Prof. Christopher Kaczor explores the relationship between positive psychology and Catholic theology, uncovering how empirical psychological findings on happiness align with and deepen spiritual practices like gratitude, service, and forgiveness.
Sr. Elinor Gardner explores the vocation of women as companion and mother, drawing on Edith Stein’s philosophy to highlight the natural ethos of femininity as a gift received from God, characterized by a unique capacity for nurturing and companionship that shapes both family and professional life.
Prof. John Cuddeback explores true fatherhood as the archetype of masculine virtue, examining its modes, challenges, and unique virtues through the lenses of Aristotelian philosophy, domestic prudence, and scriptural figures like Joseph.
Prof. John Cuddeback explores how the household serves as a natural revelation of masculinity and femininity, emphasizing the complementarity of men and women, the significance of virtue, and the essential roles of fatherhood and motherhood.
Dr. Nathaniel Peters and Prof. Jane Peters explore the vocation of marriage as a transformative friendship, highlighting how the goods of marriage—offspring, fidelity, and sacrament—are elevated by grace to foster virtue, mutual delight, and a living witness to Christ’s love.
Sr. Elinor Gardner explores the Christian understanding of virtue, emphasizing the theological and cardinal virtues as foundational to human excellence and the restoration of the image of God in man and woman.
Fr. Anselm Ramelow explores the philosophical and scientific debates surrounding free will, examining cultural attitudes, neuroscience experiments like Benjamin Libet's, and the necessity of free will for rational thought and...
Prof. Paul Gondreau explores whether God could truly experience human emotions and suffering by examining Christ’s full humanity, the Church’s response to heresies like docetism and monophysitism, and the Aristotelian-Thomist...
Prof. Steven Jensen analyzes the complexity of the human heart by distinguishing the interplay between emotions and will, drawing on Aquinas and Aristotle to explain how passions like love, desire, sorrow, anxiety, guilt, vai...
Prof. Gina Noia explores Catholic teaching on medical treatment decision-making, focusing on how suffering, prudence, and the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary means inform ethical choices in end-of-life care, eu...
Prof. Gina Noia explores Catholic teaching on end-of-life care, suffering, and medical treatment decision-making, highlighting the nuanced distinction between morally obligatory and optional treatments within the Catholic eth...
Fr. Innocent Smith explores the origins and theological significance of the Feast of Corpus Christi, emphasizing how liturgical tradition, scriptural foundations, and figures like Saint Juliana of Liège shape the Church’s und...
Prof. Gary Anderson examines how the Christian practice of adoring the Blessed Sacrament is deeply rooted in the scriptural tradition, particularly through the Old Testament themes of God's indwelling presence in the tabernac...
Prof. Thomas Ward explores the Thomistic concept of the convertibility of being and goodness, examining how the privation theory of evil and the essential natures of things underpin the intrinsic goodness of all that exists, ...
Fr. Timothy Bellamah explores how the problem of evil emerged as a distinct theological issue within the Judeo-Christian tradition, contrasting it with ancient mythologies and examining historical responses from Gnosticism to...
Prof. Thomas Ward explains the classical Christian theory that evil is not a real entity but a privation of goodness, drawing from thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, and Boethius to address philosophical and theological challe...
Fr. Andrew Hofer explores Thomas Aquinas’s interpretation of the Nicene Creed, highlighting its foundational role in Catholic theology, the Trinity, and the integration of scripture, liturgy, and tradition. This lecture was g...
Fr. Cassian Derbes explores how wonderment, contemplation, and friendship with God are essential to the Christian life, drawing on insights from Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and literary works such as A River Runs Through...
Dr. Nathaniel Peters and Prof. Jane Sloan Peters explore the vocation of parenthood, highlighting the distinct yet complementary roles of fatherhood and motherhood as a participation in God’s creative and priestly work, groun...
Fr. Stephen Ryan explains how the Psalms uniquely serve as both a mirror and remedy for the soul, fostering self-knowledge, compunction, and conversion by guiding believers into deeper prayer and recognition of God’s grace in...
Fr. Gregory Pine explores the principles for a happy life by drawing on Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy, focusing on the concept of beatitude as the fullness of flourishing rooted in the nature of God and human beings. ...
Fr. Andrew Hofer explores the earliest Christological debates of the first centuries, showing how heresies like Arianism, Nestorianism, and Pelagianism threatened the Church’s understanding of Jesus’ true identity, and why de...
Prof. Boyd Taylor Coolman examines the thirteenth-century scholastic doctrine of “capital grace,” showing how Alexander of Hales, Hugh of Saint Victor, and the Summa Halensis developed a pneumatologically-centered account of Christ as the head of the Church, which Aquinas later systematized, emphas…
This lecture was given on November 23rd, 2023, at Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events . About the Speaker: Fr. Timothy Bellamah, O.P. was bor...