Description

Religious believers are often seen as negating science and its results in order to make room for God. This lecture series has the opposite goal: to find openings in and through the study of science for religious and spiritual interpretations of human existence. When one begins “from below” in this manner, one may not quite attain to orthodoxy. After all, the results of the inquiry remain open-ended and contingent; doubt and uncertainty never completely disappear. Yet how can one avoid this sort of inquiry into the meaning of human existence? Scientific results cry out for a kind of personal and philosophical reflection that is not limited to the methods and constraints of the natural sciences. Inevitably we find ourselves asking: is our behavior biologically determined? Are we free? Do the arts reveal any truths about humanity that the sciences cannot express? Are we “at home in the universe” in a way that makes human existence meaningful? This year’s Metanexus Senior Fellow lectures will explore these questions and canvas some of the possible answers.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Friday, May 14, 2010

"What's a Nice Hominid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Ethical Dilemmas Our Biology Never Prepared Us For", 8:30 AM
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, 1299 Church Road, Wyncote, PA; 215-576-0800
Description to follow.

"Transcendence and Self-Transcending: Anthropology, Cosmology, and Religion", 1:30 PM
Academy of Lifelong Learning, University of Delaware Wilmington, Arsht Hall, 2800 Pennsylvania Ave.,Wilmington, DE; (302) 521-9909
Self-transcendence is a defining feature of human being-in-the-world. But what, if anything, are we transcending ourselves toward? Against the backdrop of cosmology’s story of the birth and death of the universe, we examine the proposals of the religious traditions about the goals and purposes of human existence.

Philip Clayton is a philosopher and theologian specializing in the entire range of issues that arise at the intersection between science and religion. Clayton received the PhD jointly from the Philosophy and Religious Studies departments at Yale University and is currently Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Claremont Graduate University and Ingraham Professor at Claremont School of Theology. In addition to a variety of named lectureships, he has held visiting professorships at the University of Cambridge, the University of Munich, and Harvard University. Clayton’s books and articles address the cultural battle currently raging between science and religion. Rejecting the scientism of Dawkins and friends, he argues, does not open the door to fundamentalism. Instead, a variety of complex and interesting positions are being obscured by the warring factions whose fight to the death is attracting such intense attention today. Clayton has drawn on the resources of the sciences, philosophy, theology, and comparative religious thought to develop constructive partnerships between these two great cultural powers.

Contact Metanexus Events Coordinator Kathy Siciliano (siciliano@metanexus.net) for more information about this series.