fiit-broschuere2024 - Flipbook - Seite 52
The next step after establishing the research areas was to organize
attractive international and interdisciplinary research projects and
finance them with third-party funds. As a visiting professor at Princeton (several times), Harvard, the University of Chicago, and Cambridge/UK, Prof. Welker had gained a wealth of experience in successful
research organization. Not one-off consultations but only those lasting
several years brought sustainable, successful cooperation among different faculties. However, multiyear consultations were time-consuming
and costly. It was also not easy to attract high-caliber researchers for
such time-consuming and travel-intensive undertakings.
Prof. Welker organized the first consultations as a Senior Consultant
Scholar at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton and at the
University of Chicago. Several projects were devoted to cooperation
between theology and the natural sciences, first with physics, then also
with biology. These projects dealt with concepts of God and God’s activity, God and time, and the question of God’s activity in view of the
finite nature of the world and the universe.
A great number of other collaborations and publications in the dialogue between theology and the natural sciences were supported by the
John Templeton Foundation. Dr. Mary Ann Meyers, Senior Fellow
at the Foundation, organized international symposia in which natural
scientists, theologians and philosophers participated. Under her initiative and financed by the Foundation, the FIIT was asked to organize a
major conference at the University of Heidelberg in 2012: „The Science
and Religion Dialogue: Past and Future.“ 60 of the leading scholars in
the field came together and harvested their insights, and in addition
the 100th birthday of Sir John Templeton and the 25th anniversary of
his Foundation were marked.
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