St. Augustine’s Press

Evidence for God from Physics and Philosophy

Extending the Legacy of Monsignor George Lemaître and St. Thomas Aquinas

Spitzer, Robert J., S.J.

In this book – an expanded version of his 2014 University of Dallas Aquinas Lecture – Father Robert Spitzer audaciously combines the intellectual legacies of two Catholic priests, St. Thomas Aquinas and Monsignor Georges Lemaître. Living in the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas ardently believed that, as he wrote in the Summa contra gentiles, “truth which human reason is naturally endowed to know cannot be opposed to the truth of the Christian faith.” But human reason has made many advances since Thomas’s days. One of them is the Big Bang theory, which Georges Lemaître, professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain, discovered in 1927. According to this theory, the universe as we know it began billions of years ago with an unimaginably powerful explosion. Is Thomas’s metaphysical vision of the universe, which includes the existence of a Creator who made and ordered the cosmos, compatible with contemporary cosmology? That is the question which Father Spitzer addresses in this book.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on May 16, 1952, Robert J. Spitzer is a Jesuit priest. After a distinguished academic career that began in the Philosophy Department of Georgetown University and culminated in the presidency of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, Father Spitzer currently serves as president of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith and the Spitzer Center for Ethical Leadership. The Magis Center is devoted to to public education concerning the complementary relationship between reason and faith, while the Spitzer Center helps to build a culture of evangelization in Catholic organizations and endeavors to promote business practices that lead to genuine human fulfillment. Father Spitzer is the author of many books, articles, and other educational materials, as well as an acclaimed speaker.