The Origins of Life: Nature’s agency and/or Divine Intervention
Rafael Vicuña, professor in microbiology, molecular biology and xenobiology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Santiago, Chile, presents his scientific and philosophical views on the origins of life during the 2014 Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on ‘Evolving Concepts of Nature’. In his talk, he gives the most recent insights in the natural explanations on the emergence of life out of non-living matter end his reflections on complexity, design, divine intervention (if so), natural and divine causality.
God and Cosmological Fine-Tuning
Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (20120) – ‘The Evidence of Creation & Supernatural Design in Contemporary Big Bang Cosmology & Space-Time Geometry Proofs’ by Robert Spitzer. The new popular atheism movement may lead one to suspect that faith and science are opposed to one another.
Thomas Aquinas versus Intelligent Design: a Catholic Answer
Michael W. Tkacz, associate professor of philosophy at Gonzaga University, recounts that one day, he received a phone call from a professor of philosophy at a nearby private, religiously affiliated college who had just returned from an international conference devoted to challenges to evolutionary biology from intelligent design (ID) theory. He had something of a complaint to make about the absence of ‘Thomists’ and ‘Catholics’ in the ID movement and its challenge to Darwinism. Since the time of Charles Darwin there has been vigorous debate between Christian creationists and Darwinian evolutionists. Neither side has been especially interested in what Catholic Thomism might contribute to the discussion. Secular Darwinians often view Thomists as just another species of literalists attempting to substitute the Book of Genesis for good biology. On the other hand, Protestant creationists often have viewed Thomists as already halfway to secularism and naturalism, depending too little on a literal reading of Scripture and too much on philosophical reasoning.

