Faith and Science Book Talk: A Theology of Health
by Tyler VanderWeele (PhD Harvard)
Response by Dominic Doyle (MTS Harvard)
Co-presented by the Initiative on Health, Spirituality and Religion at Harvard Divinity School & the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard
Co-sponsored by the Clough School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College and the Guild of St. Luke, and Harvard Christian Alumni Society
Thursday, November 13
5:30 PM ET / 2:30 PM PT
followed by a reception
Cader Room, Swartz Hall, Harvard Divinity School, 45
Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA & Livestreamed
Free and open to all; walk-ins welcome but registration requested.
Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA & Livestreamed
Free and open to all; walk-ins welcome but registration requested.
In A Theology of Health (Notre Dame Press, 2024), biostatistician, Loeb Professor of Epidemiology, and Director of the Human Flourishing Program, Tyler VanderWeele brings the fruits of his extensive research into human flourishing and health outcomes explicitly into engagement with Christian theology. He argues that health can be understood as wholeness intended by God; considers sin – whether individual wrongdoing, social injustice, or the fallenness of creation – as a cause of ill-health; and restoration to health as salvation. These insights have implications for theology and religious studies, medical theory and practice, pastoral care, and public health. Response by theologian Domonic Doyle will be followed by audience Q&A and a reception.
Tyler VanderWeeleTyler J. VanderWeele has taught at Harvard since 2009, where he is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Director of the Human Flourishing Program and Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at Harvard. His writing and teaching address psychosocial measurement theory, psychiatric and social epidemiology, the science of happiness and flourishing, and the study of religion and health. In addition to publishing over 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals, he has authored several books, including Handbook of Religion and Health (2023), and A Theology of Health (2024) – the subject of this talk – as well as Modern Epidemiology and Measuring Well-Being (both 2021) and Explanation in Causal Inference (2015), Professor VanderWeele has a B.A. in Philosophy and Theology as well as an M.A. in Mathematics from Oxford, an M.A. in Applied Economics from Wharton, and a PhD in Biostatistics from Harvard.
Dominic DoyleDominic F. Doyle is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry. His writing and teaching cover theological anthropology, the theology of culture, grace, and thomistic thought, among other topics. He is the author of The Promise of Christian Humanism: Thomas Aquinas on Hope. Most recently, Professor Doyle led the Clough School’s “Neuroscience Education for Theological Training” sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science / Dialogue on Science, Religion and Ethics. He has an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston College.