ETW - Creation and Science

Catalog description

This course seeks to deepen a student's understanding of the relationship between the Catholic theology of creation and contemporary empirical science. Topics to be covered include the birth of science, the historical-philosophical environment of this birth, the interventions of recent Popes on the issue, the specificity of the cosmos as shown by current science, the unity of the cosmos and its beauty, the importance of philosophical realism, the doctrine of creation, the theory of the Big Bang, the theory of evolution, and the fundamental of climate science. Primary sources will be emphasized. This course will show how early Christian thought built upon the accomplishments of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Islamic, Chinese, Indian, and Mesopotamian insights into the natural world and how modern empirical science emerged. It will also show how the development of empirical science in Europe is the direct result of the fruitful dialog of Aristotelian metaphysical and epistemological insights and the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo et cum tempore. It references the Old and New Testaments, the proceedings of Ecumenical Councils, the writings of pre-Christian civilizations in Mesoamerica, India, Egypt, China, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and the Arab world.