Three programs offer perspectives
Either brilliant minds think alike — or somebody Up There is trying to tell us something?
On Thursday, April 16, this year’s recipient of Princeton Theological Seminary’s Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life, Alvin Plantinga, will speak about “Religion and Science: Where the Conflict Really Lies.” The free lecture will take place in the seminary’s Miller Chapel at 7:30 p.m.
Dr. Plantinga is John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He has been described by Time magazine as “America’s leading orthodox Protestant philosopher” and by another source as “the most important philosopher of religion now writing.”
Beginning Sunday, April 19, and running weekly through May 17, Princeton’s Nassau Presbyterian Church is presenting a free “Science & Theology” lecture series, probing such as topics as questions as “metaphysics, morals and meaning,” biotechnology and and “Theology in the ‘Year of Darwin.’” Heavy-hitting speakers include Freeman Dyson, Professor of Physics Emeritus since 1994 at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
The drawback of this series, sad to say, is that it meets on Sundays from 9:15 to 10:15 a.m. at Nassau Church, which is most inconvenient for those who attend other houses of worship or who live at a distance from Princeton.
For more information, call Nassau Church at 609-924-0103 or visitr www.nassauchurch.org.
The Westerly Series on Art & Faith, a program of Westerly Road Church in Princeton, will host an evening of discussion around a contemporary question, “Can science and faith coexist, or are they mutually exclusive?”
The free discussion will take place on Tuesday, April 21, at 7:30 p.m. in Princeton University’s McCormick Hall.
Participating will be three scientists who will provide “insight into the impact of faith” on their respective fields of study, relating the best evidence they see for God in science. A Q&A session will follow.
The panelists are Dr. Jonathan Mitchell of the Institute for Advamced Study; Dr. Vern Poythress, professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and Tina Master, M.D., associate director for the Residency Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Moderating the discussion will be the Rev. Dr. Matthew Ristuccia, senior pastor of Westerly Road Church.
On the Web: www.westerlyroad.org.
— Michael Redmond

