Is There Meaning to Life? Jordan Peterson, Rebecca Goldstein, William Lane Craig

On January 26th at the University of Toronto 1500 people packed into Convocation Hall to watch a fascinating dialogue on the meaning of life featuring philosopher William Lane Craig, psychology professor Dr. Jordan Peterson, and philosopher and author Dr. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (moderated by journalist Karen Stiller).

This dialogue is part of the ongoing Religion and Society Series - previously featuring speakers such as Lawrence Krauss, Alister McGrath, and Michael Shermer; check out the Wycliffe College YouTube channel to watch the previous dialogues; for more information about the series go here: www.wycliffecollege.ca/religionandsociety. For media inquiries, please contact Wycliffe College’s Communications Director, Patricia Paddey or Program Director, Steve Hewko.

(Hosts and sponsoring organizations are committed to a manner of discourse that respects the dignity of all human beings, and do not necessarily endorse the perspectives or opinions of the speakers).

Dr. William Lane Craig is a Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology and Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University. He has authored or edited over thirty books, including The Kalam Cosmological Argument; Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus; Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom; Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology; and God, Time and Eternity, as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology, including The Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science. In 2016 Dr. Craig was named by The Best Schools as one of the fifty most influential living philosophers.

Dr Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. Currently, she is Visiting Professor of Philosophy at New College of the Humanities, London, England. She graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College and received her PhD in philosophy from Princeton University. She is the author of ten books, which have received wide attention from such publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The London Times, The Globe and Mail. In 2011, she delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Yale University, and in 2005 was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has won numerous awards, for both her fiction and scholarship, including, in 1995, a MacArthur Fellowship prize, popularly known in the U.S. as the Genius Award. In 2015, she was awarded the National Medal of the Humanities by President Obama in a ceremony at the White House.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson has taught mythology to lawyers, doctors and businessmen, consulted for the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Sustainable Development, helped his clinical clients manage depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia, served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms, identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs on six different continents, and lectured extensively in North America and Europe. With his students and colleagues, Dr. Peterson has published more than a hundred scientific papers, transforming the modern understanding of personality, and revolutionized the psychology of religion with his now-classic book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. As a Harvard professor, he was nominated for the prestigious Levinson Teaching Prize, and is regarded by his current University of Toronto students as one of three truly life-changing teachers.

MODERATOR
Karen Stiller is a freelance writer and editor, and senior editor of Faith Today, Canada’s Christian magazine. Her work has appeared in The Walrus, Reader’s Digest and other publications. She has co-authored or edited several books including Evangelicals Around the World: A Global Handbook for the 20th century (Thomas Nelson), and The Lord’s Prayer (Wipf & Stock) a collection of essays by Wycliffe College faculty, and has received the A. C. Forrest Memorial Award for excellence in socially conscious religious journalism. www.karenstiller.com