Episodes

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 rational deliberation and virtue.

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.

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.

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 theological traditions. This lecture was given on June 10th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events. About the Speakers: Jordan Wales is Associate Professor and John and Helen Kucz...

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, intentionality, and rational unity found in living beings. This lecture was given on June 9th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies. Secular campuses are being transformed, but the students need your help! Your gift before September fifteenth can launch a new TI chapter a...

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, consciousness, and relationality. This lecture was given on June 9th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events. About the Speakers: Jordan Wales is Associate Professor and John and Helen Kuczmar...

Dr. Paul LaPenna delves into the neuroscience of vice and virtue, explaining how neuroplasticity, habit formation, and philosophical insights from figures like Aquinas inform our understanding of humility, magnanimity, pride, and vainglory in the development of moral character.

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.

Prof. Michael Krom analyzes the ethics of drone warfare through the lens of Aquinas’s just war tradition and virtue ethics, addressing moral principles of discrimination, proportionality, and the indispensability of human judgment in the use of violent technology.

Prof. Joseph Capizzi presents the just war account within the Catholic tradition, arguing that the use of force in war can be a moral act of peacemaking grounded in pursuit of the common good, and emphasizing the importance of authority, intention, cause, proportionality, and distinction between guilt and innocence.

Prof. Michael Krom explores Thomas Aquinas’s view on the relationship between religion and politics, discussing the distinction between obligations to political authority and to God, as reflected in the biblical command to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's."

Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel explores the project of literature from the classical to the modern era, highlighting how stories like Anna Karenina shape the moral imagination through themes of virtue, marriage, culture, and the perennial question of what it means to be human.

Prof. Lee Oser explores the intertwined lives, faith journeys, and literary legacies of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the Inklings, highlighting their countercultural Christian imagination against modernist trends.

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.

Dr. Rebekah Lamb explores J.R.R. Tolkien’s “detached aesthetics,” revealing how his Christian understanding of spiritual detachment shapes his writing, especially in "The Lord of the Rings," as a means of cultivating hope, wonder, and a rightly ordered love for the world.

Prof. Thomas Ward explores C. S. Lewis’s "The Abolition of Man", analyzing how technology’s conquest of nature risks diminishing humanity unless anchored by objective moral values.

Prof. Christopher Malloy defends the Catholic understanding of Mary’s role in salvation history, refuting common objections and demonstrating how her divine maternity, perpetual virginity, and immaculate grace magnify rather than diminish the glory of Christ.

Prof. Christopher Mooney's lecture confronts the philosophical objection that heaven would be unbearably boring due to its infinite duration, arguing instead that Christian eternity is fulfilled in the beatific vision of God, which offers infinite and undiminished joy.

Prof. Bruce Marshall presents a deep Catholic theological exploration of predestination, examining its biblical foundations, historical development, doctrinal boundaries, and the enduring tension between God’s sovereign will, grace, and human freedom.

Prof. Thomas Pfau offers an in-depth theological and philosophical analysis of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, focusing on Ivan and Alyosha’s contrasting worldviews, the “Rebellion” and “Grand Inquisitor” chapters, and the novel’s profound exploration of freedom, suffering, and divine love.

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.

Dr. Nathaniel Peters explores and compares the theological views of Martin Luther and Thomas Aquinas on justification, focusing on grace, faith, merit, and the fundamental differences shaping Catholic and Lutheran perspectives.

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.

Dr. Erik Dempsey explores the positions of Martin Luther and Thomas Aquinas against Pelagianism, highlighting their shared rejection of justification by human effort and their nuanced theological differences on grace, merit, and free will.