Are we Free? Navigating Between Scientific Determinism and Liberty of Creation

Join Redeemer on March 20 for the 2024 Albert M. Wolters Centre for Christian Scholarship Natural Sciences and Mathematics Lecture.

This year’s speaker is visiting scholar Dr. Lydia Jaeger (Institut Biblique de Nogent, France), who holds research positions at St. Edmund’s College (University of Cambridge), The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion and the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology.

Evening Lecture: Are We Free? Navigating Between Scientific Determinism and Liberty of Creation.

Executive Dining Room (EDR), 7:30 – 9 p.m.

Free will confronts us with a paradox: on the one hand, we experience ourselves as being able (on some occasions) to decide for ourselves which course of action to take. On the other hand, the scientific view of human beings sees them as determined by a set of scientifically-describable factors. The lecture argues that each particular science captures a certain dimension, but does not provide a complete description of reality. Even taken together, the natural sciences do not exhaustively describe reality, and therefore cannot exclude free will. Creation is shown to offer a framework that is both coherent and succeeds in allowing human liberty to find its place in a world described by science. Throughout the lecture, the fruitfulness of creation for understanding human freedom in a world described by science is explored in dialogue with Abraham Kuyper.

Additional speaking engagements:

Chapel Address: On Human Dignity
Auditorium, 11 – 11:45 a.m.

Faculty/Staff Workshop: Why Theology Needs Science – and Science Needs Theology
Executive Dining Room (EDR), noon – 1:30 p.m.

In contrast to the common practice, which separates science and theology, this talk takes the biblical framework of creation, sin and redemption as the key to map out fruitful interactions between science and theology. In particular, it asks how theologians—and the wider church—can benefit from science and what scientists can learn from theology for their professional work. Such an integrated view enables us to understand science as a gift to the church and also to consciously take advantage of theological resources in scientific practice.

Dr. Lydia Jaeger holds a permanent lectureship and is academic advisor and international relations officer at the Institut Biblique de Nogent-sur-Marne, an interdenominational Evangelical Bible college near Paris. She is a Research Associate of St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge, a Faraday Associate of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion and a KLC Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology.

Dr. Jaeger is an expert in the philosophy of science, and author of several books, including What the Heavens Declare: Science in the Light of Creation, where she explores the role for the doctrine of creation in the philosophy of science. More recently, Ordinary Splendor: Living in God’s Creation, a book that explores the implications of the doctrine of creation for daily life, was listed as a finalist in the 2024 Christianity Today Book Awards in the Theology (popular) category.