Monday, September 27, 7:00 pm MDT. Join our guest speaker from Montreal, Chris Barrigar, in his talk on "God's Agape/Many-Routes Design for the Universe," followed by discussion.  Chris gave this talk to a joint meeting of the Philadelphia and Washington DC Chapters of the ASA (by Zoom), and the response was so positive that he has offered to repeat his talk with other ASA chapters.  The talk is based on Chris’s article in PSCF in Sept., 2018 (https://asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2018/PSCF9-18Barrigar.pdf).

 
Standard 'design' arguments for the existence of God place God's design in the wrong features of creation, and also fail to give sufficient account of numerous other features of the universe. For instance, probabilistic physics, randomness, thermodynamics, emergent complexity, massively large numbers, and organic compounds in space are currently seen in Christian accounts as interesting elements of the universe but ultimately irrelevant to God's purposes. The “Agape/Many-Routes Design” idea contends that these are in fact integral to God's purpose, and so proposes a particular understanding of God's purpose along with an account of how these sorts of features of the universe fit with God's ultimate purpose and design.
 
Chris Barrigar is Pastor of the Church of St Mark & St Peter, Montreal, Canada. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from McGill University, has taught and supervised at the graduate level, and is, or has been, a member of various academic societies, including the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science. Chris also serves as a Subject Area Reviews Editor (for books in Bible, Theology, and Science) for the ASA's journal Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith.
 
 Here is the zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85960097021