Common Places

A lecture with Q&A by Davenant Institute Vice-President, Colin Redemer, entitled "Old Aristotle, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Aquinas." Everyone knows that Aristotle left us a completed ethical system. What this lecture presupposes is, maybe he didn't? A close reading of Aristotle shows that his theory is constantly friscalating near the edge of completion, but that the author is self-aware of his system as flawed. In this lecture, Colin Redemer demonstrates Aristotle's self-aware shortcomings, before pivoting to see how Thomas Aquinas, in the first part of the second part, question 4, of the Summa Theologiae, responds to Aristotle's system of thought. The ways in which Aquinas' theory fulfills the dream of eudaimonia from Aristotle's ethical system will be revealed by shining the light of divine revelation upon it.

A lecture with Q&A by Davenant Hall Teaching Fellow, Dr. Michael J. Lynch entitled "Calvinism and Thomism: Friends or Foes? An Early Modern Consensus on Predestination, Reprobation, and Free Choice." Roman Catholic and Reformed theologians alike have assumed and even argued that one of the differences demarcating these two traditions concerns the hotly debated doctrines of predestination and free choice. Predestination, with its focus on the inscrutable grace of God, is often associated with a stern and austere John Calvin. Free choice, on the other hand, is associated with his Roman Catholic opponents indebted to Thomas Aquinas, emphasizing whenever possible the necessity of man's exercise of his will. Yet, what if early modern Calvinists talked like Thomists and early modern Thomists talked like Calvinists? In this lecture, Dr. Lynch demonstrates that early modern Catholics and Protestants were not only asking all the same basic questions related to predestination and free choice but that the Reformed and a large swath of Roman Catholics fundamentally answered those questions in the same way. Among both groups, there is remarkable theological uniformity regarding predestination, reprobation, and divine concursus with human actions. Indeed the very problems and diversity that arose from some of the more complicated issues related to divine sovereignty and human responsibility permeate both traditions as well. Our speaker will sketch both this unity and diversity.

“Calvin on Divine Love and Human Litigation” with Eric G. Enlow (Dean, Handong University Law School)

“21 Disputed Theses on the Subject of Religious Liberty”, Bradford Littlejohn (President, the Davenant Institute)

“A Protestant Integralism? Lessons from Puritan New England” with Timon Cline Law Clerk (Office of New Jersey Attorney General)

“The Virtues and Vices of Private Property” with C. Scott Pryor (Professor of Law, Campbell University)

“Originalism and Judicial Restraint: Lessons from the Lutheran Reformation" with John Ehrett (Counsel, Office of US Senator Josh Hawley)

Modern politics has often sought to create coalitions through shared objects of fear and anger. Yet, we know that a political community can not survive with these emotions turned up to 11. How can the ancient concept of friendship, particularly expressed in Aristotle provide a better understanding of political relationships, and how can it bring about the goal of a limited power in the political order?

Modern politics has often sought to create coalitions through shared objects of fear and anger. Yet, we know that a political community cannot survive with these emotions turned up to 11. Having set the background beginning with concepts from Aristotle in Session 1, in this episode Dr. Higgins answers what role that forgiveness and repentance have in the political order when friendship seems so distant, and whether our Biblical understanding can serve as a model for our political relationship.

In the 500+ years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, few aspects of his subsequent theological reformation remain as contentious and debated as the distinction between law and Gospel. Indeed, to this day the discussion divides not only Roman Catholics from Protestants, but is hotly debated within Protestantism itself; there is an agreement on the importance of the distinction, but a decided lack of consensus about how it should be understood and implemented. Far from a merely academic dispute, how one understands this important theological concept will largely determine his or her reading of scripture, the purpose and nature of the church, and—according to Luther—the Gospel itself. In this episode, Dr. Jady Koch discusses the distinctions being debated today, and the various arguments concerning how this distinction can help combat (or perpetuate!) the errors of legalism, antinomianism, and gnosticism.