Kevin Walsh '98 argued that it is difficult, but not impossible, to reconcile the conflicting concepts of secular reason and spiritual revelation in a speech at the Top of the Hopkins Center on Tuesday night.
Approximately 30 people, mostly students, attended the speech, titled "Heresey and Liberal Education."
The speech was the first installment in a speaker series sponsored by Voices, a new campus organization.
Walsh, who said he is a practicing Catholic, said he has been intrigued by the question, "Can I get a true education if I think I already possess the truth?"
Higher education is supposed to be about the search for knowledge, Walsh said, yet this search may appear pointless to some people -- such as those who accept the teachings of a religious faith and believe they possess certain ultimate truths.
Walsh joked, "What am I searching for here ... besides eventually a job?"
"If you think you have the answer, how can you ask a question and then expect to hear a different answer?" he said.
There are three possible ways to reconcile the differences between faith and reason, according to Walsh -- asserting the primacy of faith, asserting the primacy of reason, or trying to find a manageable balance between these two conflicting ideas.
The first two approaches are problematic, according to Walsh, because neither faith nor reason can ever be definitive.
Reason can always be presented as a legitimate counterbalance to faith, and vice versa, so accepting the primacy of one over the other is unfair, he said.
"Faith may be able to propose an answer to some questions, but other questions are best left to science or reason," he said.
