First Things RSS Feed - William E. Carroll

Cosmology and Creation

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0500

In an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1951, Pope Pius XII remarked that “true science discovers God in an ever-increasing degree—as though God were waiting behind every door opened by science.” One such door had been opened by recent developments in cosmology, championed in part by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and one of the original proponents of what is now called Big Bang cosmology.

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An Open Mind?

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0500

Examining the complex functioning of a human brain as it lay exposed on an operating table can be a heady experience. Wonder, however, can easily lead to a kind of philosophical vertigo. This was evident in a recent essay in the New York Times written by Karl Ove Knausgaard. The famous Norwegian author described his experiences witnessing brain surgery performed by the British neurosurgeon, Henry Marsh. Marsh was in Albania to demonstrate his method of removing tumors from the brains of patients while they were conscious. The patients could respond to various stimuli in the brain so as to provide valuable information about the limits of surgical intervention. Knausgaard was present in the operating theatre, able to peer into the exposed brains, and to talk with the patients while their skulls were open.

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Modern Cosmology and Creation

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 00:00:00 -0400

Does cosmology provide insights as to whether or not the universe is created? In a recent interview with Gary Gutting for the New York Times, Tim Maudlin, professor of philosophy at NYU, rejects arguments based on cosmology that seek to show that human beings have any special place: “No one looking at the vast extent of the universe and the completely random location of homo sapiens within it (in both space and time) could seriously maintain that the whole thing was intentionally created for us. This realization began with Galileo, and has only intensified ever since.”

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Aquinas and the Big Bang

Mon, 01 Nov 1999 00:00:00 -0500

One day a little boy asked his mother where he came from. His mother, pleased to have the opportunity to discuss such an important matter with her son, began by offering an elementary account of human biology, even introducing some references to the theory of evolution. Lest she restrict her analysis to the realm of the purely physical, she spoke of God’s role in the creation of each human soul, and ultimately of God as the source of all that is. After she had finished, her young son, looking somewhat bemused, said to her that he had wondered about this because his friend next door had told him that he had come from Iowa.

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