Conferences Episodes

Sept. 8, 2025

Predictive AI, Manipulation, and Human Freedom According to Aquinas I…

Fr. Anselm Ramelow explores the tension between predictive artificial intelligence and human freedom, drawing on St. Thomas Aquinas to argue that while AI and social systems can influence and predict behavior to a certain degree, genuine free will and moral responsibility remain grounded in rationa…

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Sept. 5, 2025

AI and Interpersonal Relationships I Prof. Jordan Wales

Prof. Jordan Wales explores the ethical and spiritual implications of interpersonal relationships with artificial intelligence, emphasizing the dangers of mistaking AI’s simulated personhood for authentic human connection.

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Sept. 4, 2025

AI and Ethics I Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P.

Fr. Anselm Ramelow examines the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence, highlighting both its beneficial uses and its risks to human dignity, personal relationships, moral growth, and authenticity.

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Sept. 3, 2025

AI and Knowledge of the World I Prof. Jordan Wales

Prof. Jordan Wales explores how artificial intelligence and neural networks engage with meaning and knowledge, contrasting their statistical methods with the depth of human conceptual understanding rooted in philosophical and...

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Sept. 2, 2025

Mind, Matter, and Life: Can Machines be People, too? I Fr. Anselm Ram…

Fr. Anselm Ramelow examines whether machines can possess consciousness or personhood, arguing from philosophical and theological perspectives that artificial intelligence lacks the essential qualities of subjective experience...

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Sept. 1, 2025

AI and the Human Person I Prof. Jordan Wales

Prof. Jordan Wales critically examines the relationship between artificial intelligence and human personhood through the lens of Christian theology, exploring how AI challenges traditional notions of intelligence, consciousne...

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Aug. 28, 2025

Origins of the Christian 'Just War' Tradition in Augustine's Anti-Man…

Fr. Andrew Hofer explores the origins of the Christian just war tradition through Augustine’s anti-Manichean writings, examining the theological debates around violence, authority, and moral law within early Christianity.

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Aug. 20, 2025

Reading Sacred Scripture with St. Thomas Aquinas I Fr. Isaac Morales,…

Fr. Isaac Morales and Prof. Michael Root explore how Thomas Aquinas’ biblical commentaries on Matthew and 1 Corinthians illuminate the beatific vision, resurrection, and the role of Scripture in shaping Christian life through literal and spiritual interpretation.

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Aug. 7, 2025

Thomas Aquinas on Charity I Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P.

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy provides an in-depth exploration of charity as the highest theological virtue in the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas, laying foundational principles for understanding just war, peace, and the ordered structure of the Christian moral life.

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July 23, 2025

Thomistic Perspectives on True Artificial Intelligence I Prof. Jordan…

Prof. Jordan Wales offers a theological critique of artificial intelligence, examining the limitations of computational and behaviorist definitions of intelligence and emphasizing the need for intentionality, interior experience, and a Christian understanding rooted in Augustine.

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May 21, 2025

What Can We Learn from Aquinas About AI? | Prof. Gyula Klima

Prof. Gyula Klima uses Aquinas’ philosophy of mind to argue that human intelligence, rooted in immaterial universal concept formation, is metaphysically distinct from artificial general intelligence (AGI), though AGI can still serve as a powerful tool for enhancing human understanding and life.

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April 23, 2025

Nicaea’s ‘Christological surplus, or, How to remember the creed’ | Pr…

Prof. Lewis Ayres examines how the Nicene Creed functions as a generative and interpretive “cipher” within Christian tradition, tracing its roots to the adaptation of Second Temple Jewish imaginative worlds and the development of early rules of fai...

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March 25, 2025

Nicene Existential Theology: Then and Now | Fr. Khaled Anatolios

Fr. Khaled Anatolios argues that the Nicene Council and its doctrine of creation from nothing entail a comprehensive understanding of Christian existence, particularly as illuminated by Athanasius's "On the Incarnation," which configures human life within the dialectic of being and nothingness.

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Feb. 11, 2025

Affairs of the Heart: The Ethical Significance of Anger | Prof. Jenni…

Professor Jennifer Herdt examines the cognitive dimensions and ethical significance of anger, distinguishing human anger, linked to justice and reason, from animal anger, within an Aristotelian-Thomistic framework.

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Jan. 17, 2025

Bored to Tears: Confronting the Taedium Vitae with Thomas Aquinas | F…

Fr. Stewart Clem examines the concept of boredom ("taedium vitae") through the lens of Thomistic moral theology, defining it, exploring its subjective and objective dimensions, and distinguishing it from related concepts like sloth (acedia).

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Jan. 7, 2025

Analogy and the Semantics of Simplicity: Learning form the Limits of …

Professor Joshua Hochschild explores Aquinas's understanding of analogy in relation to divine simplicity, distinguishing between analogy as a likeness between things and analogy as a relation between the significations of terms, and argues that the...

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Dec. 27, 2024

Scotus on Why Christ's Assumed Human Nature Is Not a Person | Prof. M…

This lecture was given on February 24th, 2024, at The Dominican House of Studies as a part of a conference titled: "Majesty and Lowliness: On the Hypostatic Union of Divine & Human Natures in Christ."

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Nov. 29, 2024

Friendships and Social Life - Thomistic Insights | Prof. Thomas Hibbs…

Professor Thomas Hibbs and Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau discuss the importance of friendship and social life from a Thomistic perspective, highlighting the decline in friendships in modern society with philosophical insights from Aristotle and Aquinas.

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Nov. 21, 2024

The Effects of Grace, Justification & Sanctification | Fr. Dominic Le…

This lecture was given on December 16th, 2023, at The Dominican House of Studies as part of An Intellectual Retreat for Regent University & Providence College following the theme of Divine Grace.

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Nov. 19, 2024

Types of Grace | Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P.

This lecture was given on December 16th, 2023, at The Dominican House of Studies as part of An Intellectual Retreat for Regent University & Providence College following the theme of Divine Grace.

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Nov. 18, 2024

Why We Need Grace | Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

This lecture was given on December 15th, 2023, at The Dominican House of Studies as part of An Intellectual Retreat for Regent University & Providence College following the theme of Divine Grace.

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Nov. 15, 2024

Augustine's Significance for Theorists on War, Justice, and Peace | F…

This lecture was given on June 10th, 2024, at the Catholic University of America as a talk within The Civitas Dei Summer Fellowship. The Fellowship engaged the following theme: Can War Be Just? Augustinian, Thomistic, and Contemporary Perspectives.

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Nov. 12, 2024

Natural Inclinations, the Passions, and Human Acts | Fr. Kevin Flanne…

This lecture was given on September 6th, 2024, at The Dominican House of Studies as part of a Thomistic Circles conference titled: Disentangling the Emotions: St. Thomas on Moral Taxonomy and Integration.

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Oct. 18, 2024

Thomas Aquinas on Peace: Part Two | Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P.

This lecture was given on Jun 12th, 2024, at The Dominican House of Studies as a talk within The Civitas Dei Summer Fellowship. The Fellowship engaged the following theme: Can War Be Just? Augustinian, Thomistic, and Contemporary Perspectives.

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