

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

Dec 1, 2022 • 47min
Renewing Trinitarian Theology with Prof. Bruce Marshall | Off-Campus Conversations, Ep. 010
Are there medieval answers to modern questions of Trinitarian theology? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Bruce Marshall about his latest Thomistic Institute lecture, "Medieval Answers to Modern Questions: Renewing Trinitarian Theology Today.”
Renewing Trinitarian Theology w/ Fr. Gregory Pine (Off-Campus Conversations)
You can listen to the original lecture here:
https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/medieval-answers-to-modern-questions-renewing-trinitarian-theology-today-prof-bruce-marshall
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org
About the speaker:
Bruce D. Marshall is the Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine at Southern Methodist University. He holds a masters from Yale Divinity School and a doctorate from Yale University. His teaching interests include medieval and reformation theology and systematic theology. His research interests include doctrine of the Trinity, Christology, philosophical issues in theology, sacramental theology, and Judaism and Christian theology. 559080

Nov 30, 2022 • 48min
Medieval Answers to Modern Questions: Renewing Trinitarian Theology Today | Prof. Bruce Marshall
The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/4jsmdu2j.
This lecture was given on October 19, 2022, at Oxford University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Bruce D. Marshall is the Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine at Southern Methodist University. He holds a masters from Yale Divinity School and a doctorate from Yale University. His teaching interests include medieval and reformation theology and systematic theology. His research interests include doctrine of the Trinity, christology, philosophical issues in theology, sacramental theology, and Judaism and Christian theology. 559080

Nov 29, 2022 • 1h 13min
Aristotle on the Impossibility of Defining Life | Prof. Christopher Frey
This lecture was given on October 14, 2022, as part of the Thomistic Circles conference entitled, "Life in the Cosmos: Contemporary Science, Philosophy, and Theology on the Origin and Persistence of Life on Earth(and Beyond?)."
The two-day conference at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. featured a stellar, cross-disciplinary lineup of speakers: scientists Jonathan Lunine (Cornell University) and Maureen Condic (University of Utah), philosopher Christopher Frey (University of South Carolina), and theologian Fr. Mauriusz Tabaczek, O.P. (Angelicum).
This conference is part of the Thomistic Institute’s Scientia Project.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org
About the speaker:
Christopher Frey is an associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of South Carolina. Prof. Frey works primarily in Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle’s natural philosophy and metaphysics. He is writing a book entitled The Principle of Life: Aristotelian Souls in an Inanimate World. It concerns the distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the unity of living organisms, nutrition, birth, death, and, more generally, what one’s metaphysical worldview looks like if one takes life to be central. He also works in contemporary philosophy of perception and mind and has written extensively on the relationship between the intentionality and phenomenality of perceptual experience. In addition to these two main areas of research, he has secondary projects in metaphysics, the philosophy of action, Medieval philosophy, Early Modern philosophy, and the history of analytic philosophy.

Nov 29, 2022 • 40min
Can We Be Good Without God? | Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski, O.P.
This lecture was given on October 10, 2022, at Trinity University(San Antonio).
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org
About the Speaker:
Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski, O.P. is a member of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. She is an Associate Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston where she also teaches at St. Mary's Seminary. Her main area of research is medieval sacramental theology with a focus on Albert the Great and Aquinas. She has published a translation of Albert the Great's work On the Body of the Lord, in the CUA Fathers of the Church Medieval Continuation series as well as a translation of Aquinas's Commentary on the Psalms for the Aquinas Institute. She has published articles in various journals including Logos, Antiphon, Nova et Vetera and Franciscan Studies.

Nov 28, 2022 • 59min
Fertile Ground in Our Cosmic Backyard | Prof. Jonathan Lunine
Prof. Lunine's slides may be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/22vs3mdv
This lecture was given on October 14, 2022, at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., as part of the Thomistic Circles conference entitled, "Life in the Cosmos: Contemporary Science, Philosophy, and Theology on the Origin and Persistence of Life on Earth (and Beyond?)."
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Jonathan I. Lunine is The David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences at Cornell University and Director of the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, His research focuses on astrophysics, planetary science and astrobiology. In addition to his responsibilities in the classroom, he serves as Interdisciplinary Scientist on the James Webb Space Telescope project and is a coinvestigator on the Juno mission currently in orbit around Jupiter. Lunine is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the 2014 recipient of the Jean Dominique Cassini Medal of the European Geosciences Union. He is the author of Astrobiology: A Multidisciplinary Approach and Earth: Evolution of a Habitable World. Lunine obtained a B.S. in physics and astronomy from the University of Rochester (1980), an M.S. (1983) and a Ph.D. (1985) in planetary science from the California Institute of Technology. He lives in Ithaca New York, where he is a member of St. Catherine of Siena parish. In 2016 Lunine helped to found the Society of Catholic Scientists.
About the conference:
What is life? How did biological life arise? What makes life persist and might it exist elsewhere in the cosmos? What would that mean?
Consider these questions and more with the Thomistic Institute at the Fall Thomistic Circles conference, Life in the Cosmos: Contemporary Science, Philosophy, and Theology on the Origin and Persistence of Life on Earth (and Beyond?). The two-day conference at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. features a stellar, cross-disciplinary lineup of speakers, scientists Jonathan Lunine (Cornell University) and Maureen Condic (University of Utah), philosopher Christopher Frey (University of South Carolina), and theologian Fr. Mauriusz Tabaczek, O.P. (Angelicum). This conference is part of the Thomistic Institute’s Scientia Project.

Nov 25, 2022 • 59min
St. Catherine on Secularism and the Interior Life | Sr. Mary Madeleine Todd, O.P.
The lecture was given on October 12, 2022 at Harvard University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Sr. Mary Madeline Todd is a Dominican Sister of Saint Cecilia Congregation in Nashville. She earned her doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. She teaches, writes, and speaks on spiritual and moral theology and philosophy, especially on the dignity of the human person in Christ.

Nov 23, 2022 • 1h 4min
The Image and the Idol: A Theological Reflection on AI Bias | Prof. Jordan Wales
This talk was given on October 13, 2022 at the University of Texas at Austin.
For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Jordan Wales is an Associate Professor and the John and Helen Kuczmarski Chair in Theology at Hillsdale College. His scholarship focuses on early Christian understandings of seeing God as well as contemporary theological and philosophical questions relating to Artificial Intelligence. He is published in Augustinian Studies and AI & Society, among other journals; he is an advisor to the Holy See’s new Center for Digital Culture, under the Pontifical Council for Culture; and he is an affiliated scholar with the Centre for Humanity and the Common Good at Regent College, University of British Columbia. He received his M.T.S. and Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Notre Dame after studying under a British Marshall Scholarship in the U.K., where he received a Diploma in Theology from Oxford and a M.Sc. in Cognitive Science and Natural Language from the University of Edinburgh. He is a recipient of a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.

Nov 22, 2022 • 36min
Does God Exist? | Prof. Matthew Dugandzic
This lecture was given at Harvard University on October 3, 2022.
For more information on upcoming events, visit thomisticinstitute.org
About the speaker:
Matthew Dugandzic joined the theology faculty at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in 2019 after completing a Ph.D. in moral theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. His dissertation, "A Thomistic Account of the Habituation of the Passions," explored the ways in which people can develop virtuous affective inclinations.
Dr. Dugandzic's scholarship focuses on medieval thought, especially Thomas Aquinas' anthropology, psychology, and ethics. His work on Christ's passions recently appeared in the European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas and his other writings on the passions and on bioethics have appeared in New Blackfriars and National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. His current research focuses on the sources that Aquinas used in developing his understanding of virtue and on recovering ancient and medieval wisdom regarding economics in order to apply this wisdom to contemporary financial problems (like student loan debt).
Dr. Dugandzic has taught courses in fundamental moral theology, bioethics, theological anthropology, and Catholic social teaching. In addition to his work in the academy, Dr. Dugandzic has also brought his theological expertise to the aid of the Church, having taught theology to RCIA groups, catechists, and candidates for the permanent diaconate.
In addition to his doctorate, Dr. Dugandzic holds a BSc in biology from Concordia University in Montréal, Québec and an MA in religious studies from St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, New York. He and his wife, Audra, live in Baltimore, MD. In his spare time, he likes to play hockey, which he enjoys almost as much as reading theology.

Nov 21, 2022 • 1h 20min
Judging the Truth: Law and Moral Relativism | Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P.
This talk was given on October 4, 2022 at Georgetown University.
For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
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.

Nov 18, 2022 • 59min
Soul of Christ, Sanctify Me | Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P.
This talk was given at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. as part of the intellectual retreat, "Grace," offered for students and young professionals in the Washington, D.C. area, Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2022.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us online: thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Father Andrew Hofer, O.P., grew up as the youngest of ten children on a Kansas farm. He entered the Dominican Province of St. Joseph in 1995 and professed simple vows the following year. He made his profession of solemn vows in the Great Jubilee Year of 2000, and was ordained a deacon in 2001 and a priest in 2002.
His assignments have included serving as a parochial vicar in Rhode Island, a missionary in Kenya, a doctoral student at the University of Notre Dame, a formator at the Dominican House of Studies, and a member of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception. He is finishing a book titled The Word in Our Flesh: A Return to Patristic Preaching, whose research the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship funded through its Teacher-Scholar Grant.