Dr. David Beresford

Professor: Mathematics, Natural Science

Any student who has taken scientific or mathematical courses at OLSWA can tell you that one of the Academy’s most memorable and colourful professors is Dr. David Beresford, who teaches Biology, Environmental Science, Euclidean Geometry, Statistics, among other courses. This past December Dr. Beresford delivered an address at an OLSWA fundraiser dinner on teaching science from a Catholic perspective. He offered some extremely worthwhile insights into the relationship between empirical knowledge and spiritual belief, and the role both play in a Catholic education.

The temporal and the infinite are both at the centre of our Faith, and to grow in that Faith we must seek to better understand the truth of both. The Catholic approach to attaining truth, Dr. Beresford held, is “to understand all things as wholes and not just as aggregates of different parts.” Hence the need to study science, since it brings us to the truth.

Scientific inquiry will never lead us away from the faith, for, as Dr. Beresford noted, “there is no necessary contradiction between a scientific world view and a Catholic world view. Indeed, a scientific world view is a subset of the larger, Catholic one. . . Actually, the Church is a champion of the scientific method, because the church is one of the few remaining champions of human reason.” Essentially, science sets out with the same objective as faith - to come to the truth. We can be confident that the truth of science and the truth of faith will never diverge, for truth is always one and the same.

Dr. Beresford explained how he seeks to show his classes that true science based on reason is both trustworthy and worthwhile. “Our students must know and reverence the power of science for learning new things; that we use our God-given reason and intelligence to leverage induction coupled with falsification to discover new things about the natural world. . . Etienne Gilson put it this way: ‘...far from keeping away from science, a truly religious mind should do its utmost to follow it in its progress, as the most perfect homage rendered by Dr. Beresford instructs his biology class on how to measure crayfish attributes.nature to its Creator.’ ”

He went on to express in his address the need to experience science in a practical and immediate way - to actually walk out into nature and observe rather than simply sitting by and receiving knowledge second-hand. The mere experience of taking a walking stick in hand before venturing out expresses the unity of science and faith: “[B]oth the Catholic and scientific world views are informed by grasping a walking stick: our need of physical things, our role as tool makers, that reality is mediated by things, and that these have many uses. This last idea is a natural stage from which to teach about sacraments and sacramentals.”

The professor concluded by observing that science, when conducted properly, should stir in the student a sense both of humility and of gratitude - humility in seeing the awesome grandeur of God and our own limits in using and understanding it, and gratitude for the fantastic gift of it which the Lord has made to us. It is this sense that Dr. Beresford tries to cultivate in his classes by introducing them to the wonders of nature. It is the sense that every Catholic ought to nurture in themselves at all times. OLSWA counts itself extremely fortunate to have a professor who always exhibits this sense himself.

Back to Spotlight Archives