In this episode of The Open Door, panelists Jim Hanink and Mario Ramos-Reyes talk with Dr. Thomas Sheahen and Dr. Thomas Storck on Everywhen: God, Symmetry, and Time (February 8, 2023)

Welcome to The Open Door. On our next program (February , we explore the relationship between faith and science. Our welcome guest is Thomas P. Sheahen. He holds a Ph.D. degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his 45-year career as a research physicist, he worked for, among others, Bell Telephone Laboratories, the National Bureau of Standards, and the U.S. Department of Energy. He was chosen as a Congressional Research Fellow by the American Physical Society, dealing with energy-related national legislation. A lifelong Catholic, Dr. Sheahen is director emeritus of the Institute for the Theological Encounter with Science and Technology (ITEST). He is the author of Everywhen (En Route Books and Media, 2021). Among the questions, we’ll be asking are the following.

1. Dr. Sheahen, Tom if we may, what led you to write Everywhen?
2. Just what is the Institute for the Theological Encounter with Science and Technology? What sort of programs and events does it offer?
3. If there is no conflict between faith and science, why do so many people think otherwise?
4. What, for you, is the theological significance of the symmetry of the laws of physics? In what sense are these laws beautiful? Why does beauty matter?
5. Do we live in a deterministic universe? If not, does it make sense to say that God knows the truth of future contingent statements?
6. How would you explain the biblical teaching of Creation to someone like the late Stephen Hawking?
7. The Catholic Church teaches that the soul is the form of the body. Can this claim have any meaning for, say, an evolutionary biologist?
8. How might a believer in Divine Providence understand God’s acting on the physical world?
9. Who are some contemporary thinkers on the relation between faith and science that you would recommend to our audience?
10. Could you give us a sneak preview of your next project?

Have you been told that science and religion are incompatible? Do you think you have to give one up to be consistent?You don’t. In this book, MIT-trained physicist Thomas Sheahen explains how you can:

1. trust in God more readily, by realizing that God is not limited by space and time
2. expand your human thinking and step up to a higher plane of understanding
3. realize that religion and science are complementary paths to knowledge–not opposed
4. understand that God thought up the laws of nature and uses them in creation.

Everywhen | En Route Books and Media