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Introduction
I am interested in philosophy of nature, philosophy of biology, philosophy of science, science and theology dialogue, dogmatic and fundamental theology. My research is currently concentrated on theories of causation in analytic philosophy and in philosophy of biology, emergence and downward causation, process versus substantial metaphysics debate, metaphysical aspects of systems biology, issues concerning understanding divine action in the age of science, Thomistic approach evolutionary theory, and Thomistic creation theology versus contemporary accounts.
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August 2011 - May 2016
Publications
Publications (125)
Neither Aristotle nor Aquinas assumes the reality of the evolution of species. Their systems of thought, however, remain open to the new data, offering an essential contribution to the ongoing debate between scientific, philosophical, and theological aspects of the theory of evolution. After discussing some key issues of substance metaphysics in it...
One of the main challenges of the nonreductionist approach to complex structures and phenomena in philosophy of biology is its defense of the plausibility of the theory of emergence and downward causation. The tension between remaining faithful to the rules of physicalism and physical causal closure, while defending the novelty and distinctiveness...
The condemnation of Galileo in 1633 did much to give the Roman Catholic Church the modern reputation of opposing scientific research that challenged theological dogma. In fact, the church had long encouraged freedom of speculation in natural philosophy, which in the case of heliocentrism was contradicted mainly owing to a complex variety of factors...
Many enthusiasts of theistic evolution willingly accept Aquinas' distinction between primary and secondary causes, to describe theologically "the mechanics" of evolutionary transformism. However, their description of the character of secondary causes in relation to God's creative action oftentimes lacks precision. To some extent, the situation with...
ABOUT THE BOOK
Over the last several decades, the theories of emergence and downward causation have become arguably the most popular conceptual tools in scientific and philosophical attempts to explain the nature and character of global organization observed in various biological phenomena, from individual cell organization to ecological systems. T...
This paper offers an Aristotelian-Thomistic response to the question whether AI is capable of developing virtue. On the one hand, it could be argued that this is possible on the assumption of the minimalist (thin) definition of virtue as a stable (permanent) and reliable disposition toward an actualization of a given power in the agent (in various...
Presentation delivered at the conference titled "In the Beginning: Life, the Universe, and Everything" (part of the 2024 – 2025 "Organs and Origins Conference Series"), organized by the College of Science and the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana). December 6-7, 2024.
Presentation delivered at the online conference titled Peacocke @ 100 – Filling and Surrounding the World: Pan(en)theism in a Scientific Age, organized by Science and Religion Forum. 27-28 November 2024. https://www.youtube.com/live/6PXYrOFM1Kc.
Presentation delivered at the conference titled Original Sin: Its Meaning and Interpretation, organized by the Angelicum Thomistic Institute (Fourth Annual Pinckaers Chair Conference) in Rome (8-9 November 2024). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aCEzykRInY&ab_channel=AngelicumThomisticInstitute.
Presentation of my book at the Book Symposium organized in Oxford (Blackfriars Hall) on November 2-3 (2024).
Presentation at the 2024 Student Summer Seminar on St. Thomas Aquinas, organized by the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. Rome – July 2024.
Presentation at the 2024 Student Summer Seminar on St. Thomas Aquinas, organized by the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. Rome – July 2024.
The article addresses philosophical and theological reflections inspired by the cosmological models of the origin of the universe from the quantum vacuum (through quantum tunneling) and through a spontaneous emergence from an a-temporal initial state of non-being. A thesis about the possibility of cosmogenesis ex nihilo without the need of God the...
Rozmowa w ramach cyklu sponsorowanego przez www.dominikanie.pl na 800-tną rocznicę urodzin św. Tomasza z Akwinu / An interview (in Polish) sponsored by the channel dominikanie.pl - part of the series of interviews for the 800 anniversary of birth of St. Thomas Aquinas.
This is the final draft of the chapter for the T&T Clark Handbook of the Doctrine of Creation. The officially published version will be uploaded on my profile in November of 2024. /// Both pantheism and panentheism have a long history and have recently grown in popularity again. The core ideas construing them as theological positions bring into con...
The debate concerning the understanding of divine action in the age of science (divine action debate – DAD) continues. Over the last two decades several important contributions to this conversation were offered by Thomists, including the initial response from Nicanor Austriaco and William Carroll, as well as more elaborate positions developed more...
This article presents a coherent and comprehensive proposal of a renewed contemporary Aristotelian-Thomistic approach to the evolutionary view of reality and the position of theistic evolution. Beginning with a proposal of a hylomorphically-grounded essentialist definition of species-framed within a broader revival of biological essentialism-a cons...
A presentation delivered at the conference titled "God and Nature: Reflections on Emergence, Causality and Directionality", organized by Nordic Dialogues on Science, Theology, and Worldviews, on April 17-18 of 2024, in Uppsala, Sweden. It addresses two philosophical aspects of the conversation: (1) the alleged violation of the principle of proporti...
Presentation at the conference titled "Miracles: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives", hosted by Angelicum Thomistic Institute Project for Science and Religion – Rome, March 2024.
A presentation delivered at the conference titled "God and Nature: Reflections on Emergence, Causality, and Directionality", organized by Nordic Dialogues on Science, Theology, and Worldviews, on April 17-18 of 2024, in Uppsala, Sweden.
Contrary to the commonly assumed opinion that Christianity sees pain as metaphysically evil (malum simpliciter)-where evil is defined as the lack of something good-Aquinas defines pain not as a privation but rather a passion of the soul, i.e., an emotion that depends on sensual and/or intellective cognition of something evil, is good in itself, and...
The Winter 2024 (Vol. 22, No. 1) issue of Nova et Vetera brings to the English-speaking reader an important debate that took place after the publication of the Polish translation of "Thomistic Evolution: A Catholic Approach to Understanding Evolution in the Light of Faith" by Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P., James Brent, O.P., Thomas Davenport...
This is a translation of my "Afterword" to the Polish Edition of "Thomistic Evolution: A Catholic Approach to Understanding Evolution in the Light of Faith" (1st ed. 2016) by Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P., James Brent, O.P., Thomas Davenport, O.P., and John Baptist Ku, O.P. Remaining in general agreement with the main arguments presented in...
In response to Michał Chaberek’s polemic with my position regarding theistic evolutionism, I refer to some key aspects of the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy and theology in their encounter with the theory of evolution and point toward some inconsistences and flaws in the argumentation developed by my adversary. After defining crucial aspects of...
Contrary to the commonly assumed opinion that Christianity sees pain as metaphysically evil (malum simpliciter) – where evil is defined as the lack of something good – Aquinas defines pain not as a privation but rather a passion of the soul, i.e., an emotion that depends on sensual and/or intellective cognition of something evil, is good in itself,...
The shape of the Christian doctrine of creation throughout the history of theology has usually been an outcome of the encounter between the revealed Truth and particular philosophical systems. Following this pattern, Joanna Leidenhag strives to convince the reader to join her in embracing the recent resurgence of philosophical panpsychism as a fram...
Espíritu LXXII (2023) • n.º 165 • 262-296 /// Translation of the article: Mariusz Tabaczek, “What Do God and Creatures Really Do in an Evolutionary Change? Divine Concurrence and Transformism from the Thomistic Perspective,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 93, no. 3 (2019): 445–82, https://doi.org/10.5840/acpq2019514179. /// Translation b...
In this book, Mariusz Tabaczek develops a contemporary, re-imagined proposal of an Aristotelian-Thomistic perspective on theistic evolution. Deeply rooted in classical philosophy and theology, the volume combines careful textual analysis of ancient, medieval, and contemporary literature with innovative, original, and constructive argumentation and...
In this book, Mariusz Tabaczek develops a contemporary, re-imagined proposal of an Aristotelian-Thomistic perspective on theistic evolution. Deeply rooted in classical philosophy and theology, the volume combines careful textual analysis of ancient, medieval, and contemporary literature with innovative, original, and constructive argumentation and...
Presentation at the online conference Virtuous AI? Cultural Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtue – organized by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 24-26 July 2023.
This is an announcement of my upcoming book on the contemporary Aristotelian-Thomistic approach to evolutionary theory, published with the Cambridge University Press. It is an outcome of a number of years of my research and writing. I bring together and further expand my former publications on this topic in various philosophical and theological jou...
Presentation at the 2023 Student Summer Seminar on St. Thomas Aquinas, organized by the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. Rome – July 2023.
Presentation at the 2023 Student Summer Seminar on St. Thomas Aquinas, organized by the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. Rome – July 2023.
Presentation at the 2023 Student Summer Seminar on St. Thomas Aquinas, organized by the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. Rome – July 2023.
Presentation at the conference "Wiara i nauka: Dwie drogi do prawdy" [Faith and Science: Two Paths toward Truth] – organized by the Polish section of the Society of Catholic Scientists, 1-2 July 2023.
Presentation at the book launch: Simon Maria Kopf. Reframing Providence: New Perspectives from Aquinas on the Divine Action Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. ITI Catholic University (Katholische Hochschule) in Trumau (near Vienna), Austria. 01 June 2023.
In this presentation, I approach the classical Catholic theology of creation from the point of view of contemporary - scientifically informed - understanding of the universe and laws of nature that govern its development and changes. I emphasize some crucial aspects of the Thomistic understanding of the God-world relationship, including: (1) Aquina...
El artículo aborda las reflexiones filosóficas y teológicas inspiradas por los modelos cosmológicos del origen del universo a partir del vacío cuántico (a través del efecto túnel) y a través de la aparición espontánea a partir de un estado inicial atemporal de no-ser. Se pone en cuestión la tesis, inspirada en estos modelos, sobre la cosmogénesis e...
This article refers to the debate between proponents of mono-and polygenism. After clearly defining these two positions in reference to the distinction between mono-and polyphyletism, it presents the scientific consensus in favor of polygenism as the default model of speciation. Taking this into account, the remaining part of the article concentrat...
Ever since it has been formulated, the theory of evolution inspires heated debates concerning its philosophical and theological repercussions. The current spectrum of these conversations extends from representatives of new scientific atheism, who claim that evolution ultimately discredits and shatters the biblical notion of creation, to evolutionar...
The utopian vision and messianic instinct of transhumanist and posthumanist movement reflect a true longing in the human soul. Yet, the Christian and the secular desire for the transcendent differ considerably. Speaking from the perspective of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of philosophy and theology, I will compare and critically analyze (1)...
Aristotelian realism was not naive realism. Aiming for perfect knowledge, i.e., Gr. episteme (Lat. sciencia), which comes from demonstration of the reason fact (Gr. dioti; Lat. propter quid), he was aware of the fact that its ideal is difficult to achieve. He thus acknowledged that investigators of the world of nature must often content themselves...
The phenomenon of life belongs to the most intriguing and puzzling aspects of reality, studied in various divisions of natural science, as well as in philosophy and theology. The purpose of this article is twofold. Firstly, it aims at bringing into the rich contemporary conversation on the nature, origin, and persistence of life a deeper and more t...
Open lecture at the Blackfriars Hall in Oxford - on January 26 of 2023. The Abstract: The encounter of philosophical, theological, and biological views on anthropogenesis inspired the most emotional reactions to evolutionary theory and posed a considerable challenge to systematic and philosophical theology. The history of the conversation between s...
In the face of renewed and growing awareness of the importance of natural teleology (goal-directedness) in the scientific and philosophical reflection on the reality, a question should be asked about the ways in which the notion of finality may inspire theology. I show that—when clearly distinguished from Paley’s argument from design and its contem...
Public lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, USA) sponsored by the Thomistic Institute (Washington D.C.) – October 16 of 2022.
This presentation accompanied my talk delivered at the Eleventh International Thomistic Congress, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Angelicum Thomistic Institute - Rome 19-23 September 2022. The whole paper will be published in the proceedings of the conference.
Daniel W. Houck. "Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution." Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Viii + 284 pp. ISBN 978-110-849-3697
Presentation at the Fourth Annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium in Washington D.C. (July 16 2022).
A lecture presented at the conference for the members of the Thomistic chapters sponsored by the Angelicum Thomistic Institute.
Presentation at the discussion panel entitled "Decolonizing Transhumanism" at the Fifth Annual Conference of the European Academy of Religion in Bologna (June 20, 2022)
When referring to Aristotle’s theory of causality and Aquinas’s commentary on it, most of the contemporary scholars concentrate predominantly on providing a list and definitions of four causes. Moreover, such limited accounts often offer a simplistic notion of material and formal causes, where the former is characterized merely as a physical stuff...
In about the year 180 a Christian bishop, about whom we know very little, wrote to a pagan about whom we know even less: “God brought everything into being out of what does not exist, so that his greatness might be known as understood through his works.” These words of Theophilus of Antioch may seem to contemporary eyes and ears thoroughly unexcept...
The encounter of philosophical, theological, and biological views on anthropogenesis inspired the most emotional reactions to evolutionary theory and posed a considerable challenge to systematic and philosophical theology. The history of the conversation between scientific and religious worldviews on the topic of hominization is thus long and compl...
Prezentacja na temat informacji biologicznej w ramach dominikańskiej konferencji "Przeznaczeni do głoszenia Słowa" - zorganizowanej przez Kolegium Filozoficzno-Teologiczne oo. Dominikanów w Krakowie, z okazji 800-lecia istnienia Polskiej Prowincji Dominikanów. / Presentation on biological information as part of the Dominican Conference "Destined to...
Pomimo trudności w sformułowaniu jednoznacznie uzgodnionej i ściśle naukowej definicji informacji, w tym także informacji biologicznej, niebywały sukces paradygmatu i metodologii biologii molekularnej i genetyki, doprowadził do genocentryzmu, który podniósł geny (rozumiane jako nośniki informacji biologicznej) do rangi podstawowych jednostek biolog...
Many advocates of theistic evolutionism develop an image of God creating within and through evolutionary processes. Defining their position as “evolutionist creationism,” they conceive God as sharing his divine power to create with his creatures. I claim that evolutionary transformations can certainly be thought as particular exemplifications of th...
Live streamed lecture as part of the series of lectures organized by the Project for Science and Religion – sponsored by the Thomistic Institute at the Pontifical University of Sint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, delivered on December 15 of 2021.
A response to Robert Koons's presentation "From Generalized Quantum Mechanics to Substantial Form" - delivered at the Workshop on Idealization, Modeling, and Representation in Philosophy of Science and the Classical Philosophy of Nature, at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome in October 2021. Video recording: https://www.youtube...
Presentation at the Workshop on Divine Action at the Humboldt University of Berlin on November 19, 2021 (as part of the Templeton research project A Virtue-Based Approach to Providence: Bridging the Analytic/Continental Divide in the Central-European Divine Action Debate)
A considerable group of contemporary philosophers and theologians—including those engaged in the science-theology dialogue, such as Barbour, Clayton, Davies, and Peacocke—supports panentheism, i.e., a theistic position which assumes that the world is in God, who is yet greater than everything he created. They see it as a balanced middle ground betw...
Presentation at the colloquium La nature chez Thomas d’Aquin: histoire et débats contemporains – organized by Facultés Libres de Philosophie et de Psychologie in Paris in October 2021.
A link to the episode on reductionism recorded with Prof. Wilson Poon recorded for Radio Maria England
Seria 5 artykułów dotyczących natury ludzkiej dla portalu "Contra gentiles" Podstawy chrześcijańskiego rozumienia natury ludzkiej Czym jest dusza ludzka? Skąd się biorą dusze ludzkie? Nieśmiertelność duszy ludzkiej i zmartwychwstanie Wady genetyczne i upośledzenie – wyzwanie dla chrześcijańskiego rozumienia natury ludzkiej https://contragentiles.pl...
Information about the 2022 conference on science and religion organized by the Thomistic Institute at the Angelicum in Rome (within the project for science and religion) and call for papers.
Divine Action and Emergence puts the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition in conversation with current philosophy and theology.
As a middle path between classical theism and pantheism, the panentheistic turn in the twentieth century has been described as a “quiet revolution.” Today, in fact, many theologians hold that the world is “in” God (...
Presentation at the Conference on Teleology in Physics and Biology, at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome - March 2021. See the video recording of the presentation at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5MFZvD0CY4.
W odpowiedzi na tekst Michała Chaberka, będący polemiką z moim stanowiskiem w kwestii teistycznego ewolucjonizmu, zwracam uwagę na kilka kluczowych zagadnień dotyczących filozofii i teologii arystotelesowsko-tomistycznej w kontekście teorii ewolucji, oraz wykazuję pewne nieścisłości i błędy w argumentacji mojego adwersarza. Definiując kluczowe aspe...
Live stream lecture for the Thomistic Institute at the Pontifical University of Sint Thomas Aquinas in Rome delivered on November 17 of 2020
An introduction to the special issue of the journal "Scientia et Fides" on philosophical and theological aspects of evolution. The volume, which I edited, brings a number of interesting contributions written be specialists in this field. All chapters are available at https://apcz.umk.pl/czasopisma/index.php/SetF/issue/view/1957/showToc
Emergence (EM) denotes a wide variety of phenomena – studied by numerous disciplines in natural and human sciences – where new processes, interactions, entities, and properties are claimed to be observed, characteristic for higher levels of complexity of matter and irreducible to their lower-level constituents. Playing central role in systems theor...
Krótki tekst popularnonaukowy przedstawiający sylwetkę Józefa Innocentego Marii Bocheńskiego.
Augustine’s use of the concept of rationes seminales in his interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 enabled him to assert that although God created everything instantaneously, in the initial state of the universe all species were present in the potency of the primordial matter, to be actualized at the consecutive stages of the history of its transformati...
Wykład rozpoczyna przedstawienie syntetycznej wersji teorii ewolucji, a także jej trudności z punktu widzenia nauk szczegółowych, filozofii oraz teologii. Następnie zostają krótko omówione kluczowe stanowiska w teologicznej debacie dotyczącej ewolucjonizmu. Przedmiotem drugiej części wykładu jest analiza opisu dzieła 6 dni w Rdz 1 w ujęciu patrysty...
Pan Bóg w Księdze Rodzaju przekazuje człowiekowi panowanie nad ziemią i stworzeniami. Czy to prawda, że chrześcijaństwo jest odpowiedzialne - przynajmniej pośrednio - za nieograniczoną eksploatację zasobów naturalnych i kryzys ekologiczny? Jak Kościół rozumie stosunek człowieka do świata przyrody? Jakie są fundamentalne założenia katolickiego etosu...
Czy Adam i Ewa w raju nie mieli nigdy umrzeć? A jeśli nie, to w jaki sposób mieliby znaleźć się w niebie? Czy śmierć człowieka jest integralnym aspektem ludzkiej natury, czy też skutkiem upadku pierwszych rodziców? Jakie jest odniesienie chrześcijańskiej teologii śmierci do naszej wiedzy z zakresu biologii i teorii ewolucji?
Many enthusiasts of theistic evolution willingly accept Aquinas’s distinction between primary and secondary causes, to describe theologically “the mechanics” of evolutionary transformism. They claim that God invites and enables contingent entities to participate in his divine act of creating new natural kinds. However, Aquinas clearly states “it is...
The legitimacy of going back to the classical view of God’s action in the world based on the list of causes and understanding of chance in the works of Aristotle and Aquinas – in the context of contemporary science – seems to depend on whether there is a space for causal analysis within the current models of scientific explanation. This article off...
Nagranie wykładu wygłoszonego w Warszawie w ramach cyklu spotkań "Obserwatorium wiary": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9KnTPcqIZ4
Jakkolwiek należy zgodzić się z główną tezą autorów Ewolucji w świetle wiary odnośnie do możliwości ekspresji stwórczej mocy Boga w powstawaniu nowych gatunków istot żywych na drodze ewolucji, trzeba jednocześnie zauważyć, że przedstawiona przez nich argumentacja nie bierze w pełni pod uwagę istotnych trudności oraz związanej z nimi konieczności pe...
Presentation from the open lecture delivered in the department of philosophy at the Catholic University of Taipei. Objective goals of the lecture:
1) Analysis of Augustine’s use of the concept of rationes seminales in his commentary on the creation accounts in Genesis.
2) Answer to the question of whether Augustine’s position might be regarded as e...
Presentation from the public lecture at the Normal University of Shanghai. The lecture concentrates on presentation of the objective features and the metaphysical difficulties of the emergence theory.
This is the pdf of the presentation at the conference entitled Divine Action in an Emerging Universe at the Catholic University in Taipei, Taiwan.
Presentation at the conference on science and religion organized by the International High School in Taipei (Taiwan).
Audio recording of the lecture: https://soundcloud.com/tiangelicum/mariusz-tabaczek-reinterpretation-of-augustines-concept-of-rationes-seminales-4-october-2019.
One of the most important aspects of Augustine’s De Genesi ad Litteram (GaL) is his concept of rationes seminales, which enabled him to assert that although God created everything instanta...
Klasyczna, Arystotelesowska metoda wyjaśniania bytów i zjawisk w świecie, w oparciu o cztery rodzaje przyczyn (materialna, formalna, sprawcza i celowa) oraz filozoficzną analizę zjawisk określanych mianem przypadkowych, została – jak wiadomo – poddana krytyce zarówno na gruncie przyrodoznawstwa jak i filozofii nowożytnej. Odrzucenie przyczyn formal...
Artykuł podejmuje kwestię filozoficznych i teologicznych refleksji inspirowanych modelem kosmologicznym powstania wszechświata z próżni kwantowej w zjawisku tunelowym oraz modelem Hartle’a-Hawkinga. W kontekście tezy o możliwości kosmogenezy ex nihilo bez udziału Boga stworzyciela, przedmiotem analizy staje się ontologiczny status nicości oraz praw...
prezentacja w ramach konferencji "Granice nauki" współorganizowanej przez Uniwersytet Wrocławski i Politechnikę Wrocławską. IV 2019
Hylemorfizm i związane z nim pojęcie duszy ludzkiej, rozumianej jako forma substancjalna bytu ludzkiego, są zwykle wspierane i komentowane przez przedstawicieli tradycji arystotelesowsko-tomistycznej zarówno w jej klasycznym, jak i współczesnym (analitycznym) ujęciu. Jednocześnie hylemorfizm zyskał w ostatnim czasie grupę nowych zwolenników wywodzą...
The Journal Scientia et Fides (ISSN: 2300-7648; E-ISSN: 2353-5636) is currently running a Special Issue entitled “Philosophical and Theological Aspects of Evolution”, edited by Dr. Mariusz Tabaczek OP. Contributions in English, Spanish, Polish, German, French, Italian, or Portuguese, addressing abovementioned or related topics, may be submitted (af...
The ongoing debate on the Christian philosophical and theological approach to the theory of biological evolution is multifaceted. Beginning with the difficulty in defining species and units of evolutionary transitions, it addresses issues related to chance and divine providence, the classical principle of proportionate causation (saying that the ef...
This article readdresses the Przywara-Barth controversy concerning analogia entis. The main point of our analysis is the question of whether the concept of analogy presented by Erich Przywara was in line with the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic definition and use of analogy in theistic predication. First, we ask about Przywara's strong conviction...
Prezentacja podejmuje kwestię tezy niektórych współczesnych kosmologów fizykalnych zakładających możliwość powstania wszechświata ex nihilo bez udziału Boga (model powstania wszechświata z próżni kwantowej w zjawisku tunelowym oraz model Hawkinga-Hartle'a). Analiza ontologicznego statusu nicości oraz praw przyrody we wspomnianych modelach pokazuje,...
