Stanley Jaki


Stanley L. Jaki was a Hungarian-born priest of the Benedictine order. From 1975 to his death, he was Distinguished University Professor at Seton Hall University, in South Orange, New Jersey. He held doctorates in theology and in physics and was a leading contributor to the philosophy of science and the history of science, particularly to their relationship to Christianity. In 2018, Jaki was named one of five Catholic scientists "that shaped our understanding of the world" by Aleteia; the other four are: Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Giuseppe Mercalli and Georges Lemaitre.

Studies

After completing undergraduate training in philosophy, theology and mathematics, Jaki did graduate work in theology and physics and gained doctorates in theology from the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome and in physics from Fordham University, where he studied under the Nobel laureate Victor Hess, the co-discoverer of cosmic rays. He also did post-doctoral research in Philosophy of Science at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Princeton University and Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

Research

Jaki authored more than two dozen books on the relation between modern science and Christianity. He was Fremantle Lecturer at Balliol College, Oxford, Hoyt Fellow at Yale University and Farmington Institute Lecturer at Oxford University. He was the Gifford Lecturer at Edinburgh University in 1974–1975 and 1975–1976. In 1987, he was awarded the Templeton Prize for furthering understanding of science and religion.
He was among the first to claim that Gödel's incompleteness theorem is relevant for theories of everything in theoretical physics. Gödel's theorem states that any theory that includes certain basic facts of number theory and is computably enumerable will be either incomplete or inconsistent. Since any 'theory of everything' must be consistent, it also must be incomplete.

Death

Jaki died in Madrid following a heart attack. He was in Spain visiting friends, on his way back to the United States after delivering lectures in Rome, for the Master in Faith and Science of the Pontificio Ateneo Regina Apostolorum.