PUBLIC LECTURE

Saturday September 13th 2008

3.30pm in THE LIBRARY

God, the Multiverse,
and Everything

THE REV DR RODNEY HOLDER, FIMA, FRAS

 An opportunity for audience discussion will follow, chaired by Br Cyprian Love OSB

The Rev Dr Rodney Holder has been Course Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge since January 2006. Dr Holder read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, and researched for a D.Phil., in astrophysics at Christ Church, Oxford. After 14 years working as a scientific consultant to the Ministry of Defence, he returned to Oxford, taking a first class degree in theology in 1996. Ordained as an Anglican priest the following year, Dr. Holder served his curacy in South Warwickshire, became chaplain of the English Church in Heidelberg, and was Priest in Charge of the Parish of the Claydons (Oxford Diocese) from 2002 to 2005.

Dr Holder explored ways in which science and faith may complement each other in Nothing But Atoms and Molecules? (Third Edition, 2008). In God, the Multiverse, and Everything (2004), Dr Holder examines the fine-tunings of natural law that were necessary for life to evolve in our universe and uses Bayes’ theorem, a classic tool for determining probability, to assess their metaphysical significance. His 1998 paper on miracles won a Templeton Foundation Prize as an exemplary paper in humility theology.

This event is part of a series of lectures and colloquia under the auspices of the SophiaEuropa Project, funded by the The Metanexus Institute (www.metanexus.net) in association with the Centre for Culture, Technology & Values, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

Admission is free. Please e-mail metanexus@glenstal.org if you expect to attend. This will enable the organisers to predict the numbers attending.