The Thomistic Institute

This talk was given on September 30th, 2022 at Yale University. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies and Affiliate Professor of Political Science at Baylor University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy. Among his over one dozen books are Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant (Baylor University Press, 2019), Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2015), winner of the American Academy of Religion's prestigious 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Constructive-Reflective Studies. He is a graduate of the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis (MJS) as well as Fordham University (PhD, MA, philosophy).

The lecture was given at the University of California, Berkeley on September 23, 2022. For information on upcoming events, visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Dr. Lawrence M. Principe is Drew Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. Professor Principe earned a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.A. in Liberal Studies from the University of Delaware. He also holds two doctorates: a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in the History of Science from Johns Hopkins University. In 1999, the Carnegie Foundation chose Professor Principe as the Maryland Professor of the Year, and in 1998 he received the Templeton Foundation's award for courses dealing with science and religion. Johns Hopkins has repeatedly recognized Professor Principe's teaching achievements. He has won its Distinguished Faculty Award, the Excellence in Teaching Award, and the George Owen Teaching Award. In 2004, Professor Principe was awarded the first Francis Bacon Prize by

This lecture was given at Vanderbilt University on September 29, 2022. For information on upcoming events, visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel is a member of the St. Cecilia Congregation of Dominican Sisters of Nashville, Tennessee and currently serves as Associate Professor of Theology at Aquinas College in Nashville, TN. She received her Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy. She has been active in her religious community's teaching apostolate for over fifteen years and has assisted with the theological formation of the newest members of her religious congregation. In addition to contributing articles to a number of journals and magazines, including the Vatican newspaper (L'Osservatore Romano), The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Linacre Quarterly, and the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, Sister has served as editor-in-chief of her Congregation's book, Praying as a Family (

This talk was given on September 19, 2022 at Regent University. For more information, please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Thomas Hibbs is currently J. Newton Rayzor Sr. Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University, where he is also Dean Emeritus, having served for 16 years as Dean of the Honors College and as Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture. Hibbs received a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and has served as tutor at Thomas Aquinas College, Full Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at Boston College, and President of the University of Dallas. Hibbs works in the areas of medieval philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas, contemporary virtue ethics, and aesthetics. He has published more than thirty scholarly articles and seven books, as well as 100 reviews and discussion articles on film, theater, art, and higher education in a variety of venues.

This talk was given on September 14, 2022 at Iowa State University. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org About the Speaker: Karin Öberg is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. Her specialty is astrochemistry and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the chemical habitability of nascent planets. Dr. Öberg obtained her B.Sc. in chemistry at Caltech in 2005, and her Ph.D. in astronomy, with a thesis focused on laboratory astrochemistry, from Leiden University in 2009. She did postdoctoral work at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a NASA Hubble fellow, focusing on millimeter observations of planet-forming disks around young stars. In 2013 she joined the Harvard astronomy faculty as an assistant professor. She was promoted and named the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor in Astronomy in 2016, and promoted to full professor with tenure in 2017. Dr. Öberg’s research in astrochemistry has been recognized

Are quality of life judgments ethical? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with bioethicist Prof. Gina Noia about her latest Thomistic Institute lecture, "Are Quality of Life Judgments Ethical?” Bioethics and End of Life Decisions w/ Fr. Gregory Pine (Off-Campus Conversations) You can listen to the original lecture here: https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/are-quality-of-life-judgements-ethical-prof-gina-noia-1 For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org About the Speaker: Gina Maria Noia is an Assistant Professor of Theology and Resident Bioethicist at Belmont Abbey College. She received her Ph.D. in Theology and Health Care Ethics from Saint Louis University. She has served as a clinical ethicist for OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, IL and St. Alexius Hospital in St. Louis, MO, and she is published in Christian Bioethics and the Journal of Moral Theology.

This lecture was given at Cornell University on September 14, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Marie George has been a member of the St. John’s University Philosophy Department since 1988. Professor George is an Aristotelian-Thomist whose interests lie primarily in the areas of philosophy of nature and philosophy of science. She has received several awards from the John Templeton foundation for her work in science and religion, and in 2007 she received a grant from the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) for an interdisciplinary project entitled: “The Evolution of Sympathy and Morality.” Professor George has authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles and two books: Christianity and Extraterrestrials? A Catholic Perspective(2005) and Stewardship of Creation (2009). She is currently working on Aquinas’s “Fifth Way,” and also on a variety of questions concerning living things (self-motion, consciousness, evolution, etc.)

This lecture was given for John Hopkins University on April 11, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Gina Maria Noia is an Assistant Professor of Theology and Resident Bioethicist at Belmont Abbey College. She received her Ph.D. in Theology and Health Care Ethics from Saint Louis University. She has served as a clinical ethicist for OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, IL and St. Alexius Hospital in St. Louis, MO, and she is published in Christian Bioethics and the Journal of Moral Theology

This talk was given on September 27, 2022 for the DC Young Professionals chapter of the Thomistic Institute. For more information please visit, thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Sr. Anna Wray is a native of Connecticut and a member of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia. Sister received her PhD in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, having written her dissertation on Aristotle’s account of the activity of contemplation. Sister is on faculty in CUA's School of Philosophy.

This lecture was given on September 15, 2022 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Stephen L. Brock is a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei (ordained 1992). He is Ordinary Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, where he has taught since 1990. He received a BA from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto. In 1999 he was a visiting professor in the School of Philosophy of The Catholic University of America. In 2017 he is a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago, collaborating in the Templeton Foundation project “Virtue, Happiness, and Meaning in Life,” directed by Candace Vogler and Jennifer Frey; his collaboration has included teaching a course in the Philosophy Department at the University of Chicago, giving two public lectures, directing a reading group, and leading sessions in a

This lecture was given at Baylor University on September 13, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Karin Öberg is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. Her specialty is astrochemistry and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the chemical habitability of nascent planets. Dr. Öberg obtained her B.Sc. in chemistry at Caltech in 2005, and her Ph.D. in astronomy, with a thesis focused on laboratory astrochemistry, from Leiden University in 2009. She did postdoctoral work at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a NASA Hubble fellow, focusing on millimeter observations of planet-forming disks around young stars. In 2013 she joined the Harvard astronomy faculty as an assistant professor. She was promoted and named the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor in Astronomy in 2016, and promoted to full professor with tenure in 2017. Dr. Öberg’s research in as

This talk was given on September 8, 2022 at The University of Texas at Austin For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org About the Speaker: Father Thomas Petri, O.P. is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, where he also serves as an assistant professor of moral theology and pastoral studies. Ordained a priest in 2009, he holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from The Catholic University of America.

This lecture was given on May 11, 2022 at the University of Oregon. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Christopher Kaczor (rhymes with razor) is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University and a member of the James Madison Society of Princeton University. In 2015, he was appointed to the Pontifical Academy for Life of Vatican City, and he serves as a Consultor to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He graduated from the Honors Program of Boston College and earned a Ph.D. four years later from the University of Notre Dame. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Kaczor is a former Federal Chancellor Fellow at the University of Cologne and William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He is an award winning author of twelve books including The Gospel of Happiness, The Seven Big Myths about Marriage, A Defense of Dignity, The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, The Eth

This talk was given on July 16, 2022 at the Fourth Annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: MARIUSZ TABACZEK, O.P., is a Polish Dominican and theologian. He holds Ph.D. in philosophical theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA and Church Licentiate from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. After his studies at the GTU and a fellowship at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Studies he returned to Poland. For three years he worked as a researcher at the Thomistic Institute in Warsaw (Poland), a lecturer at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw and the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Krakow, and a director of Studium Dominicanum in Warsaw. He then moved to Rome where he became a professor of theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He is also a researcher at the Thomistic Institute at the same University. One of the hallmarks of modern sci

This lecture was given at the Fourth Annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium entitled, Complexity, Simplicity and Emergence, on July 14, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Fr. Thomas Davenport, O.P. is a Dominican friar, physicist, and philosopher. He joined the faculty of philosophy at the Angelicum in Rome in 2020, where he co-leads the Project for Science and Religion. Before joining the Dominican order he studied physics at the California Institute of Technology before going on to earn his doctorate in physics from Stanford University studying theoretical particle physics. The focus of his scientific research is writing and testing simulations for high energy particle colliders like the LHC at CERN. After joining the Dominicans in 2010, he studied philosophy and theology in preparation for his ordination to the priesthood in 2017. In addition, he earn

What is truth? If we're right, are they wrong? What are the Catholic claims on truth? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Paul Gondreau about his latest Thomistic Institute lecture, "If We're Right, Are They Wrong? Catholic Claims on Truth." What is Truth? w/ Fr. Gregory Pine (Off-Campus Conversations) You can listen to the original lecture here: https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/if-were-right-are-they-wrong-catholic-claims-on-truth-prof-paul-gondreau For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org About the Speaker: Paul Gondreau earned his doctorate in sacred theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, writing under the renowned Thomist scholar Rev. Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P. He is professor of theology at Providence College in Rhode Island, where he teaches/has taught courses on marriage, Christology, the theology of Thomas Aquinas, the Church, the Euc

This lecture was given on April, 22, 2022 at the University of California at Berkeley. About the speaker: Fr. Anselm Ramelow is a Catholic priest in the Order of Preachers. He is professor of philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley and currently the chair of the philosophy department. He obtained his doctorate under Robert Spaemann in Munich on Leibniz and the Spanish Jesuits (Gott, Freiheit, Weltenwahl, 1997) and did theological work on George Lindbeck and the question of a Thomist philosophy and theology of language (Beyond Modernism? - George Lindbeck and the Linguistic Turn in Theology, 2005). He contributed articles to the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophy and essays on topics at the intersection of philosophy and theology, as well as a translation and commentary on part of Aquinas’ De veritate. He continues to work on questions of free will, philosophy of religion (miracles, existence and nature of God) and philosophical aesthetics.

This lecture was given at Louisiana State University on April 21, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Robert C. (“Rob”) Koons is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught for 33 years. M. A. Oxford, Ph.D. UCLA. He is the author or co-author of four books, including: Realism Regained (Oxford University Press, 2000), and The Atlas of Reality: A Comprehensive Guide to Metaphysics, with Timothy H. Pickavance (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017). He is the co-editor (with George Bealer) of The Waning of Materialism (Oxford University Press, 2010), and co-editor (with Nicholas Teh and William Simpson) of Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science (Routledge, 2018). He has been working recently on an Aristotelian interpretation of quantum theory, on defending and articulating Thomism in contemporary terms, and on arguments for classical theism.

This lecture was given at Florida State University on April 22, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Corey Barnes is an Associate Professor of Religion at Oberlin College specializing in scholastic thought from the 12th to the 14th centuries. His research areas include Christology, causation, creation, providence, knowledge of God, theological language, and scholastic receptions of classical, patristic, and late antique sources.

This lecture was given at the University of Rochester on April 22, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Dr. Trabbic is associate professor of philosophy at Ave Maria University, where he has taught since 2006. He earned his PhD in philosophy from Fordham University in 2008. His areas of interest include Aquinas, continental philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and political philosophy. He has published his work in various academic journals, including Religious Studies, The Heythrop Journal, and New Blackfriars