Evolution and the Soul | Prof. Christopher Baglow

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Professor Christopher Baglow explores the compatibility of evolutionary science with Catholic faith, focusing on the role of chance and divine providence, and defending the unique creation of the human soul.

This lecture was given on October 28th, 2024, at University of Texas at Austin.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Baglow is Professor of the Practice of Theology and the Director of the Science and Religion Initiative of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. His work is the culmination of 19 years of faith and science scholarship and educational program creation, as well as a lengthy career in Catholic theological education spanning high-school, undergraduate, graduate and seminary teaching. For this work, he was co-recipient of an Expanded Reason Award in Teaching from the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid) and the Vatican Joseph Ratzinger Foundation (Rome).

Baglow is the author of Faith, Science and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge (2nd edition, Midwest Theological Forum, 2019) and Creation: A Catholic’s Guide to God and the Universe (Ave Maria Press, 2021). He serves as theological advisor to the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists and as a contributor to the JTF-funded science and religion programming of the Word on Fire Institute. Most recently, he authored the transcripts for Wonder: The Harmony of Faith and Science, a Word on Fire film series directed by Manny Marquez and narrated by Jonathan Roumie. His work has appeared in That Man is You, Crux, Church Life Journal, Culture and Evangelization, and Joie de Vivre Quarterly Journal.

Keywords: Chance, Darwinism, Divine Providence, Evolution, Faith and Science, Humani Generis, John Henry Newman, Pope Pius XII, Primary and Secondary Causality, Soul

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.
0:06.8	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:13.1	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.1	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org.
0:25.7	It's a pleasure to be here today at the University of Texas at Austin.
0:29.2	My first time back in Austin since 1994, I was here visiting friends while I was a graduate student at the University of Dallas,
0:36.4	and I've never had the fortune of being able to come back, so it's good to be here tonight.
0:41.5	I am going to be discussing how a person of faith might consider the reality of biological
0:51.0	evolution, the science of evolution, which, as all of you know, is very oftentimes
0:55.6	a matter of contention in some circles, right, both scientific and religious, about the
1:02.9	possibility of harmony between the two. To give you an example of that, every year, or at least
1:08.6	once a year, if not more than that, at the University of
1:11.6	Notre Dame, I teach an undergraduate course on faith and science. And this past spring,
1:17.2	I taught a section of that. I'm teaching graduate students this semester, but I taught a section.
1:21.7	I always give my students a survey at the beginning of the semester and ask them to identify
1:26.7	questions that they're most interested in
1:29.7	having answered in the course. And from January of 24, so this year, these are some of the
1:37.5	questions that the 40 to 45 students actually gave me. And as you can see, all of them
1:43.8	deal with various aspects of how faith and
1:47.0	science might relate to one another in relation to the origin and diversification of life.
1:53.0	Is the church correct to oppose evolution? Well, as you'll see in just a moment, the church does not
1:58.7	oppose evolution, right? As we'll take a closer look at.
	...

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