on Friday, April 7.

Lunch Discussion on "The Cosmos and the Religious Quest"
2017-04-07 12:00 - 13:30 | Gavin House, 1220 E 58th St., Chicago, IL, 60637
Students will read and discuss Chapter 2 from Professor Peter Harrison’s book The Territories of Science and Religion (University of Chicago, 2015) entitled “The Cosmos and the Religious Quest.”
Prof. Harrison will also give a public lecture on “Religious Origins of Modern Science?” on Thursday, April 6.

ABOUT THE BOOK
The conflict between science and religion seems indelible, even eternal. Surely two such divergent views of the universe have always been in fierce opposition? Actually, that’s not the case, says Peter Harrison: our very concepts of science and religion are relatively recent, emerging only in the past three hundred years, and it is those very categories, rather than their underlying concepts, that constrain our understanding of how the formal study of nature relates to the religious life.

In The Territories of Science and Religion, Harrison dismantles what we think we know about the two categories, then puts it all back together again in a provocative, productive new way. By tracing the history of these concepts for the first time in parallel, he illuminates alternative boundaries and little-known relations between them—thereby making it possible for us to learn from their true history, and see other possible ways that scientific study and the religious life might relate to, influence, and mutually enrich each other.

A tour de force by a distinguished scholar working at the height of his powers, The Territories of Science and Religion promises to forever alter the way we think about these fundamental pillars of human life and experience.

Master Class on The Wisdom of Bernard of Clairvaux
2017-04-08 14:00 - 17:30 | Gavin House, 1220 E 58th St., Chicago, IL, 60637
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This master class is open to current students and faculty. PDFs of the readings will be made available for participants.
This one-time Seminar will study selected writings of the great Cistercian theologian and mystic, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1157). Bernard was one of the most remarkable figures of the twelfth century—monastic leader, ecclesiastical politician, and noted theologian. His most important legacy, however, was as a mystic and mystical writer. His mystical treatises, such as On Loving God (De diligendo Deo), and especially his eighty-six sermons on the biblical Song of Songs (Sermones super Cantica Canticorum), are among the most widely-read works in the history of Christian mysticism. The Seminar will focus on reading and analyzing On Loving God and selected sermons from the collection on the Song of Songs as found in Bernard of Clairvaux. Selected Works, translated by G. R. Evans (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 173-205, and 209-78. In addition, some other outlines and short extracts will be handed out during the Seminar.
REQUIRED READINGS

G.R. Evans, trans., Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), pp.173-205, 209-278.

ANCILLARY READINGS

Bernard McGinn & Patricia Ferris McGinn, Early Christian Mystics (New Yorl: Crossroads Publishing, 2003), pp. 207-230
G.R. Evans, trans., Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), pp.13-57.

SCHEDULE
1:30pm Coffee & Tea
2:00pm Session I
3:40pm Break
3:50pm Session II
5:30pm Close, Wine & Cheese Reception

"Origins:" The Inaugural Conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists
2017-04-21 00:00 - 2017-04-23 00:00 | Millenium Knickerbocker Hotel, 163 East Walton Place, Downtown, IL
WATCH VIDEOS HERE
The first annual conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists cosponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute
The conference brought together researchers on all aspects of origins, from cosmos to consciousness. Specific topics included current cosmological ideas on the beginning and fate of the universe, fine-tuning and multiverse ideas, habitable planets and astrobiology, the origin of life, the evolution of species, and the origin of intelligence and consciousness.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“The Origin and Evolution of Universes” – Prof. John D. Barrow (Univ. of Cambridge)
“The Origin and Evolution of Habitable Worlds” – Prof. Karin I. Öberg (Harvard Univ.)
“Medieval Ideas of the Multiverse” – Prof. J. Christopher Clemens (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
“The Origin of Evolution: The Interplay of Order and Contingency” – Prof. Daniel Kuebler (Franciscan University of Steubenville)
“Process Information: A Novel Communication Theory with Applications to Evolutionary Biology” – Dr. Erick Chastain (Rutgers University)
“Why Only Us: the origin of human language” – Prof. Robert Berwick (MIT)
“Science in the Light of the Christian View of the Human Person” – Fr. Joachim Ostermann, O.F.M., Ph.D. (Franciscan Friars of Canada)
“The Catholic Scientist in the Secular World: What is the meaning of our vocation and how does it distinguish us?” – Dr. Marisa March (University of Pennsylvania)
St. Albert Award Lecture: “To Find God in All Things: Grandeur in an Evolutionary View of Life” – Prof. Kenneth R. Miller (Brown University)
Banquet Address – Br. Guy Consolmagno (Director of the Vatican Observatory)
“Georges Lemaitre’s Contributions to Cosmology” – Prof. Robert Scherrer (Vanderbilt University)
“Are Probabilities Essential to Inferring Design?” – Prof. Robert C. Koons (University of Texas at Austin)

CONFERENCE MEDIA COVERAGE
Faith And Science Come Together At Conference For Society Of Catholic Scientists, Forbes
Catholic Scientists Converge in Chicago to Ask Big Questions, Catholic News Agency
Catholic Scientists Discuss Faith’s Role in Work, Our Sunday Visitor

Catholic and Protestant Reformations and the Genealogy of Modernity
2017-04-22 10:00 - 13:00 | IL
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Open to current graduate students and faculty
At this master class seminar, participants will read and discuss Professor Carlos Eire’s essay “Incombustible Weber: How the Protestant Reformation Really Disenchanted the World” from Faithful Narratives: Historians, Religion, and the Challenge of Objectivity, ed. Andrea Stark and Nina Caputo (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014). A PDF copy of the reading will be provided.
This chapter discusses how challenges to traditional beliefs about death and purgatory in the Protestant Reformation caused significant material consequences, triggering a so-called “economic revolution.” Focusing on the issue of secularization in a present-day understanding of Protestant Reformation, the chapter examines the concept of “disenchantment” as manifested in three distinguishing characteristics of Protestantism. First is the redefinition of how “matter” and “spirit” relate to each other, which had led to iconoclasm and a new approach to rituals. Second is the redefinition of the boundaries between the “natural” and “supernatural” realms, which led to the denial of mystical ecstasies. Lastly, there is the separation of the living from the dead, which led to a reconfiguring of conceptual and socioeconomic structures.
SCHEDULE
9:30am Arrive, continental breakfast
10:00am Session I
11:25am Break
11:35am Session II
1:00pm Buffet Lunch
2:30pm Close

The Only Way To Truth Is By Love
2017-04-27 19:00 | Swift Hall, 3rd Floor Lecture, 1025 E 58th St. Chicago, IL 60637, Hyde Park, IL
A lecture on the occasion of the publication of Believing In Order To See (Fordham University Press, 2017). Copies of the book will be available for purchase.
Cosponsored by the Theology and Religious Ethics Workshop and the Seminary Coop Bookstore.

“Non intratur in veritatem nisi per caritatem” -St. Augustine
Believing does not always mean to make up for a deficit of knowledge, but rather attaining the right stance to see that which appears. This rule applies not only to common perception, but most of all to what Pascal, following St. Augustine, calls “divine things.” In faith, as in beholding a beloved or a work of art, what you see depends on how you stand in front of it.

Lecture on the Easter Mysteries, Dinner, and Prayer at the Monastery of the Holy Cross
2017-04-29 16:30 - 20:00 | The Monastery of the Holy Cross, 3111 South Aberdeen St. Chicago, IL 60608, Chicago, IL
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Open to current university students and faculty. Transportation from Hyde Park will be provided.
Cosponsored by the Hildegard of Bingen Society.
Join us for an evening of prayer with Benedictine Monks at the Monastery of the Holy Cross. Students will participate in the prayer of the Divine Office (including Vespers and Compline), and have dinner and discussion with Fr. Peter Funk, O.S.B., prior of the monastery and alumnus of the University of Chicago.
More information about the monastery can be found HERE.
SCHEDULE
4:15pm Meet at Gavin House (1220 E. 58th St.)
4:30pm Depart from Hyde Park
5:00pm Arrive at the Monastery, welcome by Fr. Funk
5:15pm Office of Vespers
6:00pm Dinner & Discussion
7:15pm Office of Compline
8:00pm Arrive back in Hyde Park
