Many people were surprised when Robert Prevost was elected as the new pope of the Catholic Church on May 8. He is highly qualified and by all accounts an exceptional person, but he was not one of the betting favorites. He was also born in the U.S., making him the first American-born pope in the church's history. By taking the name Leo XIV, he also signaled a connection to prior popes of that name, including Pope Leo XII who led the church in the late 1800s and is known for his contributions to Catholic social teaching.
Pope Leo XIV has already made headlines with his first address to Catholic leadership in which he laid out his vision for the Catholic Church and expressed his thoughts about what he considers the most pressing issues facing humanity. Interestingly, among those are the rise of artificial intelligence.
But I want to draw your attention to something he wrote long before he was elected as pope. He majored in mathematics in college and undertook extensive theological training, and it is this combination of the mathematical and theological that caught my eye.
In 1990 he published a book called Probabilistic and Theistic Explanation that brings together his mathematical, theological, and philosophical interests.
As soon as I learned about this book, I looked to see if the UCI Library had it, and it did! So, I rushed over to Langson, eventually got the book (after getting a library worker to reset the rolling shelf that wasn't working properly), checked it out, and read it over the next several days.
Remember Pascal's decision from way back in the first chapter and lectures of our class? Well, I think that the simplest way to describe Prevost's book to you is that in it he is confronting philosophical issues related to what variable p should be, i.e., what probability should be assigned to the existence of God. But the book is not about what specific value p should take. Instead, the book is about how people should think about how to determine what p is. What different types of logical and philosophical arguments can be used, what are the pros and cons of different types of arguments and evidence, and so on.
The main point he makes is two-fold. First, deductive arguments in which a person assumes a premise about the world and then deduces Gods' existence are less compelling for deciding what p is. Second, the most appropriate kind of argument is an inductive one in which a person considers a large body of evidence holistically and concludes that the existence of God best explains the evidence.
You do not need to read this book for our class, but you should know at the least that people continue to think deeply about key ideas that you've been taught. What probability should a person assign to the existence of God? How should a person even go about thinking about how to assign that probability? Are some ways of thinking about the existence of God more appropriate than others? These are questions that people--both religious and not religious--have been taking seriously for hundreds of years. And will take seriously for hundreds of years more.
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This post gives great insights on the extent to which the content in our course is discussed. Finding out the the new Pope published a book about how people should think in order to determine what p is, is very interesting. It makes me wonder if Pope Leo XIV would still make the same two-fold point or if he would update his points and add more ways to think about how to approach what p is. I think the lecture in our course does a great job explaining that many individuals upbringings and environmental influences play a large role in their view and approach to religions. This makes me wonder how difficult it is for an individual to try and develop a position of "how to think" in a certain manner.
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