uOttawa forum helps students explore science and faith connections

Jason Rivers
Special to Spur Ottawa

Christian outreach groups at the University of Ottawa joined forces for their annual Veritas Forum. The event aims to generate discussion about issues of science and faith on campus. Each year, the Veritas Forum hosts discussions with a speaker at the highest academic standing in their field.

“One value of doing a forum like this is it builds [believers] on the university campus with a much stronger sense of the fact that we are in this together,” says campus chaplain Sid Ypma, Veritas Forum Committee Chair. “Sometimes we can focus on differences, but at the end of the day we are all really interested in seeing God glorified in the university. It is all about discipleship from a variety of angles.”

The Veritas Forum (veritas is Latin for truth) aims to demonstrate how Jesus is relevant in every area of life. It ran from January 27 to 28, featuring Denis Alexander, an evolutionary biologist, specializing in the field of science and religion. He holds the honorary title of Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge.

During his session called “Science & Faith: More Similar Than You Think,” Alexander focused on four areas where he sees the strongest connection between science and faith.

“Personal commitment to the scientific enterprise is where science perhaps comes closest to the personal aspect of faith, [because] science actually cannot explain itself,” states Alexander. “I think many scientists don’t realize they have to make a whole range of philosophical assumptions, assumptions not provable by science itself, before the scientific enterprise can really get started. For example, you need faith that the universe is coherent and that we can understand it.”

Similarly, he points out that Christians base their faith on the belief that God can be understood. Both these assumptions rely heavily on the work of those who studied scientific and theological disciplines over the last millennium.

Another session focused on the controversies around in vitro fertilization and discarding embryos, as well as eugenics and genetic modification. Alexander weighed that against God’s unconditional love and design of people, and saviour siblings.

Alexander believes God made “provision for the absolute value [of people], compassion for the poor, awareness [that life] is precious and important, but it is not the end of the story.”

During a question segment, a woman born with an illness that causes infertility raised concerns with the idea of potentially altering things connected to God’s call on someone.

“Matty Stepanek was a young man who was born with a form of muscular dystrophy. He died when he was 13 years old, but before he died he gave this world huge gifts—in terms of his peacemaking, poetry, and literature. I wonder [if], when we change genes for the best of intentions, we give that child a very different life. My life would have been extremely different if I had been able to fulfill my dream of having children. His life would have been extremely different if he had not been in the circumstance he was in, [but because of his circumstances he] had such a heart for peace.”

She asked whether we should make these changes or let God work with the person to fulfill their purpose as they are. Alexander agrees it is a question with no easy answer.

When facing ethical dilemmas, Alexander says he seeks guidance from God, the Scriptures, and other believers.