Hybrid
For Alumni
For Clergy
For Lay Leaders
For Prospective Students
For Students
General Audience
Schedule:
5:00 p.m. – Reception with hors d’oeuvres and refreshments (atrium outside 0012 Westbrook)
5:45 p.m. – Lecture (livestream begins)
7:00 p.m. – End
Lecture Description:
There is a common view that historical relations between science and religion in the west have been uniformly hostile and that Christianity is essentially inhospitable to science. This lecture challenges that view, identifying ways in which religious factors played a positive role in the emergence of modern science.
It shows how religious considerations not only motivated key scientific figures, but also provided the core philosophical presuppositions of science, informed its methods and content, and was the source of values that provided it with social legitimacy.
This event is free and open to the public. An RSVP for the reception is greatly appreciated.
Peter Harrison, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy at the University of Queensland; Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, Australia
Peter Harrison has published extensively in the area of intellectual history with a focus on the philosophical, scientific, and religious thought of the early modern period, and has written, more generally, on the historical relations between science and religion. His twelve books include The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago, 2015) and most recently Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age (Cambridge, 2024).