It is fashionable to note that there is nothing new in the “New Atheism” of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, et. al. However, they offer at least one genuinely new challenge to theistic belief: a challenge from developmental and cognitive psychology. Evolutionary biologists typically explain an organism’s existing traits-such as man’s propensity for religious belief-by reference to natural selection; existing traits Read More ›
ABSTRACTAristotle, the inventor of biology, made final or teleological causation one of his four fundamental modes of explanation. Throughout the history of science, teleological modes of explanation have been employed quite commonly, most often in biology and in psychology and the other human sciences, but also in physics. In the modern period (by which I mean the sixteenth through the Read More ›
VATICAN CITY — Let the healing begin. This seems to be the consensus Catholic response, ranging from victims groups to the church hierarchy to the Catholic press. It is an entirely appropriate sentiment if the question is reconciling the victims of clergy sexual abuse to the church. But it is a hopelessly inadequate reaction if the question is fixing what Read More ›