Astrobiology and implications for Christian thought with Dr Andrew Davison

Presented in collaboration with Corpus Christi-St. Mark's College, the The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation (CSCA) and the UBC Graduate & Faculty Christian Forum (GFCF).

https://corpuschristi.ca/

https://csca.ca/

https://ubcgfcf.com/

Dr Davison works at the intersection of theology, science and philosophy. His recent work has addressed astrobiology, inter-species cooperation (or mutualism) in biology, and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. His current work has turned from putative intelligent life elsewhere in the universe to the origins of life, alongside a series of papers bringing the tools of scholastic philosophy to bear on topics in artificial intelligence or machine learning. He is also know for his work on Thomism and Christian Platonism (not least in relation to natural science and the environment). His highly acclaimed monograph Participation in God: A Study in Christian Doctrine and Metaphysics (Cambridge University Press, 2019) explores the idea of participation – sharing in, or sharing from – as a structuring principle in Christian thought that is both Biblical and Platonic.

In the 2016-17 academic year, he was a fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, on a NASA-sponsored programme to consider the implications for human society and self-understanding of life elsewhere in the universe. This lead to his monograph Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine: Exploring the Implications of Life in the Universe (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Dr Davison is open to supervising doctoral research in Christian theology as it bears upon the natural sciences, or other areas of interest.

https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-andrew-davison