The Thomistic Institute

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.This lecture was given on October 30th, 2025, at Mississippi State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Dr. Baglow is Professor of the Practice of Theology and the Director of the Science and Religion Initiative of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. His work is the culmination of 20 years of faith and science scholarship and educational program creation, as well as a lengthy career in Catholic theological education spanning high-school, undergraduate,graduate and seminary teaching. In 2018 he was co-recipient of an Expanded Reason Award in Teaching from the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid) and the Vatican Joseph Ratzinger Foundation (Rome) for his work in integrating faith and science in Catholic education, for which he has also received numerous grants from the John Templeton Foundation.Baglow is the author of Faith, Science and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge (2nd edition, Midwest Theological Forum, 2019) and Creation: A Catholic’s Guide to God and the Universe (Ave Maria Press, 2021). He serves as theological advisor to the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists. He authored the transcripts for Wonder: The Harmony of Faith and Science, a Word on Fire film series directed by Manny Marquez and narrated by Jonathan Roumie. His work has appeared in Church Life Journal, Culture and Evangelization, and Joie de Vivre Quarterly Journal.Keywords: David Hume, Evil, Freedom and Moral Evil, God of Love and Suffering, Joseph Ratzinger on Freedom, Problem of Evil and Suffering, Providence and Natural Laws, Redemption and Human Freedom, Risk of Love, Theodicy and Divine Goodness

Prof. Paul Gondreau explores how Christ’s concrete, fully human life uniquely “fully reveals man to himself,” showing that every human person and all of history are teleologically ordered to him as the final Adam and measure of authentic humanity.This lecture was given on November 20th, 2025, at The Ohio State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Paul Gondreau is professor of theology at Providence College, where he has taught for 28 years. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, doing his dissertation on Christ's full humanity (Christ's human passions/emotions) under the renowned Thomist scholar Jean-Pierre Torrell. He specializes in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and has published widely in the areas of Christology (focusing on Christ’s full humanity and his maleness), Christian anthropology, the moral meaning and purpose of human sexuality and sexual difference, the biblical vision of Aquinas' theology, the theology of disability, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the priesthood, and the Catholic vision of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.Keywords: Christ as Final Adam, Christ's Humanity, Christocentric Anthropology, Docetism, Gaudium et Spes 22, Humanity Revealed in Christ, Incarnation and Human Destiny, Recapitulation of Humanity, Teleological Order to Christ, “The Word Became Flesh”

Dr. Robert McNamara explores how creation is not a distant event but our very act of existing here and now, so that each person’s being is itself a continuous relation of absolute dependence on God that can be freely understood, accepted, and joyfully affirmed.This lecture was given on December 2nd, 2025, at Queen's University at Belfast.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Dr. Robert McNamara is lecturer in philosophy at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth, Ireland, associate series editor of Edith Stein Studies, associate scholar of the Hildebrand Project, associate member of faculty at the International Theological Institute and the Maryvale Institute, and a founding member of the Aquinas Institute of Ireland (currently suspended). Robert researches anthropological and metaphysical questions in medieval and phenomenological thinkers, especially as both bear reference to philosophical personalism. He has studied physics and computing, philosophy and theology, and received his Ph.D. for research in the thought of Edith Stein and Thomas Aquinas. Robert is originally from Galway, Ireland and now lives in Carlow with his wife, Caroline, and their four children, Vivian, John, Catherine, and Oran.KeywordsBeing and Gift, Creation as Relation, Creation ex Nihilo, Existential Dependence on God, Gift of Existence, Hamlet and “To Be or Not to Be”, Joy in Being, Ongoing Creative Act, Saying Yes to Being, Self-Understanding before the Creator

Dr. Erik Dempsey explores whether we make morality or discover it by unpacking Aquinas’s three natural inclinations and arguing that they ground objective, inescapable moral obligations rather than mere social conventions.This lecture was given on October 11th, 2025, at Michigan State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Professor Erik Dempsey an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Departments of Government, Classics, and Religious Studies, and is the Assistant Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin for over ten years, during which time he has offered classes in the history of political philosophy, on the Bible and its interpreters, on American political thought, on classical philosophy and literature, and others. His favorite classes to teach are Jerusalem and Athens, a class comparing the political, moral, and theological ideas of the Hebrew Bible to Aristotle's, and the Question of Relativism, a class on what he considers the central quandary of our time. He writes primarily about Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, and he is currently studying John Locke's commentaries on St. Paul's epistles. Last but not least, he is an Eagle Scout.Keywords: Conventionalism and Justice, Human Moral Inclinations, Modern Science, Morality, Natural Law, Objective Moral Obligation, Rational Order of Goods, Self-Preservation and the Common Good

Prof. John Cuddeback reflects on why many students feel relationally unsatisfied in a hyper-connected world and shows how reclaiming embodied presence, intentional discernment of a few trustworthy friends, and technology-limited, silence-friendly communal spaces can restore the depth, vulnerability, and shared pursuit of the good that real friendship requires.This lecture was given on September 23rd, 2025, at Virginia Military Institute.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:John A. Cuddeback, PhD, is professor of Philosophy at Christendom College, where he has taught for thirty years. He lectures widely on topics including friendship, fatherhood, virtue, homesteading, and household. His professional writings appear in various academic journals and books, and his book True Friendship was republished by Ignatius Press. His podcasts, blogging, and courses at LifeCraft are renowned for applying a timeless wisdom to life today.Keywords: Bodily Presence, Discernment, Friendship, Interior Life, Intentional Friendship, Maturity, Prioritizing a Few Friends, Silence, Virtual Age Relationships, Vulnerability

Prof. Michael Krom explores how athletic rivalry, when rooted in justice and love of the good, can deepen genuine friendship, build virtue, and lead toward a contemplative vision of life.This lecture was given on November 13th, 2025, at Indiana University.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Michael Krom started reading Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae shortly after his conversion at the end of college. Upon learning about Flannery O’Connor’s “hillbilly Thomist” habit of reading Aquinas every night, he started studying two articles a day and completed the Summa while in graduate school at Emory University. As a professor at Saint Vincent College, he saw the urgent need for collegians and seminarians to receive a solid foundation in Aquinas’s philosophical theology. In 2020, he published Justice and Charity:  An Introduction to Aquinas’s Moral, Economic, and Political Thought (Baker Academic Press), and teaches a Thomistic philosophy course each fall. In addition to continuing work on the moral, economic, and political topics covered in the book, his current research is on the influence of monastic spirituality on Aquinas; he is working on a monograph tentatively entitled Aquinas Among the Benedictines.Keywords: Athletic Excellence and Virtue, Competition and Friendship, Contemplation and Sport, Desire for the Good, Let the Best One Win, Sportsmanship and Justice, Virtue and Human Flourishing, Vocation and Play, Workaholism and Fanaticism, Wrestling with Rivalry

Prof. Joshua Hochschild argues that digital culture reshapes friendship and attention through Curiositas and acedia, offering a path of renewal by cultivating virtue, mindful leisure, and rooted communal belonging.This lecture was given on November 5th, 2025, at John Hopkins University.Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Joshua Hochschild is Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University, where he also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.Keywords: Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, Attention and Technology, Common Action and Solidarity, Curiositas and Acedia, Digital Age, Friendship and Human Flourishing, Leisure and Attention, Trustworthiness and Integrity, Virtue Cultivation in College Life, Virtue Ethics in Friendship

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 .This lecture was given on October 15th, 2025, at Iowa State University.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Michael A. Dauphinais, Ph.D., serves as the Fr. Matthew Lamb Professor of Catholic Theology and the co-director of the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida. He has co-authored with Matthew Levering Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of Thomas Aquinas; Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction to the Bible; and The Wisdom of the Word: Biblical Answers to Ten Questions about Catholicism. He specializes in C.S. Lewis, the Bible, and St. Thomas Aquinas. He speaks frequently in both academic and popular settings, and particularly enjoys visiting Thomistic Institute student chapters. Dr. Dauphinais hosts The Catholic Theology Show podcast to help a wide audience discover the richness of coming to know and love God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.Keywords: Catholic Theology of Marriage, Covenant and Sacrament, Christ and the Church as Spousal Model, Family and Vocation, Fidelity and Indissolubility, Openness to Life and Children, Self-Giving Love and Freedom, Spousal Sanctification, Vocation of Husband and Wife, Wedding and Lifelong Commitment

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 .This lecture was given on March 4th, 2025, at Universidad Panamericana.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Thomas M. Ward is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin, in the School of Civic Leadership. He specializes in the history of philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages. Ward is the author of After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher (Word on Fire, 2024), Ordered by Love: An Introduction to John Duns Scotus (Angelico, 2022), Divine Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and has translated, with commentary, John Duns Scotus’s Treatise on the First Principle (Hackett, 2024). He has been a NEH Fellow (2022) and Harvey Fellow (2009-2011), and is a past winner of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy Founder's Award (2013) and the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly Rising Scholar Essay Contest (2018). He studied philosophy at Biola University (BA 2004) and theology at Oxford University (M.Phil 2006), where he was Head Resident at the Kilns, the former residence of C.S. Lewis. His PhD in philosophy is from UCLA (2011). Ward is married with six children and is a member of St. Peter Catholic Student Center in Waco.Keywords: Absolute Primacy of Christ, Blessed Duns Scotus and Incarnation, Christ as Head of Creation, Divine Freedom and Predestination, Incarnation and Fall of Adam, Primacy of Christ in Salvation History, Sin and Redemptive Suffering, Thomism vs. Scotism, Why God Became Man

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.This lecture was given on October 3rd, 2025, at Duke University.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P., is an instructor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and the Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. He holds a doctorate from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He is the author of Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly and Your Eucharistic Identity: A Sacramental Guide to the Fullness of Life, and is co-author of Credo: An RCIA Program and Marian Consecration with Aquinas.His writing also appears in Aleteia, Magnificat, and Ascension’s Catholic Classics series. In addition to the TI podcast, he regularly contributes to the podcasts Godsplaining and Pints with Aquinas, and Catholic Classics. Keywords: Divinization and Theosis, Grace and Participation in God, Holy Spirit and Sanctification, Incarnation and Salvation, Life of Virtue and Holiness, Participation in the Divine Nature, Sacraments and Spiritual Transformation, Trinity and Divine Life, Union with God in Christ, Western and Eastern Christian Spirituality

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.​This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Fr. Terence Crotty is the Regent of Studies in the Irish Province of the Dominican Order. Since graduating with his doctorate from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland in 2011 he has been mainly involved in formation and in teaching Scripture Studies to the Dominican students in the Studium of the Irish Province in his community in Dublin and to the lay faithful in the Priory Institute, Tallaght. His first monograph is about to appear, The Irish Dominicans: 800 Years and he has also published various articles in reviews and journals, including a chapter in The Glenstal Companion to the Easter Vigil.Keywords: Caritas and Christian Charity, Conversion of the Roman Empire, Dignity of Slaves and Women, Greek and Roman Pagan Religion, Irish Conversion and St. Patrick, Letter to Diognetus and Early Apologetics, Pagan Philosophy and Stoicism, Roman Empire and Early Christianity, St. Brigid and Irish Monasticism, Truth, Happiness, and Human Desire​

Dr. Paul LaPenna uses the dramatic case of a man in a coma from autoimmune brain disease to show that personal identity endures despite severe loss of abilities, arguing from neurology and Thomistic philosophy that a human person is a unified body–soul substance whose soul grounds changing traits over time.This lecture was given on October 17th, 2025, at St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Dr. Paul LaPenna is a neurologist based in Greenville, South Carolina, specializing in the care of patients with neurological emergencies. He is also an award-winning professor at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he teaches neuroscience and has been recognized as the Professor of the Neuroscience Block from 2019 to 2025.Dr. LaPenna’s professional and academic work is deeply informed by the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, particularly regarding the integration of faith and reason, science and religion, and the Thomistic understanding of the human person. Through his lectures and writings, he explores how modern neuroscience complements classical philosophy and theology, offering insights into human cognition, virtue formation, and the relationship between mind, brain, and soul.Dr. LaPenna lives in Greenville with his wife Nicole and their three daughters, Catherine, Susanna, and Lucia, who daily remind him of life’s greatest joys and deepest blessings.Keywords: Body–Soul Unity, Catholic Anthropology, Consciousness and Brain, Human Person, Identity and Memory, Neuroscience and Philosophy, Personal Identity, Rational Soul, Thomistic Metaphysics, Trauma and Coma​

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.This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Mats Wahlberg, Ph.D., is docent and associate professor of systematic theology, a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology, and a research fellow in the Discipline Group of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology at the Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. In 2021, he was the Aquinas Chair at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome.He has published two monographs, Reshaping Natural Theology: Seeing Nature as Creation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Revelation as Testimony: A Philosophical-Theological Study (Eerdmans, 2014), as well as many articles in journals such as Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, and First Things.His research interests include arguments for God’s existence, the problem of evil, the doctrine of revelation, theology and science (especially the theological implications of evolution) and the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Wahlberg's research about the problem of evil and evolution has been funded by the John Templeton Foundation.Keywords: Beatific Vision, Catholic Doctrine of Hell and Damnation, Creator–Creature Distinction, David Bentley Hart and Universal Salvation, Divine Goodness, Divine Providence, Necessitarian Universalism and Possible Worlds, Permanent Separation from God, Thomistic Account of Debitum Naturae, Thomistic Defense of the Possibility of Hell, Universalism​

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.​This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. (Ph.D, Duke University, 2001) is the Frank A. Rudman Endowed Chair in Philosophy and the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas.  He has published widely on Thomas Aquinas, Thomism, and medieval and late scholastic philosophy.  His interests cover moral psychology, ethics, political philosophy, and metaphysics. His latest book is Thomas Aquinas on Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2024).Keywords: Augustinian Theology of Grace, Calvinist Double Predestination, Divine Justice and Eternal Punishment, Divine Providence and Human Freedom, Grace, Negative and Positive Reprobation, Predestination and Foreseen Merits, Salvation, Sin

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.This lecture was given on September 5th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Piotr Roszak is an adjunct professor of Fundamental Theology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland; associated professor of Systematic Theology at University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, where he obtained his PhD in 2009. Member of Pontifical Academy of St Thomas Aquinas; editor-in-Chief of the journal ‘Scientia et Fides’ dedicated to science-religion debate and director of the series ‘Scholastica Thoruniensia’, where the polish translations of medieval biblical commentaries are published. Together with Mateusz Przanowski OP is leading the project of “Opera Omnia” of St. Thomas Aquinas in Poland. In 2021 he received Medal for Excellence in Christian Philosphy awared by International Étienne Gilson Society. He obtained several grants from the Templeton Foundation, National Science Centre in Poland and in Spain. He is a honorary member of Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis and Comite de Expertos del Camino de Santiago in Spain. He published recently (with Jörgen Vijgen): Reading the Church Fathers with St. Thomas Aquinas Historical and Systematical Perspectives (Brepols: Turnhout 2021).Keywords: Biblical Thomism, Christocentric Predestination, Divine Providence and Human Freedom, Election, Ephesians 1, Pauline Theology of Predestination, Potter Clay Metaphor, Romans 8, Scripture and Systematic Theology in Summa Theologiae, Trinitarian Missions

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.This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., is a priest of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph. He serves as the general editor of the Thomist Tradition Series, and he is co-author of Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters. He has written for numerous publications on the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomist Tradition.Keywords: Blaise Pascal Provincial Letters, Contingency, Creator Creature Distinction, Divine Providence, Divine Causality, Grace and Human Freedom, Jean Baptiste Gonet Clippius Theologiae Thomisticae, Physical Premotion and Sacramental Causality, Predestination, Pure Nature, Universal Causality

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.This lecture was given on September 5th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Fr. Dominic Legge is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.  He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).Keywords: Actual Grace, Augustine On the Predestination of the Saints, Divine Providence, Exitus Reditus and Final End, Grace and Human Free Will, Human Freedom, Predestination and Eternal Life, Problem of Evil, Rational Creatures and Beatific Vision, Saint Catherine of Siena

Prof. Raymond Hain examines whether nature “makes” laws by exploring classical and contemporary accounts of natural law, arguing that human moral norms arise from our rational participation in the ordered structure of life and the universe as understood in both philosophy and Catholic thought.This lecture was given on September 8th, 2025, at United States Military Academy.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Raymond Hain is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Humanities Program at Providence College in Providence, RI. Educated at Christendom College, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Oxford, he is the founder of the PC Humanities Forum and Humanities Reading Seminars and is responsible for the strategic development of the Humanities Program into a vibrant, world class center of teaching, research, and cultural life dedicated to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. His scholarly interests include the history of ethics (especially St. Thomas Aquinas), applied ethics (especially medical ethics and the ethics of architecture), Alexis de Tocqueville, and philosophy and literature (especially Catholic aesthetics). His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Templeton Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Charles Koch Foundation. His essays have appeared in various journals and collections including The Thomist, International Journal of Applied Philosophy, and The Anthem Companion to Tocqueville. He is the editor of Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture and is currently working on a monograph titled The Lover and the Prophet: An Essay in Catholic Aesthetics. He joined Providence College in 2011 and lives just across the street with his wife Dominique and their five children.Keywords: Aristotelian Ethics, Catholic Moral Theology, Darwinian Evolution, Evolutionary Biology, Human Flourishing, Human Sexuality, John Finnis Natural Law and Natural Rights, Michael Thompson, Natural Law, Philosophy of Biology, Steven Jensen

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.This lecture was given on April 6th, 2025, at Stanford University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Dr. Matthew J. Thomas is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology Department Chair at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, CA. His research areas include Pauline theology, patristics (particularly the ante-Nicene period), and early Christian interpretation of Scripture. His writings include Paul's 'Works of the Law' in the Perspective of Second Century Reception, Christian Theology: An Introduction with Alister McGrath, "Justification" in the St. Andrews Encyclopedia of Theology, and the 1 and 2 Maccabees commentaries in the Ignatius Study Bible with his wife Leeanne.Keywords: Augustinian Theology Of Grace, Catholic–Protestant Dialogue, C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity, Divine–Human Causality, Justification By Grace Through Faith, Martin Luther On Justification, Primary And Secondary Causality, Union With Christ, Works Of The Law In Paul, Summa Theologiae On Justification

Prof. Carlos A. Casanova argues that a properly understood Aristotelian–Platonic metaphysics of form, final causality, and nature allows human reason, without biblical revelation, to infer a governing divine intellect that orders the cosmos and human history in a providential way.​This lecture was given on October 22nd, 2025, at Clemson University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:A native of Venezuela, Carlos Casanova holds a law degree from the Catholic University Andrés Bello and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Navarre, Spain. He is now a lecturer at the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center.He is a native of Venezuela. There he served as an attorney for the Office of the Attorney General of Venezuela and for the Venezuelan Congress, and as an assistant to a Justice of the Venezuelan Supreme Court in the early 90s. Afterward he was a professor of the Graduate Studies in Philosophy at the Universidad Simón Bolívar and Chair of the Program. In 2002, threatened by the Chavista regime, he was forced to leave the country. During his first stay in the USA, professor Casanova was a visiting scholar at Boston University and a senior research associate at the Jacques Maritain Center, University of Notre Dame, where he worked with Ralph McInerny. During this time he married Laura Ternan with whom he has 5 children.In 2005 he went to Chile, to work at the International Academy of Philosophy with professor Josef Seifert. Afterward he taught at Universidad Santo Tomás in Chile, and at the School of Law of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. In 2020-2022 he opposed the abortionist movement and the attempts to introduce comprehensive sexual education during the early years of basic school. These efforts led to him receiving in 2022 the National Award bestowed by the “Network for Life and the Family.” Due to the Marxist turn of the country, the Casanova family decided to leave Chile and migrate again, back to the United States in 2022.Professor Casanova’s work focuses on metaphysics, political and social philosophy, ethics, and classical Greek philosophy. He has endeavored to dismantle the black legend that hides the achievements of Christianity in the Spanish American empire and in the Latin Christendom (so called “Middle Ages”). His scholarly competence also includes philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mind, medieval philosophy, and contemporary European philosophy. He has published nine books and numerous scholarly papers.Keywords: Aristotelian Teleology, Divine Governance Of Nature, Final Causes And Natural Law, Hume On Miracles, Natural Theology And Providence, Newman’s Critique Of Hume, Plato's Timaeus And Phaedo, Powers And Dispositions In Nature, Teleology Versus Mechanism, Thomistic Fifth Way