Harold Stoner Clark Lectures: Philip Clayton, Ph.D.

Philip Clayton is provost of Claremont Lincoln University, an interreligious consortium of schools, and dean of Claremont School of Theology. He received his doctorate from Yale University and has taught at Williams College and California State University, Sonoma, as well as holding guest professorships at the University of Munich, the University of Cambridge and Harvard Divinity School. Clayton, who specializes in constructive theology, the religion-science debate and comparative religious studies, has written or edited 22 books, most recently Adventures in the Spirit and The Predicament of Belief: Science, Philosophy, Faith.

Beyond the Religion Wars: From Reduction to Reenchantment
11:10 a.m.
The 1990s were a decade of exploration and shared research between science and religion. The last 10 years have brought unbridled hostility. As far as the media are concerned, we’re now in a period of outright warfare between opposing sides, often labeled “New Atheism” and “Intelligent Design.” Clayton argues that the extremists on both sides are mistaken. To embrace scientific progress while practicing faith and compassion is to experience a reenchanted world, a world beyond the religion wars … a world worth preserving.

The New Sciences of Emergent Complexity: Evolving Religion in an Evolving World
4 p.m.
Does science reduce all reality to fundamental physics? Does it imply that all of our dreams and ambitions are illusions, that we are finally “nothing but a pack of neurons”? Are the best explanations of the world those that leave no place for human intentions or divine meaning? We begin with a quick trip through the history of the cosmos, tracing cosmic evolution from the Big Bang through the emergence of life to the birth of consciousness and beyond. Clayton closes by offering five models of spirituality—five ways of thinking about God—that lead onward from this crossroads of science and religion.

The Harold Stoner Clark Lecture Series, endowed by the late Mr. Clark, is sponsored by the Department of Philosophy. Clark was fascinated all his life by the pursuit of knowledge just beyond the reach of scientific research. These lectures are dedicated, in honor of Clark's intent, to that sense of wonder and to the belief that philosophical discussion has an important place in our world.

Admission to the lectures is free and reservations are not required. Seating is limited. Visitor parking is available in the parking lots on Mountclef Boulevard north and south of Olsen Road. Street parking is by permit only Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.