

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

Sep 30, 2022 • 32min
Does God Exist? | Prof. Joseph Trabbic
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

Sep 29, 2022 • 1h 15min
Post-Liberalism and Contemporary Catholic Political Philosophy | Prof. Robert Koons
This lecture was given on April 27, 2022 at the University of Texas at Austin.
For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at 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.

Sep 28, 2022 • 1h 38min
Is Virtue Enough? The Contortions of Ethics Without God | Prof. Joshua Hochschild
This lecture was given on April 22, 2022 at the University of Georgia.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
About the speaker
Joshua Hochschild is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Philosophy, Politics and Economics 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.

Sep 27, 2022 • 1h 24min
Does God Exist? | Prof. Alexander Pruss
This lecture was given on April 4, 2022 at the University of Georgia.
For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
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.

Sep 26, 2022 • 1h 5min
Time Management: A Thomistic Approach | Prof. John Cuddeback
This lecture was given on July 25, 2022 at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Washington, D.C. for the Thomistic Institute's Washington, D.C. young professional's chapter.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
John A. Cuddeback, PhD, is professor of Philosophy at Christendom College, where he has taught for twenty-five years. He lectures widely on topics including virtue, fatherhood, friendship, and household, and his professional writings appear in various academic journals and books. His book True Friendship was republished by Ignatius Press. His blogging at LifeCraft is renowned for applying an ancient wisdom to life today.

Sep 25, 2022 • 59min
Divine Simplicity and the Complexity of Creation | Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P.
This lecture was given on July 17, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. for the Fourth Annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium: Complexity, Simplicity and Emergence.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Fr. Thomas Joseph White completed his bachelor’s in religious studies from Brown University (1993) and his Master’s (1995) and Doctorate (2002) in Theology at Oxford University. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2003. He completed his licentiate in Sacred Theology (2007) at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. He professed final vows in 2007 and was ordained a priest in 2008.
His research and teaching concentrate on Thomistic metaphysics, Christology and Roman Catholic-Reformed ecumenical dialogue. He was appointed an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2011. White taught at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C from 2008-2018, and was the founder and Director of the Washington DC Thomistic Institute from 2009 until his departure for Rome in 2018.
In 2015 White became co-editor of Nova et Vetera Journal, an American Catholic Theological journal. In 2018 he was assigned to teach at the Angelicum and function as the Director of the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. In June 2021, he was appointed rector of the Angelicum in Rome, and in June 2022 White was appointed president of the Academy of Catholic Theology, one of the principal societies of academic Catholic theology in the United States.

Sep 23, 2022 • 42min
The Trinity at Christ's Baptism and the Institution of the First Sacrament | Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P.
This lecture was given on September 20, 2022 at the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Angelicum.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org
The Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Angelicum Thomistic Institute present the XI International Thomistic Congress.
The general scientific objective of the XI International Thomistic Congress is to consider new perspectives in the study of Saint Thomas (interests, methods and results) in order to highlight the resources of the Thomistic tradition in contemporary theological and philosophical debates.
The Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Angelicum Thomistic Institute invite you to the XI International Thomistic Congress. It will be held at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome. A unique opportunity to share work, research and friendships with the best international specialists in the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
The Congress is under the Honorary Presidency of His Eminence Rev. Luis Cardinal Ladaria Ferrer, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The languages of the Congress are Italian, French, Spanish and English. Simultaneous translations will be provided for the plenary sessions for the in-person audience. The plenary sessions will also be live-streamed, but only in their original language.
About the speaker:
Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Assistant Professor in Dogmatic 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 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, 2016).

Sep 22, 2022 • 42min
Off-Campus Conversations, Ep. 005: Prof. Nina Heereman on the Book of Revelation
How can we read and interpret the Book of Revelation? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with scripture scholar Prof. Nina Heereman about her latest Thomistic Institute lecture, "Finding Consolation in the Book of Revelation."
Finding Consolation in the Book of Revelation w/ Fr. Gregory Pine and Prof. Nina Heereman (Off-Campus Conversations)
You can listen to the original lecture here: https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/finding-consolation-in-the-book-of-revelation-prof-nina-heereman
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org
About the Speaker:
Dr. Heereman was born and raised in a devout Catholic family in Germany. Originally trained as a lawyer, Dr. Heereman experienced a deep conversion experience at the 1997 World Youth Day. This conversion led her to discern a vocation as a lay woman “celibate for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” and also led her to theological studies so as to “consecrate [her] life to the study and teaching of the Word of God”.
She received an STB from the Pontifical Gregorian University, an SSL from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and the very rare SSD from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem and the Université de Fribourg. Her doctoral thesis “Behold King Solomon on the Day of His Wedding”: A Symbolic-Diachronic Reading of Song 3:6-11 and 4:12-5:1 has been heralded by scholars as a profound contribution to scholarship on the Song of Songs.
Dr. Heereman is presently an Assistant Professor of Sacred Scripture at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, CA.

5 snips
Sep 21, 2022 • 52min
Nominalism and Modernist Literature | Prof. Erik Tonning
This lecture was given on June 6, 2022 at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org
About the speaker:
Erik Tonning is Professor of British Literature and Culture in the University of Bergen (from 2015). In 2011-2014 he was Research Director of the ‘Modernism and Christianity’ project funded by the Bergen Research Foundation/Trond Mohn Foundation. He completed an undergraduate degree at Bergen (1999) and an MA at Oslo (2001), before going on to the University of Oxford for his DPhil (2006). He has held a Norwegian Research Council postdoctoral grant (2006-2009) for a project on ‘Samuel Beckett and Christianity’, and has also been affiliated with the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture at Regent’s Park College (2005-2010). In 2010, he held a Tutorial Fellowship at Regent’s Park College, Oxford. He has published two monographs, Samuel Beckett’s Abstract Drama: Works for Stage and Screen 1962-1985 (2007), and Modernism and Christianity (2014). He has also published severl co-edited volumes including Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies (Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 22, 2010), Broadcasting in the Modernist Era (2014) and Modernism, Christianity and Apocalypse (2015). He is Series Editor (with Prof. Matthew Feldman) of the two book series Historicizing Modernism and Modernist Archives from Bloomsbury Academic.

Sep 19, 2022 • 1h 3min
Simplicity, Complexity, and the Emerging Cell | Prof. Mark Van Berkum
This lecture was given on July 16, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. for the Fourth Annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium: Complexity, Simplicity and Emergence.
Slides for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/2p97hkek
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Mark Van Berkum is a professor of biological sciences at Wayne State University, and focuses on developmental neurobiology. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine.