Guest Lecturer on Science and Faith

On September 4 at 6:30 in the evening, Professor David G. Rethwisch PhD will speak to the monastic community on “Science and Faith at a Secular university.”  Professor Rethwisch has aPhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Iowa, where he currently teaches.  Every Monday of odd-numbered weeks, as the light of dawn begins coloring all the windows in church, the monks are heard singing: “For I own all the beasts of the forest, beasts in their thousands on my hills.  I know all the birds in the sky, all that moves in the field belongs to me.”  The Good we monks pray to is the God of creation who not only brings all that exists into being out of nothing, but “knows” all that he has created to be good; the birds in the sky and everything else.  Our interest in science is informed by this awareness monks cultivate of God’s presence in His creation and our desire to understand how God works in all the events unfolding around us.  Professor Rethwisch’s thoughts concerning the relationship between faith and science is of particular interest to us at a time when many of our contemporaries have become so enamored of the insights and acheivements of science that they over look the Divine source and Mind from which creation arose in the beginning.