The Thomistic Institute

Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Dr. V. Bradley Lewis about his latest Thomistic Institute, "It's My Right: What Are Natural Rights and What Rights Do We Have?". What Natural Rights Do I Have? w/ Dr. V. Bradley Lewis and Fr. Gregory Pine (Off-Campus Conversations) You can listen to the original lecture here: https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/prof-v-bradley-lewis-its-my-right-what-are-natural-rights-and-what-rights-do-we-have For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: V. Bradley Lewis is associate professor in the School of Philosophy in the Catholic University of America. He specializes in political and legal philosophy, especially that of the classical Greeks and in the Thomistic tradition, and is currently working on a book on the idea of the common good. In addition to these things he has served as a consultant on ethics to the federal government, testified before a congressio

This talk was given on April 12th, 2023 at the University of South Carolina. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Thomas Hibbs is currently J. Newton Rayzor Sr. Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University, where he is also Dean Emeritus, having served for 16 years as Dean of the Honors College and as Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture. Hibbs received a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and has served as tutor at Thomas Aquinas College, Full Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at Boston College, and President of the University of Dallas. Hibbs works in the areas of medieval philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas, contemporary virtue ethics, and aesthetics. He has published more than thirty scholarly articles and seven books, as well as 100 reviews and discussion articles on film, theater, art, and higher education in a variety of venues.

This lecture was given on March 8, 2023 at Vanderbilt University. The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/yw4y92cn. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Stephen Meredith is a professor at the University of Chicago’s Departments of Pathology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Neurology. He is also an associate faculty member in the University of Chicago Divinity School. He has published more than 100 journal articles, focusing on the biophysics of protein structure. Much of his work has been the application of solution and solid-state NMR to the study of amyloid proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease. He has also published articles on literature and philosophy in diverse aspects of medical humanities and bioethics. His teaching includes courses to graduate students in biochemistry and biophysics, medical students, and undergraduates and graduate student

This lecture was given on March 29, 2023 at Trinity College Dublin. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Gaven Kerr is a married father of three and a third order Dominican. He has degrees in scholastic philosophy and philosophy from Queen’s University Belfast: BA, MPhil, and PhD. His doctoral research was on the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant. Gaven’s research focuses on the thought of St Thomas Aquinas and his connection with other important thinkers in the history of philosophy and theology. He has published articles in the Thomist, the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Journal of Philosophical Research, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society. Gaven has two books with Oxford University Press. The first was published in 2015, Aquinas’s Way to God, and it dealt with Aquinas’s proof of God in the De Ente et Essentia. His second book which is due out later this yea

This lecture was given on March 7, 2023 at North Carolina State University. The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/3t2jnkc4. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: James Madden is Professor of Philosophy at Benedictine College. He lives in Atchison, Kansas with his wife (Jennifer) and their six children; William, Martha, J. Patrick, Brendan, Jack, and Cormac. He is originally from Wisconsin, where he received a B.A. from St. Norbert College, and did his graduate work at Kent State (MA, 1998) and Purdue (Ph.D., 2002). He was awarded the Benedictine College Distinguished Educator of the Year Award in 2006.

This lecture was given at the University of Washington on January 27, 2023. For more information about upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Dr. Matthew J. Thomas is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology Department Chair at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, CA, and an instructor in Theology with Regent College, Vancouver. He received a D.Phil in Theology (New Testament and Patristics) from the University of Oxford. He is the author of Paul's 'Works of the Law' in the Perspective of Second Century Reception, which received the Jesus Creed Book of the Year award in 2018. His research areas include Pauline theology, patristics (particularly the ante-Nicene period), and early Christian interpretation of Scripture. Matthew and his wife Leeanne live in California with their four children, Camille, Raphael, Michael and Agnes, who are also aspiring theologians.

Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Ross McCullough. How Does Christ Save Us? w/ Prof. Ross McCullough and Fr. Gregory Pine (Off-Campus Conversations) You can listen to the original lecture here: https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/making-sense-of-the-atonement-prof-ross-mccullough For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Ross McCullough joined George Fox University as an assistant professor of theology and faculty fellow in the George Fox University Honors Program in 2018. He studied patristic theology at the University of Notre Dame before doing a doctorate at Yale University at the intersection of systematic theology and analytic philosophy of religion. Dr. McCullough's first book, Freedom and Sin: Evil in a World Created by God (Eerdmans, 2022) reconciles traditional Christian commitments to, on the one hand, God causing all that is and, on the other, God in no way being res

This talk was given on April 10th, 2023 at Ohio State University. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Gina Maria Noia is an Assistant Professor of Theology and Resident Bioethicist at Belmont Abbey College. She received her Ph.D. in Theology and Health Care Ethics from Saint Louis University. She has served as a clinical ethicist for OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, IL and St. Alexius Hospital in St. Louis, MO, and she is published in Christian Bioethics and the Journal of Moral Theology. She and her husband, Justin, love spending time with their vivacious one-year-old boy.

This talk was given at the University of Oregon on March 15, 2023. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Ross McCullough joined George Fox University as an assistant professor of theology and faculty fellow in the George Fox University Honors Program in 2018. He studied patristic theology at the University of Notre Dame before doing a doctorate at Yale University at the intersection of systematic theology and analytic philosophy of religion. Dr. McCullough's first book, Freedom and Sin: Evil in a World Created by God (Eerdmans, 2022) reconciles traditional Christian commitments to, on the one hand, God causing all that is and, on the other, God in no way being responsible for sin. He also has academic publications on the doctrine of hell, the Eucharist, the hermeneutics of Scripture, and liberation theology. His popular articles have appeared in First Things, Commonweal, and America Magazine, among other venues. Dr. McCullough lives with his wife and four children acr

This talk was given on March 28th, 2023 at Regent University. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies and Affiliate Professor of Political Science at Baylor University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy. Among his over one dozen books are Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant (Baylor University Press, 2019), Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2015), winner of the American Academy of Religion's prestigious 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Constructive-Reflective Studies. He is a graduate of the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis (MJS) as well as Fordham University (PhD, MA, philosophy).

This talk was given on March 23, 2023 at the University of Dallas. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. William E. Carroll is Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Philosophy at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (Wuhan, China) and Senior Research Fellow at the Collegium of Anton Neuwirth (Bratislava, Slovakia). His specialty is the relationship among the natural sciences, philosophy, and theology, with an emphasis on Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the doctrine of creation. He is the author of works and articles including Creation and Science: Has Science Eliminated God?; Galileo: Science and Faith; and (with Steven Baldner) Aquinas on Creation. Beginning in 2013, he has spent several weeks each year giving lectures and seminars at various Chinese universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wuhan.

This talk was given on March 6th, 2023 at Oxford University. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Lewis Ayres is Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology at Durham University in the United Kingdom. He specializes in the study of early Christian theology, especially the history of Trinitarian theology and early Christian exegesis. He is also deeply interested in the relationship between the shape of early Christian modes of discourse and reflection and the manner in which renewals of Catholic theology during the last hundred years have attempted to engage forms of modern historical consciousness and sought to negotiate the shape of appropriate scriptural interpretation in modernity, even as they remain faithful to the practices of classical Catholic discourse and contemplation. His publications include Augustine and the Trinity (2010) and Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Trinitarian Theology (2004). He is co-editor of the Cambridge History of Early Christia

This talk was given on April 27th, 2023 at Georgetown University. The slides for the lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/yus8cvkx For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Patrick Callahan is director of the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as well as Assistant Professor of English & Humanities at St. Gregory the Great Seminary. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Dallas and his graduate work at Fordham University in Classical Philology. While his doctoral work focused on ancient Greek commentaries to the lyric poet Pindar, his recent work focuses on early Jesuit Latin texts.

This talk was given on March 3rd, 2023 at New York University. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Karin Öberg is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. Her specialty is astrochemistry and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the chemical habitability of nascent planets. Dr. Öberg obtained her B.Sc. in chemistry at Caltech in 2005, and her Ph.D. in astronomy, with a thesis focused on laboratory astrochemistry, from Leiden University in 2009. She did postdoctoral work at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a NASA Hubble fellow, focusing on millimeter observations of planet-forming disks around young stars. In 2013 she joined the Harvard astronomy faculty as an assistant professor. She was promoted and named the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor in Astronomy in 2016, and promoted to full professor with tenure in 2017. Dr. Öberg’s research in astrochemistry has been recognized with a

This lecture was given on February 8, 2023 at Trinity University, San Antonio. The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/yczkuphu. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Sister Elinor Gardner is a member of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. Before arriving at University of Dallas, she taught at Aquinas College in Nashville, TN and at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Her doctoral work (Boston College) was on the ethics of Thomas Aquinas ("St Thomas Aquinas on the Death Penalty").

This talk was given on February 7th, 2023 at Texas A and M University. For more information please visit thomisticinstitue.org. About the speaker: Michael Gorman is professor of philosophy at The Catholic University of America. He has doctorates in philosophy and theology. He has authored over thirty-five academic papers and a book entitled Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union (Cambridge University Press, 2017). His main interests are metaphysics, human nature, and ethics. He is working on a textbook in metaphysics and on a short book on human nature and human dignity.

This talk was given on February 23, 2023 at the University of South Carolina. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Paul LaPenna is a neurologist in Greenville, SC and Associate Professor of Neurology at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, Carolinas Campus. Dr. LaPenna completed his neurology residency at Indiana University School of Medicine in 2018. As a neurohospitalist, Dr. LaPenna’s skill set is focused on treatment of neurological emergencies and performing and interpreting electrophysiological studies of the brain and peripheral nervous system. As an Associate Professor of Neurology, Dr. LaPenna has won numerous teaching awards, including Clinical Medicine Professor of the neuroscience curriculum in 2019, 2020, and 2021. For the 2020-2021 academic year, Dr. LaPenna was awarded the Preceptor of the Year. For his care towards patients, he was elected to the Arnold P. Gold Humanism Honor Society in 2016. Dr. LaPenna has an interest in the rela

Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Paige Hochschild. Why the Roman Catholic Church? w/ Prof. Paige Hochschild and Fr. Gregory Pine (Off-Campus Conversations) You can listen to the original lecture here: https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/why-the-roman-catholic-church-prof-paige-hochschild For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Paige Hochschild is a professor of historical and systematic theology at Mount St. Mary's University (MD), specializing in Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and the early Church. She also teaches philosophy courses at the Seminary at Mount St. Mary's. She has written a book on the place of memory in Augustine's theological anthropology, and publishes on the Church, education, tradition, 20th c. theological debates within the Church (Scripture, history; marriage).

This talk was given on February 16th, 2023 at the University of Texas at Austin. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., grew up as the youngest of ten children on a farm in Kansas, and studied history, philosophy, and classics at Benedictine College. He then went to St Andrews, Scotland for a Master of Letters in medieval history. He entered the Order of Preachers as a son of the Province of St. Joseph, and was ordained a priest in 2002. After finishing his S.T.L. and serving as an associate pastor for a brief time, he was sent to Kenya as a missionary for two years. He taught at the Tangaza College of The Catholic University of Eastern Africa and other institutions in Nairobi. He returned to the U.S. and completed a Ph.D. in theology at the University of Notre Dame, with the primary area of history of Christianity, specializing in patristic theology with additional studies in medieval theology, and the secondary area of systematic theology. H

This talk was given on February 21st, 2023 at Hillsdale College. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: John A. Cuddeback, PhD, is professor of Philosophy at Christendom College, where he has taught for twenty-five years. He lectures widely on topics including virtue, fatherhood, friendship, and household, and his professional writings appear in various academic journals and books. His book True Friendship is being republished by Ignatius Press. His blogging at BaconFromAcorns and LifeCraft is renowned for applying an ancient wisdom to life today.