Theology Episodes

Prof. George Corbett presents Dante’s Divine Comedy as a transformative “journey of desire” in which the passionate intellect—shaped by Virgil (reason) and Beatrice (grace)—leads the sinner from the dark wood of sin and ignorance through Hell and Purgatory to the ordered love and beatific hope of Paradise.

Dr. Robert McNamara presents Edith Stein and Thomistic personalism as a unified vision in which the human face reveals the mystery of the person as both substantial “what” and subjective “who,” integrating Aquinas’s account of rational nature with phenomenological insights into consciousness, interiority, and personal encounter.

Fr. Gregory Pine shows how money, pleasure, and influence all fail as ultimate goals and argues that true happiness comes from living in accord with our nature as creatures made for communion with God through the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

Fr. Anselm Ramelow explains how, in a Thomistic framework, miracles are graded by how they surpass nature and why only God can perform the highest-level miracles of creation and resurrection, while finite spirits—including demons—can produce lesser “signs” that must be carefully discerned.

Prof. Chad Pecknold shows how St. Augustine’s Confessions should be read as a Catholic, sacramental account of conversion in which the “altar of the heart” is turned toward God and united to Christ’s Eucharistic sacrifice, rather than as a merely emotional, garden-conversion memoir.

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy introduces the medieval Dominican mystics of the Rhineland and, in dialogue with Aquinas and Pseudo-Dionysius, shows how their often strikingly apophatic language about abyss, detachment, and “ground” can be critically integrated into a Trinitarian, Eucharistic vision of Christian mystical union.

Fr. Dominic Legge distinguishes the classical Catholic doctrine of creation from modern creationism by showing how a robust Thomistic account of God as the transcendent cause of all being avoids conflict with evolutionary science while deepening our understanding of what it means for the world to be created.

Fr. Anton ten Klooster explores St. Thomas Aquinas on the Beatitudes, showing how they map an ordered, grace‑filled path of virtues and gifts that lead from imperfect happiness in this life to perfect union with God in the next.

Prof. Chris Baglow explores how the God of love can allow evil and suffering by showing that a world created for freedom and love—not as a deterministic machine—necessarily entails the risk of physical and moral evils, yet opens a deeper path of redemptive goodness.

Prof. Michael Dauphinais explains marriage as a lifelong covenant of self-giving love between a man and a woman that images Christ’s union with the Church, ordered to the spouses’ sanctification and the procreation and education of children .

Prof. Thomas Ward explains Scotus’s bold claim that the Incarnation is not primarily a response to human sin, but the centerpiece of God’s eternal plan for creation, so that Christ would have become incarnate even if Adam had never fallen .

Fr. Gregory Pine explains that, according to Aquinas, Christians are called to true divinization or theosis: by grace and the sacraments they really come to share in God’s own life without becoming God by nature, growing into intimate communion with the Triune God through Christ in whom this transformation is perfectly realized.

Fr. Terence Crotty argues that Christianity spread so rapidly because it uniquely answered the human search for truth and happiness while transforming social life through charity, dignity for slaves and women, and a compelling vision of a good and loving God that pagan religion and philosophy could not provide.​

Prof. Mats Wahlberg argues that “necessitarian universalism”—the claim that hell is metaphysically impossible and that God must save all rational creatures—is incompatible with core Christian metaphysical commitments, and he develops three Thomistic arguments to show that the possibility of eternal damnation follows from God’s wisdom, respect for created natures, and desire for truly free self-gift.

Prof. Thomas Osborne explains reprobation and the permission of sin in Thomas Aquinas as the asymmetrical counterpart to predestination, where God positively causes the grace and merits leading the elect to glory but only permits the sins of the reprobate without ever willing or causing moral evil, thus safeguarding both divine justice and human responsibility.​

Fr. Piotr Roszak shows how Thomas Aquinas interprets predestination through a deeply biblical lens, reading predestination as God’s merciful, Christ-centered plan to lead creation freely to a supernatural end and insisting that scriptural context is essential for avoiding deterministic distortions of the doctrine.

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy explains that Thomism is “fixated” on predestination because this doctrine lies at the speculative and practical center of the Thomistic vision of reality, uniting its key philosophical principles and theological convictions about God, creation, grace, and salvation in a single, coherent account.

Fr. Dominic Legge explains predestination as a profoundly hopeful Catholic doctrine rooted in God’s eternal, loving plan to give grace and lead rational creatures freely to the supernatural end of the beatific vision, drawing especially on Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine.

Prof. Matthew Thomas explains why justification—God’s transformative act of making sinners righteous in Christ by grace through faith and incorporation into the Church—is, for Aquinas, greater even than creation, and explores how Catholic teaching on faith, works, and grace can address Reformation-era controversies and open paths toward Protestant–Catholic reconciliation.

Fr. John Langlois traces how Marian doctrine and devotion—from Scripture and the early Fathers through medieval councils, liturgy, and architecture—culminate in the rosary as a Christ-centered, biblically rooted prayer that brings believers to Jesus through Mary’s maternal intercession.

Prof. Adam Eitel argues that God’s divine pedagogy makes the examples of the saints indispensable for our salvation, since their concrete, imperfect yet graced lives teach us how to endure sorrow, grow in virtue, and imitate Christ in the real circumstances of our own time.

Fr. Gregory Pine explores the Eucharist as the foundation of Catholic identity, showing how sacramental worship unites the past, present, and future of salvation history and invites believers into personal transformation, unity, and divine love.

Dr. Edmund Lazzari uses Thomistic philosophy and sacramental theology to analyze whether extraterrestrial intelligences could be baptized, exploring questions of nature, the soul, salvation, and God’s freedom to grant grace beyond the human species.​

Prof. Michael Dauphinais explores how Thomas Aquinas integrates philosophical wisdom and divine revelation, showing that genuine knowledge of God arises from both reason and the transformative experience of Christ’s incarnation and the Holy Spirit.