New series explores compatibility of science and faith

For almost two years, a free, online video course called Aquinas 101 has been helping people engage life’s philosophical and theological questions with the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas. Viewers who might have previously felt that reading the Summa Theologia and other works by Aquinas was beyond their capabilities have been finding a more accessible way to master the essentials of his thought.

Now, Aquinas 101 is taking viewers a step further, to go beyond the realm of philosophy and theology and engage the challenges presented by science. 

“Aquinas 101: Science and Faith” will launch Tuesday, March 16, and will seek to “dispel the notion that scientific learning and Christian belief are incompatible with each other,” says the Thomistic Institute, the organization behind the series. The videos, created by an expert team of scientists, theologians, and philosophers, will “explore themes, theories, and misconceptions that have proven especially thorny in the history of science and religion,” the institute says. 

Topics covered by the series will include neuroscience, miracles, quantum mechanics, the Book of Genesis, evolution, the scientific method, the “theory of everything,” free will, artificial intelligence, and transhumanism, among many others.

Dominican Fr. Dominic Legge, director of the Thomistic Institute, in a special preview Wednesday, in which he moderated a discussion between Harvard astrophysicist Karin Öberg and Old Testament scholar Fr. Jordan Schmidt, O.P., said he hopes the series will foster a “real dialogue” between those who work in science and those who work in religion — “disciplines that are genuinely different and distinct, but are aiming at the truth.” 

Interested viewers can sign up for the free course at Aquinas101.com.

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