Fr. James Brent, OP | "Good, Evil, and Science"

Fr. James Brent, OP, Dominican House of Studies. ”Good, Evil, and Science” at the Faith, Science, and Nature Conference, February 15-16, 2019, co-sponsored by the Scala Foundation, the Thomistic Institute, and Princeton Theological Seminary.

[@primaveralily3453]

Excellent, Father. It's all very enlightening and consoling, too.

[@mrmaggoo35]

One of the most exciting things I've heard in quite a while!
Thank you Father.

[@ScalaFoundation]

Thanks for watching!

[@stephannaro2113]

Philosopher Dan Dennett explains how you can have purpose in a mechanistic universe. It's been a while since I watched it, but I'm pretty sure it's this talk: ua-cam.com/video/3L7uNyQL0H0/v-deo.html
You do understand how likely it is that "Paul" would have been familiar with the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and others, since he lived in the Hellenistic Age where these ideas were deliberately spread (by libraries being built) all over the place, right?
Are you familiar with the hypothesis of Russell Gmirkin that the Hebrew writings were constructed in their final form in said Hellenistic Age? Jewish scholars would have traveled to Alexandria to study the texts available there.
Just as a hammer can have the purposes of both hammering and extracting nails, so can a human being have more than one purpose. We can in fact have changing purposes, and we can select our own purposes.
Evolution does NOT work by nothing but chance. That is a gross misunderstanding or misrepresentation. Life evolves by NATURAL SELECTION. Yes, it it by chance that my ancestors lived in Scandinavia where less melanin was beneficial, rather than Africa where more was beneficial, but the immediate affecter of their genes was not chance but the environment they found themselves in.