The Thomistic Institute

Prof. Chad Pecknold explains how Augustine and Aquinas argue against skepticism, defending metaphysical realism and the mind’s capacity to know truth as essential for genuine morality and for leading people to Christ, who is Truth itself.This lecture was given on October 23rd, 2025, at Franciscan University of Steubenville.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Dr. Chad C. Pecknold earned his PhD in Systematic Theology at the University of Cambridge in England. He is a Catholic theologian and for the last 16 years he has been a professor of theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC, teaching in the areas of fundamental theology, Christian anthropology and political theology. Since 2022, he has been named by The Catholic Herald as one of the most influential Catholic thought leaders and authors in the United States. An internationally recognized scholar of Augustine’s theological and political thought, Pecknold has authored or edited five books — including Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History and The T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology —and authored dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles. He edits the Sacra Doctrina series for CUA Press with Fr. Thomas Joseph White O.P. He has served the public by educating thousands of students at the Institute of Catholic Culture, and also through his many columns at First Things, National Review, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and The Catholic Herald. He has been an invited guest on NPR's "All Things Considered," Fox News, ABC News, and has been a frequent guest on EWTN News Nightly, World Over Live with Raymond Arroyo, and various other EWTN programs, such as the celebrated series on Heresies. Pecknold has also led institutions, serving as Chair of the American Academy of Catholic Theology from 2015-2020, expanding and professionalizing a guild of theologians faithful to the Magisterium. He also serves in non-profit board leadership as Board Director for Americans United for Life, Board Member for Pro-Life Partners, Board Member for the Classical Learning Test, Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology, and as Resident Theologian at the Institute for Faith and Public Culture at the Basilica of Saint Mary — the oldest Catholic Church in the Commonwealth of Virginia. While currently finishing a short book on the Catholic understanding of Augustine’s Confessions, Pecknold continues to work on a long term project on Augustine’s City of God and the Christian order of things.He and his wife Dr. Sara Pecknold (who teaches Music History at Christendom College) have five children, including adorably identical twin toddler girls whose names they frequently confuse!Keywords: Augustine, Aquinas, Conformity of Mind to Reality, Human Desire for Truth, Metaphysical Realism, Obstacles to Faith, Radical Doubt, Skepticism, Thomistic Account of Truth, Trust

Prof. Steven Jensen explores the issue of free will and moral responsibility, arguing that we are genuine authors of our actions only if our choices are self-determined and not merely the inevitable result of heredity, environment, or internal states shaped by outside forces.This lecture was given on September 30th, 2025, at Georgia Institute of Technology.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Steven J Jensen holds the Bishop Nold Chair in Graduate Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, where he teaches in The Center for Thomistic Studies. His fields of research include bioethics, moral psychology, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, human nature, and natural law. He is the author of several books, including the following: Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics, The Human Person: A Beginner’s Thomistic Psychology, The Natural Law: A Beginner’s Thomistic Guide.Keywords: Action, Causality, Compatibilism, Determinism, Free Will, Freedom, Human Tendencies and Prediction, Libertarian Agency View, Moral Responsibility, Possibility

Dr. William Hurlbut examines how natural neuroplasticity, education, lifestyle, and new neurotechnologies are “rewiring the brain,” highlighting both their therapeutic promise and their dangers in an age of addictive digital culture, standardized schooling, and powerful biotechnological interventions.This lecture was given on October 27th, 2025, at University of Rochester.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:William B. Hurlbut is a physician and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University Medical Center. After receiving his undergraduate and medical training at Stanford, he completed postdoctoral studies in theology and medical ethics, studying with Robert Hamerton-Kelly, the Dean of the Chapel at Stanford, and subsequently with the Rev. Louis Bouyer of the Institut Catholique de Paris. His primary areas of interest involve the ethical issues associated with advancing biomedical technology, the biological basis of moral awareness, and studies in the integration of theology and philosophy of biology. He was instrumental in establishing the first course in biomedical ethics at Stanford Medical Center and subsequently taught bioethics to over six thousand Stanford undergraduate students in the Program in Human Biology. Dr. Hurlbut is the author of numerous publications on science and ethics including the co-edited volume Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue (2002, Oxford University Press), and “Science, Religion and the Human Spirit” in the Oxford Handbook of Science and Religion. He has organized and co-chaired three multi-year interdisciplinary faculty projects at Stanford University, “Becoming Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Spiritual, Religious and Moral Awareness,” “Brain Mind and Emergence,” and the ongoing “The Boundaries of Humanity: Human, Animals, and Machines in the Age of Biotechnology.” In addition, he was Co-leader, together with U.C. Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna of “The challenge and opportunity of gene editing: a project for reflection, deliberation and education.”Keywords: Addiction and Digital Media, Attention Formation, Brain Development, Brain Plasticity and Education, Dyslexia, Ethical Neurotechnology, Neuroplasticity, Pornography and the Adolescent Brain, Standardized Schooling, Technology

Fr. Chris Gault explores whether AI like ChatGPT should change how or why we study, showing that while machines can accelerate information processing, only human study forms our minds, virtues, and relationship to truth in a way that leads to real fulfillment.This lecture was given on November 18th, 2025, at Galway University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Fr. Chris Vincent Gault, OP, was born and raised in Belfast in the north of Ireland, where he studied medicine at Queen's University Belfast. Qualifying as a doctor in 2013, he began to train as an emergency physician, before leaving medicine after 3 years to enter the Irish Province of the Order of Preachers. Ordained as a Dominican priest in July 2024, and after having completed his studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, he was assigned to the convent of St. Mary of the Isles in Cork, where he now resides and ministers, particularly to the youth and young adults of that city.Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Aquinas on Knowledge, Freedom of Intellect, Handwriting, Learning, Limits of AI, Plato, Study, Understanding, Virtue and Intellectual Life

Prof. Tomás Bogardus asks whether a machine can truly understand by unpacking how large language models like ChatGPT function and arguing that genuine knowledge requires rational insight and responsibility to truth that go beyond statistical text prediction.This lecture was given on November 17th, 2025, at University of Georgia.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Tomás Bogardus earned his BS in biology at UC San Diego, his MA in philosophy at Biola University, and his PhD in philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He works mainly in metaphysics and epistemology, and is most interested in the mind-body problem, the rationality of religious belief, and the nature of gender.Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Insight, Knowledge versus Prediction, Large Language Models, Next-Token Prediction Models, Pattern Recognition and Meaning, Statistical Language Modeling, Truth and Responsibility, Understanding