It’s pretty easy for religious people — especially Christians — to answer the question, “What is your faith about?" The object of our faith (the Triune God, incarnate in the Christ) is always at the forefront.  Exactly what faith is and what it means to “have” it is not so clear. Sometimes we think of it as strictly a moral code for the conduct of life.  Other times it seems more a set of propositions to “believe” in much the same way we might believe other “facts” about the world (think of the Creed).  Still other times we experience faith as a “leap” beyond certainty — an epoxy that fills in the gaps between what we have sufficient evidence to believe and what we want to be true. For many, these options lead us to use faith to insulate ourselves from the unpleasant conditions of the world rather than engage them.

At The Ockham Center, we examine how faith is much more than doctrine or a “theory” of how things are – an oracle of unquestioned “Truth.” Faith, we hold, is a lived, communal experience that can inspire us to engage the world to transform it and ourselves, through the grace of God. In the Catholic tradition, this involves constant metanoia – literally, going beyond one’s mind to see the world differently from before – and embracing it sacramentally, as if God were occasionally pulling back the veil between us and the divine. We seek not to proselytize or preach, however, but rather cultivate a shared “grammar of faith” that allows people of other faiths and no faith at all to speak a common language that fosters our efforts to heal a broken world.

Through seminars, webinars, workshops, panels, and a monthly newsletter, The Ockham Center is building a community in downtown Chicago and beyond that is willing to bring contrasting and conflicting views to the table and address patiently the challenges that plague our society and our planet: climate change, unfettered commercial technology, militarism, persistent poverty amid wealth, political and ideological polarization, and too many more to enumerate — and to examine the role that religious faith may or may not play in addressing these challenges, even as it wanes in cultures where a Judeo-Christian outlook once reigned supreme. Our aim is personal and systemic transformation through human contact, actual or virtual. No podcasts. No Tik-Toks. No “influencers.” Just genuine dialog. Come join the conversation.

To view a list of substantive areas The Ockham Center addresses, click on the “For Catholics” and “For Everyone” links above. To see a current calendar of seminars, webinars, etc., for which you can register, click on the “Schedule” link. To simply sign up for our newsletter and communications about upcoming events, click on the “Sign Up” button above or the “Join Us” button anywhere you see it.

William of Ockham

William of Ockham (1287-1347), the Center’s namesake, was a Franciscan theologian and philosopher. His scholarship is reflected today in areas such as political philosophy and logic, and his famous principle of parsimony – Ockham’s Razor – still inspires thinkers to “shave” excess theoretical baggage from their understanding of the world and of God and to use simple, non-technical language whenever possible.

Edward Tverdek

Fr. Edward Tverdek, OFM, PhD., Director of The Ockham Center, is a  formerly lapsed (20+ years) Roman Catholic, now a vowed Franciscan and a priest/Confessor at St. Peter’s Church in Chicago’s Loop. He is the author of numerous articles on social & political philosophy, science & technology, and theology, as well as The Moral Weight of Ecology (Lexington, 2015).  As an occasional adjunct lecturer in Philosophy over the years, he’s taught courses on topics as diverse as environmental economics, the philosophy of love and sex, Marxist and feminist theory, religious epistemology, and the later writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein — as well as traditional American music on guitar and banjo as a teaching artist for Chicago’s venerable Old Town School of Folk Music.