

The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute exists to promote Catholic truth in our contemporary world by strengthening the intellectual formation of Christians at universities, in the Church, and in the wider public square. The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Universal Doctor of the Church, is our touchstone.
The Thomistic Institute Podcast features the lectures and talks from our conferences, campus chapters events, intellectual retreats, livestream events, and much more.
Founded in 2009, the Thomistic Institute is part of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
The Thomistic Institute Podcast features the lectures and talks from our conferences, campus chapters events, intellectual retreats, livestream events, and much more.
Founded in 2009, the Thomistic Institute is part of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 18, 2023 • 47min
Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead? A Historical Investigation | Father Isaac Morales, O.P.
This lecture was given on April 15th, 2023 at the University of Rochester.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
Speaker Bio:
Fr. Isaac Morales, O.P. entered the Dominican novitiate for the Province of St. Joseph in the summer of 2012. Before joining the order, Fr. Isaac received a BSE in civil engineering from Duke University, an MTS with a concentration in biblical studies from the University of Notre Dame, and a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University. After completing his Ph.D., he taught in the Department of Theology at Marquette University for four years. During the academic year 2011-12, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich. Fr. Isaac was ordained to the priesthood in May of 2018. He has taught at Providence since August of the same year.

Jul 17, 2023 • 37min
Sorrow, Beauty, and Mercy A Catholic Aesthetic Vision | Professor Thomas Hibbs
This lecture was given at the University of Maryland at College Park on April 27th, 2023.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
Author Bio:
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 Ethic 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.

Jul 14, 2023 • 47min
It's My Right: Understanding Natural Rights and the Purpose of Politics| Father Dominic Legge, O.P.
This lecture was given on April 13th, 2023, at NYU.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and an Assistant Professor in systematic theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He 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. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001 and was ordained a priest in 2007. He practiced law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice before becoming a Dominican.

Jul 13, 2023 • 40min
St. Augustine and the Virtue of Humility w/ Prof. Mary Keys (Off-Campus Conversations)
Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. in an off-campus conversation with Prof. Mary Keys on St. Augustine and the Virtue of Humility. They discuss Augustine's hierarchical understanding of justice and its connection to human flourishing. The speakers also explore the role of charity in St. Thomas Aquinas' teachings, the transformative intersection of justice, mercy, and forgiveness, humility in public discourse, and Augustine's perspective on humility as the recognition of life as a gift from God.

Jul 12, 2023 • 1h 12min
No Justice Without Mercy; No Mercy Without Justice | Professor Gary Anderson
This lecture was given on March 30th, 2023, at Harvard University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
Speaker Bio:
Professor Gary Anderson is the Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Theology at Notre Dame University. He holds a B.A. from Albion College, an M.Div. from Duke University, and a Ph.D from Harvard University and previously taught at the University of Virginia and Harvard Divinity School Prof. Anderson has won numerous awards including most recently grants from the American Philosophical Society, Lilly Endowment and the Institute for Advanced Study at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Prof Anderson’s is well known for his books Sin: A History and Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition (Yale University Press, 2009 and 2013). His newest book, That I May Dwell among Them: Incarnation and Atonement in the Tabernacle Narrative will appear this coming November. Some recent articles include: “To See Where God Dwells: The Tabernacle, Temple, and the Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition;” “The Roman Church as Casta Meretrix;” and “God Doesn’t Break Bad in the Old Testament.” Anderson served as President of the Catholic Biblical Association from 2013-14.

Jul 11, 2023 • 40min
What Is Our Hope? Heaven And The Kingdom Of God | Professor Michael Root
This lecture was given on March 29th, 2023 at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
Speaker Bio:
Professor Michael Root (Catholic University of America is an Ordinary Professor of Systematic Theology at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Root is a native of Norfolk, Virginia and studied at Dartmouth College (B.A.) and Yale University (Ph.D. in theology). He was received into the Catholic Church in August, 2010. His particular theological interests are ecumenical relations, eschatology/last things, and grace and justification. Root has been a member of the US and international Lutheran-Catholic dialogues, the US Lutheran-United Methodist dialogue, the Anglican-Lutheran International Working Group, and the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission. He served on the drafting teams that produced the Lutheran Roman Catholic “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification”.

Jul 10, 2023 • 1h 17min
Beauty And Mathematics | Professor Alexander Pruss
This lecture was given on March 28th, 2023, at the University of Texas at Austin.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
Speaker Bio:
Alexander Pruss has doctorates both in philosophy and mathematics, and is currently Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University. His books include The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge University Press), One Body: An Essay in Christian Sexual Ethics (Notre Dame University Press), and Actuality, Possibility and Worlds (Continuum). His research areas include metaphysics, philosophy of religion, Christian ethics, philosophy of mathematics and formal epistemology.

Jul 7, 2023 • 57min
The Catholic Vision Of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings | Professor Paul Gondreau
This talk was given on March 14th, 2023 at Brown University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
Speaker Bio:
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 Eucharist, the Sacraments, and the Catholic thought of J.R.R. Tolkien. He has a published manuscript on Christ's human passions in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and has published numerous essays in the area of Thomistic Christology, Thomistic anthropology, a Thomistic account of human sexuality, and a Thomistic theology of disability. He is associate editor of the theological journal Nova et Vetera, and has served as a consultant to the USCCB's committee on marriage and family.

Jul 6, 2023 • 1h 2min
Can A Biologist Believe In The Existence Of Life? | Professor Stephen Meredith
This lecture was given on March 8th, 2023 at Vanderbilt University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
Speaker Bio:
Stephen Meredith is a professor at the University of Chicago’s Departments of Pathology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Neurology. He is also an associate faculty member in the University of Chicago Divinity School. He has published more than 100 journal articles, focusing on the biophysics of protein structure. Much of his work has been the application of solution and solid-state NMR to the study of amyloid proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease. He has also published articles on literature and philosophy in diverse aspects of medical humanities and bioethics. His teaching includes courses to graduate students in biochemistry and biophysics, medical students, and undergraduates and graduate students in the humanities, including courses on James Joyce’s Ulysses, St. Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Dostoevsky (focusing on Brothers Karamazov), Thomas Mann and David Foster Wallace. He is currently working on a book examining disease and the theological problem of evil. Other current writing projects include a study of James Joyce and the problem of evil.

Jul 5, 2023 • 56min
St. Thomas Aquinas on Love in the Incarnation of God | Father Andrew Hofer, O.P.
This lecture was given on March 8th, 2023, at West Virginia University.
For more information about upcoming events, visit thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
Speaker Bio:
Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., grew up as the youngest of ten children on a farm in Kansas, and studied history, philosophy, and classics at Benedictine College. He then went to St Andrews, Scotland for a Master of Letters in medieval history. He entered the Order of Preachers as a son of the Province of St. Joseph, and was ordained a priest in 2002. After finishing his S.T.L. and serving as an associate pastor for a brief time, he was sent to Kenya as a missionary for two years. He taught at the Tangaza College of The Catholic University of Eastern Africa and other institutions in Nairobi. He returned to the U.S. and completed a Ph.D. in theology at the University of Notre Dame, with the primary area of history of Christianity, specializing in patristic theology with additional studies in medieval theology, and the secondary area of systematic theology. His research appears in such journals as Vigiliae Christianae, Augustinianum, International Journal of Systematic Theology, New Blackfriars, Nova et Vetera, Pro Ecclesia, The Thomist, Communio, and Angelicum and in books published by Catholic University of America Press and Ignatius Press. He is the author of Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oxford Early Christian Studies), Oxford University Press, 2013, and the editor of Divinization: Becoming Icons of Christ through the Liturgy, Hillenbrand Books, 2015.