Why the Church and the Rest of the World Need to Discuss Artificial Intelligence Now

UVA Minor Hall Auditorium

Paul Scherz, UVA Religious Studies
Catherine Moon, Institute for Advanced Studies of Culture
Joseph Davis, UVA Sociology, Institute for Advanced Studies of Culture
Missed this event?: Watch it here.
 
Rapid developments in Artificial Intelligence are radically changing the world, raising serious questions about human agency, responsibility, and the future. How should we address the impending changes to our self-understanding, relationships, work, and nearly every other area of society? Although there is much to applaud in AI, Christianity’s commitment to the advancement of the human person requires fuller ethical and theological investigations of the meaning of AI’s advent. Join three UVA faculty to discuss a Catholic response to AI developed by a working group sponsored by the Vatican’s Centre for Digital Culture. All are invited to join us for this public and very necessary discussion. 
This program is made possible through the support of grant #62372 from the John Templeton Foundation, “In Lumine: Promoting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide."

Monday, January 22nd
6:30 - 8:00pm ET

Join us for this online lecture on human flourishing by Prof. Tyler J. VanderWeele, Ph.D., John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Director of the Human Flourishing Program and Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Religion and Spirituality at Harvard University.

Many empirical studies in the social and biomedical sciences focus narrowly on individual outcomes like income or subjective feelings of happiness. Prof. VanderWeele, however, contends that human well-being or flourishing includes a broader range of conditions and outcomes, including sets of goods produced by and within communities. In fact, new empirical research indicates that participation in religious communities yields a range of health and well-being outcomes including longevity, mental health, happiness, meaning in life, marital stability, and others. Online registration is available here.

Gavin Flood

University of Oxford Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion

"Evolutionary Science, Religion, and Our Human Future"

Thursday, November 9, 2023 | 6:00pm
UVA Minor Hall Auditorium
Missed Lecture? Watch it here.
 

The questions Why are we here? and What is the meaning of my life? are as fresh today as when they first were asked by our human ancestors thousands of years ago. Unlike modern secular accounts that sputter or leave us anesthesized, religious narratives have and continue to offer time-tested frameworks within which life's larger answers emerge and unfold in still surprising ways. But how can recent scientific developments, especially in evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience, deepen our understanding and appreciation of these religious narratives and their capacities to help us understand who we are and our shared human future? We've invited Prof. Flood back to UVA to guide our inquiry through and beyond these important questions.

All are invited to attend this free public lecture, so invite a friend or colleague or come to meet someone new.

This event is made possible through the support of grant #62372 from the John Templeton Foundation, “In Lumine: Promoting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide." Cosponsored with the UVA Department of Religious Studies. 

Bishop Robert Barron

Diocese of Diocese of Winona-Rochester
Founder, Word on Fire Ministries

"The Catholic Intellectual Tradition"

Missed this Event: watch it here.

Word on FireThe Catholic Intellectual Tradition offers an immensely rich, 2,000-year-old way of thinking about God, Nature, Society, and the Human Person. This tradition invites us to appreciate the historical continuity of the Church's beliefs and practices as well as the reality of the communion of holy men and women who have aided the Church in Her thinking across the ages. The Catholic intellectual tradition is not today's fleeting and disjointed stream of TikTok videos, but a fuller and more integrated way of seeking answers to our enduring questions about the Source and existence of all things visible and invisible as well as the meaning of our experiences and the purposes of our lives. The tradition's way of thinking flows from its Christology--that is, our understanding of who Jesus Christ is. As St. Bonaventure once summarized this central point: the Church began with the powerful experiences and wisdom of "simple fishermen, and it was enriched by distinguished and wise teachers" who carried the tradition forwarded, but it is Christ who was and is at the center of all knowledge, learning and wisdom, including every academic interest pursued within the modern university. In our highly fragmented world defined by its chaotic and ever-changing set of expressions, the Catholic intellectual tradition distinguishes itself from the alienation, disjointedness and popular noise of today by maintaining there is a common, unifying Source of every truth. This Source, as revealed in the Gospel of John, is Christ the Logos Who was “In the Beginning,” Who is the “Life” and “the Light that shines in the darkness” for “all humankind."

Co-sponsored with the Harvard Catholic Forum, the Collegium Institute @ UPenn, COLLIS Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture @ Cornell University, Nova Forum for Catholic Thought @ University of Southern California, and the Lumen Christi Institute @ University of Chicago.

We know we live in a world dominated by technology, big data, and predictive algorithms that few understand and even fewer design or control. Contemporary secular ethics has litte to say about our lack of agency, understanding or the collective and individual responsibilities we bear for the consequences of our modern world. Is Christianity and its life-affirming purposes simply mute about all of this, as if there's nothing for us to see or to consider about present or future conditions? Join us as we engage invited Catholic University of America Professor Paul Scherz on the most significant topic of his latest book. Tomorrow's Troubles: Risk, Anxiety, and Prudence in an Age of Algorithmic Governance.

Interested in joining this seminar, email Dr. Charles Kromkowski (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

This seminar is made possible through the support of ‘In Lumine: Supporting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide’ (Grant #62372) from the John Templeton Foundation.

Saturday March 18 (2:00PM)
 
Misssed this event? Watch it here.  
 
Joseph E. Davis, UVA - Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture
Sr. Maria Gonzalo, Our Lady of the Angels Monastery
 
Have you ever been afflicted by a lack of focus, feelings of loneliness, debilitating anxieties, or inexplicable bouts of sadness, anger or despair in the midst of great personal achievements? Can advances in neurological medicine and pharmaceutical therapies heal our broken hearts, fix our troubled minds, and lead us to even greater personal triumphs? Many hope so, turning to neuro-chemical treatments that soothe our brains without bringing clarity to our difficulties and the social conditions within which we live. But is this type of happiness and lack of meaning what we truly seek? Or are there other unexplored alternatives that reveal who we are along with the realities of our everyday sufferings? Join us for a novel interrogation of these questions that exposes the limits of contemporary interpretations and the time-tested Cistercian perspective of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), who offers a salvific "compound that no pharmacist can produce." 
 
 
This program is cosponsored with the Lumen Christi Institute and made possible through the support of grant #62372 from the John Templeton Foundation, “In Lumine: Promoting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide." 

Fr. Ambrose Little, O.P.

Can Rule by AI be Like Rule by a God?

March 2, 2023 | 6:30PM | UVA Clarke Hall 107
Missed the talk? View it here.

Please join us as we warmly welcome the return of Fr. Ambrose Little, O.P. on Thursday, March 2, 2023. From 2014 until 2021, Fr. Ambrose was in residence at St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish as a graduate student in Philosophy at UVA.  He completed his Ph.D. in 2021 and was appointed Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute in Washington, D.C.

This public lecture is free and open to all, so invite a friend and come to meet others who are interested in thinking about how the Catholic intellectual tradition can inform our understanding of the modern world.

Cosponsored by The Thomistic Institute @ UVA / St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought
This program is made possible through the support of grant #62372 from the John Templeton Foundation,“In Lumine: Promoting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide."
 

Faith, Reason, Modern Science: Understanding the Ever Ancient, Ever New Christian Synthesis

UVA Darden Catholic Student Association and the St. Anselm Institute cordially invite UVA Darden, UVA Law, and UVA graduate students to attend a free dinner/lecture event on Sunday, December 4, 2022 at 7:00pm. Darden School (Room 150). After dinner, Dr. Charles Kromkowski and Dr. Anna Stelow of the St. Anselm Institute will help us rediscover how the Christian intellectual tradition understands the complementary, not conflictual, natures of faith, reason and modern science. To help us plan for dinner, please add your name to the list here.  Late deciders and friends are welcomed to attend. Questions? Email Thiago Meller (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Pilar Bennett (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
 
This program is made possible through the support of grant #62372 from the John Templeton Foundation, “In Lumine: Promoting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide."

Justice, the Common Good, and St. Thomas Aquinas

Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P.

 UVA Hotel C

Cosponsored with the Thomistic Institute @ UVA
Free and Open to the Public
 

Like everyone else, UVA students, faculty and staff have operating, everyday senses of what the "good" is, but what in the world does the "common" good mean beyond clean water and unpolluted air? And could "Justice" mean a whole lot more than what is meted out by courts and social media influencers? We're pushing these envelopes forward by inviting in the clarifying voices of Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. and St. Thomas Aquinas!

All are invited to attend this free, public lecture.

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