The Thomistic Institute

May 20, 2022 • 48 min

This lecture was given on March 26, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Joining the Dominicans of the Western Province in 1960, Fr. Cole was ordained to the priesthood in 1966. He finished his theological studies at Le Saulchoir in Etiolles, France earning the lectorate and licentiate degrees in 1968. He later received the doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (the Angelicum). After teaching theology and philosophy at Pilarica College for the Notre Dame Sisters (1968-69), Fr. Cole was elected prior of St. Dominic’s in San Francisco, where he also served as parish priest, a member of the provincial council and lecturer at various institutions (1970-1975). Elected prior of Daniel Murphy High School community in Los Angeles he became a member of the Western Dominican preaching band and preached throughout the American West. Fr. Cole was an invited professor at the Angelicum from 1985-97, and has taught moral, spiritual and dogmatic theology at the Dominican House of Studies since 1997. Fr. Cole has authored: Music and Morals, Alba House, Staten Island, New York, 1993; co-authored with Paul Connor, O.P.; Christian Totality: Theology of Consecrated Life, published by St. Paul’s editions in Bombay, India 1990, revised in 1997 Alba House, Staten Island, New York. He has written for The Priest, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Faith and Reason, and Angelicum. He has also been a long time collaborator for Germain Grisez’s four volume series of moral theology, The Way of the Lord Jesus.

May 19, 2022 • 1h 2m

This lecture was given on March 26, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Father Gavin earned his B.A. from Boston College, his M.A. from Fordham University, and his M.Div. from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkley. He received his Sacred Theology Doctorate in Rome and was a lecturer at the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Gregorian University for three years. Fr. Gavin entered the Society of Jesus in 1991 and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 2002. He is the author of 'They are like the angels in the heavens': Angelology and Anthropology in the Thought of Maximus the Confessor (Augustinianum, 2009) and A Celtic Christology: The Incarnation According to John Scottus Eriugena (Cascade, 2014).

May 18, 2022 • 1h 5m

This lecture was given on March 26, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr Oliver is the Director of the Aquinas Institute and a member of the Theology Faculty at the University of Oxford. As Fellow and Lector, Fr Oliver teaches Systematic Theology at Blackfriars. As Director of the Aquinas Institute, he has responsibility for coordinating its research programme and for organising its annual programme of reading classes, seminars, lectures and colloquia. He completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford (under the supervision of Professor Graham Ward). His doctoral work outlined a semantic ontology for Christian dogmatics, in dialogue with the philosophy of Michael Polanyi. He specialises in theological ontology, theological epistemology, and twentieth-century dogmatics, particularly Catholic receptions of Karl Barth. Together with Dr Daniel De Haan, he is leading a two-year Templeton-funded project on ‘Truth, Aquinas, and the Theological Turn in Continental Philosophy‘. In addition to his work at Blackfriars, he is a Translation Fellow of the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary; an Associate Lecturer at the Maryvale Institute; Trustee of the Eckhart Society; a member of the Editorial Board of New Blackfriars; and the Master of Students for the English Dominicans.

May 17, 2022 • 1h 9m

This lecture was given on March 25, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Heereman was born and raised in a devout Catholic family in Germany. Originally trained to become a lawyer, she experienced a deep encounter with the Lord which led her to discern a vocation as a lay woman celibate for the sake of the kingdom. She received two years of spiritual formation and attended the ICPE school of Evangelization in India, Banglore, which eventually led her to theological studies so as to consecrate her life to the study and teaching of the Word of God. She received an STB from the Pontifical Gregorian University, an SSL from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and the SSD from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem on and the Université de Fribourg. During and after her doctoral studies she lectured at the Collège des Bernhardins, Paris, and the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome as a visiting professor. Explaining her discernment to join St. Patrick’s faculty, Dr. Heereman writes: “In particular, I desire to open up the treasures of the Scriptures to future priests so that their ministry might be rooted in the Word of God as the living source of their life and preaching. I am deeply committed to the Church’s desire to make ‘the study of the sacred page the very soul of theology’ (DV 24).”

May 16, 2022 • 1h 5m

Access Fr. Ku's handout here: https://tinyurl.com/a37v477v This lecture was given on March 25, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. John Baptist Ku was born in Manhattan (1965) and grew up in Fairfax, Virginia. After graduating from the University of Virginia, he worked at AT&T for five years before entering the Dominican Order in 1992. After serving for three years in St. Pius V Parish in Providence, Rhode Island, he completed his doctoral studies in dogmatic theology at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and began teaching for the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in 2009.

May 13, 2022 • 1h 18m

This lecture was given on March 9, 2022 at Texas A&M University. The slides for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/5bv6865r. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.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 relationship between science and faith—in particular, the relationship between neuroscience and the soul, the overreaching claims of science, and the dignity of the human person, to name a few. Saint Thomas Aquinas has been a major influence in Dr. LaPenna’s intellectual and faith journey. Dr. LaPenna was previously a collegiate runner and now enjoys running recreationally, hiking, and spending time outdoors. Most of all, he loves his wife Nicole and their two daughters, Catherine and Susanna.

May 12, 2022 • 58 min

You can view Fr. Hofer's handout here: https://tinyurl.com/2p9c8h72 This lecture was given on February 3, 2022 at Queens University. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., is Associate Professor and Director of the Doctoral Program at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. His research appears in Augustinianum, The Journal of the History of Ideas, Nova et Vetera, Pro Ecclesia, Studia Patristica, The Thomist, Vigiliae Christianae, and other journals and volume collections. He is the author of Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oxford University Press); the editor of Divinization: Becoming Icons of Christ through the Liturgy (Hillenbrand Books); co-author of A Living Sacrifice: Guidance for Men Discerning Religious Life (Vianney Publications), and co-editor of Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers (Sapientia Press) and Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology (Sapientia Press). He is presently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Deification and The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Sermons, and he is finishing his book funded by a Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Teacher-Scholar grant, The Word in Our Flesh: The Power of Patristic Preaching.

May 11, 2022 • 1h 9m

This lecture was given on March 21, 2022 at the University of California, Berkeley. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Heereman was born and raised in a devout Catholic family in Germany. Originally trained as a lawyer, Dr. Heereman experienced a deep conversion experience at the 1997 World Youth Day. This conversion led her to discern a vocation as a lay woman “celibate for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” and also led her to theological studies so as to “consecrate [her] life to the study and teaching of the Word of God”. She received an STB from the Pontifical Gregorian University, an SSL from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and the very rare SSD from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem and the Université de Fribourg. Her doctoral thesis “Behold King Solomon on the Day of His Wedding”: A Symbolic-Diachronic Reading of Song 3:6-11 and 4:12-5:1 has been heralded by scholars as a profound contribution to scholarship on the Song of Songs. Dr. Heereman is presently an Assistant Professor of Sacred Scripture at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, CA.

May 10, 2022 • 56 min

This lecture was given on March 18, 2022 at Auburn University. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Jennifer Frey is an associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. Prior to joining the philosophy faculty at USC, she was a Collegiate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts. She has published widely on virtue and moral psychology and she has co-edited three volumes on Self-Transcendence and Virtue, Practical Wisdom, and Practical Truth. Her writing has been featured in Breaking Ground, Evangelization and Culture, First Things, Fare Forward, Image, Law and Liberty, The Point, and USA Today.

May 9, 2022 • 50 min

This lecture was given on March 16, 2022 at the University of South Carolina. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Father Thomas Petri, O.P. is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, where he also serves as an assistant professor of moral theology and pastoral studies. Ordained a priest in 2009, he holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from The Catholic University of America.

May 6, 2022 • 52 min

This lecture was given on March 10, 2022 at the University of Tulsa. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Brian T. Carl earned his M.A. in Philosophy from Saint Louis University and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Catholic University of America. He is an assistant professor at the Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. His research focuses on Thomistic metaphysics, philosophical theology, cognitive theory, and moral psychology.

May 5, 2022 • 44 min

Professor Joshua Hochschild discusses the metaphysical implications of reverse engineering human beings through artificial intelligence (AI) and neuroscience, arguing that despite technological advancements, human intelligence cannot be fully replicated by machines due to its non-physical nature. This lecture was given on March 3, 2022 at Iowa State University. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Joshua Hochschild is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Mount St. Mary’s University, where he also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.

May 4, 2022 • 52 min

This lecture was given on March 3, 2022 at the University of Florida. Handout: https://tinyurl.com/2p863z2k For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Dominic Langevin is an assistant professor of systematic theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, and editor in chief of the journal The Thomist. He specializes in sacramental theology. He did his undergraduate studies at Yale University and his doctoral studies at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He was formerly assigned as a parochial vicar at St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish in Charlottesville, Virginia, serving the University of Virginia.

May 3, 2022 • 1h 27m

This lecture was given on March 3, 2022 at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Gregory T. Doolan received his B.A. in political theory from Georgetown University in 1993 and his Ph.D. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America in 2003. He taught philosophy at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. from 2004–05 and joined the faculty of the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in 2005. Dr. Doolan’s research interest is in the area of Aquinas’s metaphysics; in recent years, his focus has been on Aquinas’s account of the Aristotelian categories of being. A native of Philadelphia, Dr. Doolan currently lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and three children.

Apr 27, 2022 • 55 min

This lecture was given on February 27, 2022 at Cedarbrake Renewal Center as part of the Second Annual Texas Student Retreat: "The Meaning of Death and Eternal Life." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Bruce D. Marshall is Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine at Southern Methodist University. His teaching specialties are Medieval and Reformation theology and systematic theology. His research interests include Doctrine of the Trinity, Christology, philosophical issues in theology, sacramental theology, and Judaism and Christian theology. He is the author of Trinity and Truth (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Apr 26, 2022 • 48 min

This lecture was given on February 25, 2022 at Cedarbrake Renewal Center as part of the Second Annual Texas Student Retreat: "The Meaning of Death and Eternal Life." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Jonah Teller, O.P., is a friar of the Dominican Province of Saint Joseph. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Dallas in 2011, entered the Order of Preachers in 2013, and was ordained a priest in May of 2020. He holds a licentiate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.

Apr 25, 2022 • 55 min

This lecture was given on March 9, 2022 at Washington and Lee University. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Kevin Hart is the Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia where he also holds professorships in the Departments of English and French. His most recent scholarly books include Kingdoms of God (Indiana UP, 2014) and Poetry and Revelation (Bloomsbury, 2017). Among the books he has edited are Jean-Luc Marion: The Essential Writings (Fordham UP, 2013) and The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas between Jews and Christians(Fordham UP, 2010). He is currently editing the fifth volume of a multivolume series The Bible and Literature, which will appear with Bloomsbury in 2020. His poetry is gathered in Wild Track: New and Selected Poems (Notre Dame UP, 2015) and Barefoot (Notre Dame UP, 2018). Among other honors, he holds an honorary doctoral degree in Philosophy from the Institut Catholique de Paris.

Apr 22, 2022 • 1h 4m

Prof. Knobel's presentation slides can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/2p8as75m This lecture was given on March 24, 2022 at Texas State University. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Angela Knobel is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. She received her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame in 2004. From 2004 to 2020, she taught philosophy at her alma mater, the Catholic University of America. Her work focuses primarily on Aquinas’ theory of infused virtue, virtue ethics and applied ethics. Her book Aquinas and the Infused Moral Virtues is forthcoming from the University of Notre Dame Press.

Apr 21, 2022 • 1h 15m

This lecture was given on March 17, 2022 at the University of Maryland, College Park. The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/4nh6uavk. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.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.

Apr 20, 2022 • 54 min

This lecture was given on March 3, 2022 at Trinity College Dublin. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: John M. Rist was educated in classics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He taught Greek at University College in the University of Toronto from 1959 to 1969 and from 1969 to 1980 was a professor of classics at the University of Toronto. He taught from 1980 to 1983 as Regius Professor of Classics at the University of Aberdeen, and returned to the University of Toronto, where he was professor of classics and philosophy from 1983 to 1996, with a cross-appointment to St. Michael's College from 1983 to 1990. In 1997, Rist became professor emeritus of the University of Toronto in 1997. He has been part-time visiting professor at the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome since 1998. In 1976 Rist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 1991 he was elected a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. In 1995 he was the Lady Davis Visiting Professor in Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Professor Rist has written more than 100 scholarly works, including the following books: Man, Soul and Body: Essays in Ancient Thought from Plato to Dionysius (1996), Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (1994), The Mind of Aristotle (1989), Platonism and Its Christian Heritage (1985), Human Value: A Study of Ancient Philosophical Ethics (1982), On the Independence of Matthew and Mark (1978), The Stoics (1978), Epicurus: An Introduction (1972), Stoic Philosophy (1969), Plotinus: The Road to Reality (1967), and Eros and Psyche: Studies in Plato, Plotinus and Origen (1964). He is the author of more than 80 articles on ancient Greek philosophy, Hellenistic philosophy, Plotinus and Neoplatonism, Patristics, and medieval philosophy.