Converging Paths To Truth: The Summerhays Lectures on Science and Religion

Many great scientists such as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein spoke and wrote freely of their religious thoughts and feelings, seeing no fundamental conflict between them and their science. Today there is a tendency to emphasize conflict more than harmony. Sometimes people of faith are criticized as blind or naive, while scientists are painted as arrogant or unfeeling. Educated dialogue between these two camps has too often been reduced to shallow platitudes or, worse, silence. Truth is not in conflict with itself. Religious truth is established through revelation, and scientific inquiry has uncovered many facts that have thus far stood the test of time. We can discover bridges between scientific and religious knowledge best if we pursue them through study, faith, and ongoing dialogue. The Summerhays Lectures are dedicated to discovering and sharing insights on how the truths of revealed religion mesh with knowledge from the sciences.

Michael D. Rhodes, associate professor of ancient scripture at BYU, received a BA in classical Greek from BYU, a BS in electrical engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology, and a MS in physics from the University of New Mexico. He studied Egyptology at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Oxford, as well as archaeology at the University of Utah. Rhodes has published many articles related to the Book of Abraham and has published a translation of some of the Joseph Smith papyri. J. Ward Moody has a PhD in astronomy from the University of Michigan. He was a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of New Mexico and joined the BYU physics and astronomy faculty in 1990. He contributed to the discovery of galaxies in voids, type Ib supernovae, and a singular low- temperature carbon star.