Episodes

May 28, 2025

Capitalizing Christ in Thirteenth-Century Scholasticism | Prof. Boyd …

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…

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May 27, 2025

How Does Christ Save Us? Making Sense of the Atonement | Prof. Ross M…

Prof. Ross McCullough systematically explores the major models of the atonement-including Christus Victor, ransom theory, and divinization-showing how each interprets Christ’s saving work and how Aquinas’s distinctions can help organize these diverse approaches into a coherent theological architect…

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May 26, 2025

Contemplating Personhood and the Trinity | Fr. Timothy Bellamah, O.P.

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...

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May 23, 2025

How Is My iPhone Changing Me? | Prof. Joshua Hochschild

Prof. Joshua Hochschild analyzes how smartphones and digital technologies reshape our brains, habits, and sense of self by leveraging neuroscience and AI-driven behavioral design, warning that these tools commodify our attention, erode agency, and pose deep spiritual and ethical challenges that dem…

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May 22, 2025

Transhumanism: The New Eugenics | Prof. Steven Jensen

Prof. Steven Jensen critically examines transhumanism as a new form of eugenics, arguing that the pursuit of human enhancement through technologies like genetic engineering and brain-computer interfaces repeats the ethical pitfalls of historical eugenics by neglecting the importance of human nature…

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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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May 20, 2025

Ought I Use AI Assisted Writing? | Fr. Ambrose Little, O.P.

Fr. Ambrose Little examines the philosophical and ethical implications of AI-assisted writing by drawing on Plato’s myth of Thoth, Aristotle, and Aquinas, arguing that while new technologies like AI can threaten essential intellectual virtues, they can also be used wisely if we seek a balanced, vir…

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May 18, 2025

The Use of Tools in a Technocratic Age: the Death of Wisdom? | Sr. An…

Sr. Anna Wray explains that technocratic tools, while designed for efficiency and ease, undermine wisdom by weakening essential cognitive activities and social bonds, but we can preserve wisdom by using technology more reflectively and fostering communal engagement.

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May 16, 2025

Friendship and the Common Good | Prof. Adam Eitel

Prof. Adam Eitel explores the nature of friendship and the common good through the lens of Aquinas and Aristotle, emphasizing that true friendship is a mutual, habitual disposition to will and pursue the good of another through concrete sharing and fellowship.

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May 15, 2025

Friendship is a Difficult Good | Fr. Cassian Derbes, O.P.

Fr. Cassian Derbes explores why friendship is a difficult but essential good, drawing on Aquinas, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, and Dante to show how hope, fortitude, and magnanimity help us overcome sloth and despair in pursuit of true friendship as a common good.

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May 14, 2025

Aquinas on Friendship and Human Excellence | Prof. Thomas Hibbs

Prof. Thomas Hibbs analyzes Aquinas’ account of friendship and human excellence, drawing on Aristotle and Tocqueville to show how friendship is a necessary, intrinsically valuable common good that addresses contemporary crises of loneliness, civic animosity, and the loss of meaningful community.

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May 13, 2025

How To Be A Good Friend: Combatting Envy And Apathy And Exercising Lo…

Prof. W. Scott Cleveland explores how to be a good friend by applying Aristotle’s philosophy of human flourishing, highlighting the importance of combating envy and apathy while cultivating the virtues of love and wisdom for lasting, meaningful friendships.

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May 12, 2025

What is Love? Plato’s Theology of the Body | Prof. Joshua Hochschild

Prof. Joshua Hochschild compares Plato’s philosophical exploration of love in the Symposium with John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, analyzing how both traditions address the unity of eros and agape, the meaning of embodied love, and the enduring questions of sexual ethics in light of Humanae Vita…

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May 9, 2025

The Metaphysics of Prayer | Fr. Stephen Brock

Fr. Stephen Brock examines the metaphysics of petitionary prayer through the perspectives of C.S. Lewis, Peter Geach, and especially Thomas Aquinas, highlighting how Aquinas’ account uniquely reconciles divine immutability, providence, and the real efficacy of prayer.

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May 8, 2025

Can Philosophical Skepticism Be Overcome? | Fr. Thomas Joseph White, …

Fr. Thomas Joseph White explores whether philosophical skepticism can be overcome by examining Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and Nietzsche on metaphysical knowledge, emphasizing foundational principles like non-contradiction and identity.

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May 7, 2025

Aquinas on the Identity of Essence and Existence in God | Prof. Micha…

Prof. Michael Gorman explains Aquinas’ doctrine that in God, essence and existence are identical, highlighting how this principle underpins divine simplicity and distinguishes God from all created beings.

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May 6, 2025

The Trinity: The Heart of Christian Life | Dr. Edmund Lazzari

Dr. Edmund Lazzari defends the coherence and relevance of the Trinity by addressing Thomas Jefferson’s objections through Thomistic philosophy, emphasizing divine revelation’s role in understanding God’s triune nature.

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May 5, 2025

Does God Exist | Prof. Michael Gorman

Professor Michael Gorman explores philosophical arguments for God's existence through Aquinas' approach of reasoning from effect to ultimate uncaused cause rather than from definition to existence.

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May 2, 2025

Aquinas the Wordsmith: The Hymns and Sequence of Corpus Christi | Pro…

Prof. Patrick Callahan analyzes the poetic genius of Saint Thomas Aquinas in the hymns and sequence of Corpus Christi, highlighting Aquinas’ understanding of beauty, proportion, clarity, and sublimity as essential to both art and spiritual contemplation.

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May 1, 2025

Only the Lover Sings: Poetry, Mimesis, and the Christian Life | Prof.…

Prof. Patrick Callahan reveals how poetry, as the most Christ-like form of speech and a reflection of human mimesis, plays a vital role in the Christian life by fostering conformity to Christ and deepening the contemplative experience.

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April 30, 2025

God, Beauty, and Mathematics | Prof. Alexander Pruss

Prof. Alexander Pruss explores the unique certainty, mystery, and beauty of mathematics, examining philosophical perspectives from Plato to modern logicism, and considers how mathematical beauty points toward deeper realities, including the existen...

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April 29, 2025

The Beautiful and the Sublime: How to Make Art that Leads to God | Pr…

Prof. Patrick Callahan explores how art, through beauty and the sublime, can lead the soul toward God, drawing on insights from Joseph Pieper, Aristotle, and Christian philosophy to reveal the contemplative power of poetry, music, and the fine arts...

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April 28, 2025

Logic and Truth in God, Nature, and the Artificial | Fr. Philip-Neri …

Fr. Philip-Neri Reese explores the relationship between logic and truth as they manifest in God, the natural world, and artificial constructs, emphasizing the distinct ways in which logic operates within divine, natural, and human-made realities.

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April 25, 2025

John Henry Newman's Conception of the Development of Doctrine | Prof.…

Prof. Chad Pecknold analyzes John Henry Newman’s theological legacy, focusing on doctrinal development, conscience as a divine imperative, and his impact on the Second Vatican Council and modern Catholic-Protestant dialogue.

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