Trinity Forum Conversations

Neurobiology and the Soul
What is the connection between our mind and our soul? New discoveries in neuroscience reveal that love can literally change our minds — that our relationships and interactions with others help shape our brains – which in turn, shape our relationships and behaviors. The link between our habits and spiritual practices and the renewing of our mind may be far more direct than once supposed.

Friendship Shapes our Soul

On Friday, June 24th we hosted an Online Conversation with psychiatrist Curt Thompson and The King’s University philosophy professor Jeffrey Dudiak to discuss the convergence of what brain research and spiritual practices reveal about the formation and development of our mind, heart, and soul. These longtime friends shared how their relationship has been used by God to repair and shape their lives in fascinating and unexpected ways.

This Conversation is part of our Discovery and Doxology series in partnership with BioLogos and Church of the Advent bringing together leading scientists, theologians, and scholars to discuss the relationship between science and faith.

Learn more about Curt Thompson and Jeff Dudiak.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis 

John Wood

Makoto Fujimura

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

God's Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Babbet’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen

Related Conversations:
Faith in an Empirical World: an Online Conversation with Ard Louis and Tremper Longman
Suffering, Healing, and Meaning, with Philip Yancey and Julia Wattacheril
Understanding Transhumanism with Rosalind Picard and Richard Mouw 

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for the artwork and Andrew Peterson for the music.

Science, Faith, and the Pursuit of Truth

What does it mean to pursue truth — and how do we know what we know? Science and religion have often been assumed to offer either contradictory or unrelated forms of knowledge, with any intersection between them presumed to be a conflict.

Such assumptions have grown more contentious in recent years in a world awash in misinformation and epistemic battles. How do science and faith relate in pursuing truth? What might each have to say to the other? And how might such a conversation enhance our understanding of knowledge itself?

On Friday, March 25 2022, The Trinity Forum hosted a conversation with Elaine Howard Ecklund and Ted Davis to show how science and Christianity intersect in constructive, even beautiful ways.

This conversation is a part of our Discovery and Doxology series, and hosted in partnership with Biologos and Church of the Advent and made possible through the support of Templeton Religion Trust. This series brings together leading scientists, philosophers, and theologians to discuss the relationship between science and faith.

Learn more about Elaine Howard Ecklund and Ted Davis.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Christian View of Science and Scripture, Bernard Ramm

Richard Dawkins

Philo Judaeus

John Philoponus

Augustine of Hippo

Galileo Galilei

Ptolemy

Galen

Euclid

Sam Harris

A Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, Samuel Miller

Ken Ham

Francis Collins

Albert Einstein

Peter Medewar

Thomas Henry Huxley

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

God's Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins 

Related Conversations:
Faith in an Empirical World: an Online Conversation with Ard Louis and Tremper Longman
Neurobiology and the Soul with Curt Thompson and Jeffrey Dudiak
Suffering, Healing, and Meaning, with Philip Yancey and Julia Wattacheril
Understanding Transhumanism with Rosalind Picard and Richard Mouw

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for the artwork and Andrew Peterson for the music.

Understanding Transhumanism

Rapid developments in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies can add confusion to the existential questions of who we are and why we are here. Through this conversation, Mouw and Picard explore the potential benefits and cautions of these technologies and thoughtfully examine the philosophical foundation of transhumanism.

This conversation is a part of our Discovery and Doxology series, and hosted in partnership with Biologos and Church of the Advent and made possible through the support of Templeton Religion Trust. This series brings together leading scientists, philosophers, and theologians to discuss the relationship between science and faith.

Learn more about Rosalind Picard and Richard Mouw.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Raymond Kurzweil

Brave New World, by Alduous Huxley

Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility and Uncivil World, Pluralisms and Horizons, He Shines in All That’s Fair, Praying at Burger King, Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport: Making Connections in Today's World, all by Richard Mouw

BF Skinner

The Concept of Mind, by Gilbert Ryle

Hubert Dreyfus

Friedrich Nietzsche

He Jiankui

Neil Postman

John McCarthy

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
God's Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Related Conversations:

Faith in an Empirical World: an Online Conversation with Ard Louis and Tremper Longman

Science, Faith, & the Pursuit of Truth with Elaine Howard Ecklund and Ted Davis

Neurobiology and the Soul with Curt Thompson and Jeffrey Dudiak

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for the artwork and Andrew Peterson for the music.

Science and Faith in Conflict?

We live in an era where science and faith are widely believed to be in conflict. A spreading materialism asserts, even assumes, that only empirical knowledge is reliable, and denigrates ways of understanding reality beyond the quantitative. Others believe that the realms of science and religion are entirely separate — each with interesting things to say, but nothing to say to each other.

Wonder Can Lead to Worship

In this conversation, we offer a different hypothesis: that science and faith actually have things to say to each other and can enable us to better understand ourselves, our minds, our world, and its originator and designer.  In contemplating the complexity of our Cosmos, and the mystery of our self and soul, we may cultivate a new sense of wonder, awe, and even worship – a doxology amidst discovery.

This conversation is a part of our Discovery and Doxology series, and hosted in partnership with Biologos and Church of the Advent and made possible through the support of Templeton Religion Trust. This series brings together leading scientists, philosophers, and theologians to discuss the relationship between science and faith.

Learn more about Tremper Longman and Ard Louis.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Elaine Howard Ecklund

Isaac Newton

Sir Robert Boyle

James Clerk Maxwell

Simon Conway Morris

David Alcalde

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Charles Colson

The Language of God, by Francis Collins

Deborah Haarsma

John Paul II

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
God's Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Related Conversations:

Understanding Transhumanism

Science, Faith, & the Pursuit of Truth with Elaine Howard Ecklund and Ted Davis

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for the artwork and Andrew Peterson for the music.

Discovery and Doxology
This special podcast series is called Discovery and Doxology conversations on science and faith and is created in partnership with Templeton, Religion Trust, Biologos, and Church of the Advent.  The four conversations in this series features conversations between scientists, philosophers, and theologians helping us explore the relationship between science and faith.

Science and Faith in Conflict?
We live in a time when science and faith are often thought to be in conflict. The discipline of science is sometimes conflated, even within the scientific community, with a reductionistic materialism or scientism that asserts or even assumes that only empirical knowledge is reliable and dismisses ways of knowing what is real beyond the merely quantitative.

On the other hand, some people of faith fear that scientific findings are undermining of spiritual authority or Christian orthodoxy, and may even see discoveries and fields like vaccine creation, gene therapy, and artificial intelligence as a threat to the claims of Christianity. But as our conversations make clear, the mistrust between Christians and scientists hasn't always existed.

Scientific Discovery Leading to Worship of the Creator
Many of the greatest lights in the history of science understood their calling as one of making known the beauty and grandeur of God through a better understanding of the created order. They believed science and worship were connected by a shared love of truth and its author, and that discovery led to doxology.

The conversations that make up our discovery and doxology series explores these tensions and possibilities. It's our aim to introduce you to some of the brightest scientific and theological lights of our own generation and to help you think wisely and well about these questions. You can listen to any of these conversations in full at ttf.org.

Our sincere thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork and to Andrew Peterson for providing our music.

In our final podcast episode of our special Lenten series, we're considering the meaning of the good news view through the lens of scripture, with an emphasis on Christ, passion and triumph. 

Reading Scripture with New Eyes

To help us explore the spiritual discipline of reading scripture, we’re returning to an evening conversation we hosted back in 2016 with Anglican Bishop, and New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright.

Since the very earliest days of the Christian Church, the reading of scripture has been foundational for Christian formation. Rather than prescribe a particular methodology of Bible reading this week, our invitation is simply to join us in reading each of the four gospel accounts of Jesus' last days, but to do so with a refreshed understanding of what Jesus meant when he spoke of the “good news.”

On Earth as it is in Heaven

As N.T. Wright makes clear, Jesus’ good news wasn't about giving advice, or founding a new religion, or even where a soul goes when the body dies. Jesus was inviting his hearers into a new way of understanding Israel's ancient story and the cosmic significance of its sudden fulfillment.

It's our hope that this conversation will help you read slowly, thoughtfully, and to consider and savor aspects of this good news that you may have missed before.

Thank you for journeying with us through Lent, and we wish you a very happy Easter.

Learn more about N.T. Wright.

Watch The Good News and the Good Life, with N.T. Wright and Richard Hayes.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Who is this Man? by John Ortberg

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Devotions by John Donne and paraphrased by Philip Yancey

The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine of Hippo, Introduced by James K.A. Smith

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

God’s Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

A Spiritual Pilgrimage by Malcolm Muggeridge

Related Conversations:

Liturgy of the Ordinary in Extraordinary Times with Tish Harrison Warren

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies with Marilyn McEntyre

Invitation to Solitude and Silence with Ruth Haley Barton

On the Road with Saint Augustine with James K.A. Smith and Elizabeth Bruenig

The Habit Podcast, Episode 26: Tish Harrison Warren with Doug McKelvey

The Spiritual Practice of Remembering with Margaret Bendroth

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org, and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for the artwork and Andrew Peterson for the music.

We continue our Lenten podcast series by considering the spiritual practice of remembering with historian and author, Margaret Bendroth.

Remembering is a Scriptural Imperative

The promise of modernity was progress, and so our default orientation is often to the present and future and away from the past, which can be seen as either irrelevant or even benighted. But it is uncanny how often the Bible instructs us to remember the great story, to meditate upon it, ponder it, write it in our heart, dwell on it, and never forget.

In this conversation, Margaret Bendroth invites us to reflect on our own stories, to see our lives as the product of a long choosing linked to the generations that have come before. And then to be willing to examine our family and spiritual histories as part of knowing ourselves and our place in God's story.

Righteous Remembrance Means Extending Grace to our Ancestors

And while she acknowledges the potential for discomfort in looking back, Bendroth encourages us to a posture of “righteous remembrance,” extending the charity to our ancestors that we hope will be extended to us. In doing so, we open up the door to healing not only of our own past, but also to gain access to resources and wisdom from previous generations.

May this conversation inspire you to reflect on your own history and its place within the great story.

Learn more about Margareth Bendroth.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Miroslav Volf

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Devotions by John Donne and paraphrased by Philip Yancey

The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine of Hippo, Introduced by James K.A. Smith

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

God’s Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

A Spiritual Pilgrimage by Malcolm Muggeridge

Related Conversations:

Liturgy of the Ordinary in Extraordinary Times with Tish Harrison Warren

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies with Marilyn McEntyre

Invitation to Solitude and Silence with Ruth Haley Barton

On the Road with Saint Augustine with James K.A. Smith and Elizabeth Bruenig

The Habit Podcast, Episode 26: Tish Harrison Warren with Doug McKelvey
The Spiritual Practice of Remembering with Margaret Bendroth

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org, and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for the artwork and Andrew Peterson for the music.

On this episode of our special Lenten podcast series we explore the spiritual practice of writing by listening to a conversation between authors, Tish Harrison Warren, Doug McKelvey and Jonathan Rogers.

The Spiritual Practice of Writing 

As these three authors explore the craft of writing, what becomes clear is that the creativity and spiritual insight that marks their work is predicated on the discipline of showing up, to sit in the quiet with tools in hand and to attend to the wonder and mystery of their own lives. The very ordinary disciplines surrounding writing have become for these authors a liturgy by which they come into contact with the divine, writing things and expressing truths they didn't know that they knew.

The Habit: Conversations with Writers about Writing

This conversation originally appeared on the Habit Podcast, a production of the Rabbit Room podcast network, and a portion of it is used here with their generous permission and goodwill. To listen to more of the Habit visit Rabbitroom.com/podcast.

It's our hope that this conversation will inspire your own practice of writing during Lent and help you to enter into the mystery and grace of the Father's love.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Charlie Peacock

James Bryant Smith

Walker Percy

Jessica Hooten Wilson

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Devotions by John Donne and paraphrased by Philip Yancey

The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine of Hippo, Introduced by James K.A. Smith

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

God’s Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

A Spiritual Pilgrimage by Malcolm Muggeridge

Related Conversations:

Liturgy of the Ordinary in Extraordinary Times with Tish Harrison Warren

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies with Marilyn McEntyre

Invitation to Solitude and Silence with Ruth Haley Barton

On the Road with Saint Augustine with James K.A. Smith and Elizabeth Bruenig

The Habit Podcast, Episode 26: Tish Harrison Warren with Doug McKelvey

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org, and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for the artwork and Andrew Peterson for the music.

Repentance and St. Augustine

We continue our Lenten podcast series by considering the spiritual practice of repentance with author, philosophy professor, and Trinity Forum Senior Fellow, James K.A. Smith. 

Few figures cast as long a shadow over church history as Saint Augustine of Hippo, regarded by many as second only to St. Paul in terms of his extraordinary contributions to theology and philosophy. For his part, James K.A. Smith takes a different approach, describing Augustine as an AA sponsor for the soul.

Disordered Desire and the Role of Repentance

In Augustine’s book, Confessions, he offers us a searingly honest glimpse into the human heart and it’s Augustine’s refusal to look away from his own disordered loves, but instead to confess and repent at the level of his deepest desires, that makes Confessions one of the most enduring works of Christian spiritual writing of all time.

Learn more about James K.A. Smith.

Watch the full Online Conversation and read the transcript.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Confessions by St. Augustine

On The Road With Saint Augustine by James. K.A. Smith

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Devotions by John Donne and paraphrased by Philip Yancey

The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine of Hippo, Introduced by James K.A. Smith

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

God’s Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

A Spiritual Pilgrimage by Malcolm Muggeridge.

Related Conversations:

Liturgy of the Ordinary in Extraordinary Times with Tish Harrison Warren

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies with Marilyn McEntyre

Invitation to Solitude and Silence with Ruth Haley Barton

The Second Mountain with David Brooks

On the Road with Saint Augustine with James K.A. Smith and Elizabeth Bruenig

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org, and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for the artwork and Andrew Peterson for the music.

Generosity with Marilyn McEntyre

We continue our Lenten podcast series this week by looking at the spiritual practice of generosity with professor, author, and poet, Marilyn McEntyre. Generosity, or to use more ancient language, charity or almsgiving, was a practice Christians historically emphasized during Lent. And while providing material support to those in need is certainly a vital part of charity and love of neighbor, in this episode, Marilyn challenges us to broaden our understanding of what generosity can mean.

Caring for our Words is Part of Caring for our Neighbor

The book of Proverbs teaches us that death and life are in the power of the tongue and, in this conversation, Dr. McEntyre argues that caring for language is inextricably bound up with our caring for others. It's our hope that the conversation which follows stretches your categories of generosity and caregiving this week, as we consider together what it means to attend to our language and to practice charity with our words.

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org, and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

Learn more about Dr. Marilyn McEntyre.

Watch the full Online Conversation and read the transcript.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies by Marilyn McEntyre

Jane Austen

David Brooks

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Devotions by John Donne and paraphrased by Philip Yancey

The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine of Hippo, Introduced by James K.A. Smith

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

God’s Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

A Spiritual Pilgrimage by Malcolm Muggeridge

Related Conversations:

Liturgy of the Ordinary in Extraordinary Times with Tish Harrison Warren

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies with Marilyn McEntyre

Invitation to Solitude and Silence with Ruth Haley Barton

The Second Mountain with David Brooks

On the Road with Saint Augustine with James K.A. Smith and Elizabeth Bruenig

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for the artwork and Andrew Peterson for the music.