Throughout the last five hundred years, the Catholic Church has developed methods to reconcile science with scripture and to explain the development of morality in the Bible. Fr. Spitzer will explore four hermeneutical principles to resolve seeming contradictions between science and scripture, and between the Old and New Testaments: The principles of Pius XII, St. Robert Bellarmine, Joseph Ratzinger, and the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Dr. Richard Bauckham and colleagues have made groundbreaking discoveries to reconnect the Gospel eyewitnesses with the traditions underlying our Gospels. At the same time, several groups of scientists have examined the Shroud of Turin—the purported burial cloth of Jesus—revealing probative insights into His passion and resurrection. Fr. Spitzer will explore the results of these investigations and discuss the implications for the reality and significance of Jesus Christ today.

David Lewis was one of the most influential philosophers in the analytic tradition. When it came to religion, he was a ‘contented atheist’. Despite being an atheist, he took philosophy of religion seriously and maintained an extensive correspondence with Christian philosophers, especially with those who put analytic theism on the map (Robert Adams, Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen). His conversations with Christian philosophers not only impacted the development of analytic theism, but led to an epistemological methodology for discussing topics that one does not believe in their heart to be true. In this talk, I explain this methodology and argue that it is useful for engaging constructively in intellectual debates, where certain propositions are based on faith. The upshot is that disagreement is no barrier to intellectual discussion of religion, so long as the attitude of dogmatism is held in a reflective, measured way with empathetic understanding.