Episodes

Prof. Joshua Hochschild shows how St. John Henry Newman’s lifelong “struggle against liberalism” is best understood as an Aristotelian critique of false views of knowledge, in which liberalism reduces religion to private sentiment and denies the knowability of first principles, rather than as a merely political or ecclesiastical stance.

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.

Dr. Bronwen McShea uncovers the rich but often forgotten history of Catholic women in the arts and sciences, showing how figures from late antiquity through the early modern period—nuns, scholars, patrons, and university professors—have long made serious intellectual and cultural contributions within the Catholic tradition.

Prof. Christopher Tollefsen argues from a Thomistic natural law perspective that it is always morally wrong to intend the death of an innocent human being, contending that this absolute norm binds both private individuals and public authorities alike.

Prof. Marshall Bierson contrasts Thomistic Catholic ethics with utilitarian and Kantian moral theories by arguing that the good is fundamentally an activity of loving persons rather than a state of affairs like aggregate happiness or an abstract form of rational nature.

Prof. Kenneth Kemp reexamines the Scopes “Monkey Trial” to show that it has been mythologized into evidence of a supposed war between science and religion, arguing instead that the real conflicts concerned constitutional law, educational policy, and competing theological and philosophical visions within Christianity.

Prof. Jonathan I. Lunine recounts his life as a planetary scientist, tracing how early inspirations from Carl Sagan and the space race led to his work on major NASA missions exploring the solar system and distant worlds, from Voyager and Cassini to Juno and Europa Clipper.

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.

Prof. Karin Öberg reflects on her journey from atheism to Catholicism and explains how the vocation of a Catholic scientist and professor involves uniting rigorous scientific inquiry with the Catholic intellectual tradition in order to contemplate God through creation and to renew the life of the university.

Prof. Michael Dauphinais explains what contemporary culture needs to learn from Thomas Aquinas, arguing for a metaphysics of communion in which God, family, Church, and society are not locked in competition but share common goods that make each more fully alive.

Fr. Alan O’Sullivan unpacks Aquinas on the good life, explaining why wealth, power, fame, and pleasure cannot be our ultimate happiness and how true beatitude is found in virtuous activity ordered to God.

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy introduces Aquinas’ Five Ways, showing how arguments from motion, causality, contingency, gradation, and teleology lead from everyday experience to the rational conclusion that God exists as first mover, first cause, necessary being, supreme perfection, and intelligent governor.

Prof. Christopher Tollefsen explains John Paul II on euthanasia, showing how the Pope’s vision of human life as a sacred gift, bearing God’s image and destined for eternal friendship with Him, rules out any claim to a right to kill oneself or others.

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.

Dr. Jan Bentz explores what it means to engage politics as a Catholic, calling believers to critical thinking rooted in truth, a both‑and logic that resists polarization, and a discerning love of nation that remains ordered to the common good and eternal beatitude.

Prof. Marshall Bierson unpacks Elizabeth Anscombe’s moral absolutism, arguing that questions like “Why is it worse to kill one innocent person than to let five die?” rest on a grammatical confusion that obscures the absolute wrongness of intentionally killing the innocent.

Prof. Kevin Kambo reflects on race, racism, and antiracism through Augustine, showing how modern racial categories operate as idolatrous myths born of the lust to dominate and calling listeners to see others instead as icons of God rather than instruments of civic or ideological projects.

Prof. Chad Pecknold explains how Augustine and Aquinas argue against skepticism, defending metaphysical realism and the mind’s capacity to know truth as essential for genuine morality and for leading people to Christ, who is Truth itself.

Prof. Steven Jensen explores the issue of free will and moral responsibility, arguing that we are genuine authors of our actions only if our choices are self-determined and not merely the inevitable result of heredity, environment, or internal states shaped by outside forces.

Dr. William Hurlbut examines how natural neuroplasticity, education, lifestyle, and new neurotechnologies are “rewiring the brain,” highlighting both their therapeutic promise and their dangers in an age of addictive digital culture, standardized schooling, and powerful biotechnological interventions.

Fr. Chris Gault explores whether AI like ChatGPT should change how or why we study, showing that while machines can accelerate information processing, only human study forms our minds, virtues, and relationship to truth in a way that leads to real fulfillment.

Prof. Tomás Bogardus asks whether a machine can truly understand by unpacking how large language models like ChatGPT function and arguing that genuine knowledge requires rational insight and responsibility to truth that go beyond statistical text prediction.