The Thomistic Institute

• Making Up What is Lacking: Disability and Suffering in Christ's Body, the Church | Prof. Paul Gondreau

  Prof. Paul Gondreau reflects on the profound meaning of suffering, disability, and human frailty in light of Christ’s redemptive suffering, emphasizing shared vulnerability as a source of mercy and unity within the Church.This lecture was given on March 8th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Prof. Paul Gondreau is professor of theology at Providence College, where he has taught for 26 years. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, doing his dissertation on Christ's full humanity (Christ's human passions/emotions) under the renowned Thomist scholar Jean-Pierre Torrell. He specializes in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and has published widely in the areas of Christology (focusing on Christ’s full humanity and his maleness), Christian anthropology, the moral meaning and purpose of human sexuality and sexual difference, the biblical vision of Aquinas' theology, the theology of disability, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the priesthood, and the Catholic vision of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.Keywords: Dualism and Suffering, Redemptive Suffering, Human Frailty, Divine Providence in Job, Disability in Christian Theology, Kenosis and the Incarnation, Vulnerability, Pope John Paul II’s Salvifici Doloris, Suffering as Participation in Christ’s Body, Tolkien’s Edenic Yearning

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• Ectogenesis: Transhumanism, The Brave New World, and the Attack on Transcendentals | Prof. Stephen Meredith

  Prof. Stephen Meredith explores the essence of being human through the lens of Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy, contrasting it with biological and scientific perspectives that often overlook the importance of form and final cause.This lecture was given on September 14th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Stephen Meredith (University of Chicago) is a professor 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. 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.Keywords: Accidents and Essence, Aristotle's Four Causes, Biology and Definition of Human, Causality and Teleology, Ectogenesis and Transhumanism, Empiricism vs. Essence, Hylomorphism and Form, Rational Animal Definition, Soul as Form of Body, Thomas Aquinas's Angelology

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• Can Machines be People, Too? | Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P.

  Fr. Anselm Ramelow critically examines whether artificial intelligence can achieve personhood, arguing that machines lack the essential qualities of being, consciousness, and unity inherent to human nature.This lecture was given on September 14th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P., a native of Germany, teaches philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California, where he is also currently the chair of the philosophy department. He is also a member of the Core Doctoral Faculty at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and the Academy of Catholic Theology. He obtained his doctorate under Robert Spaemann in Munich on Leibniz and the Spanish Jesuits (Gott, Freiheit, Weltenwahl, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997) and did theological work on George Lindbeck and the question of a Thomist philosophy and theology of language. Areas of research and teaching include Free Will, the History of Philosophy and Philosophical Aesthetics. He has worked on a philosophical approach to Miracles and other topics of the philosophy of religion, and more recently the philosophy of technology.Keywords: AI and Personhood Debate, Consciousness and Qualia, David Chalmers on Materialism, Human Unity in Consciousness, Immaterial Nature of Humans, Nagel’s What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, Reductionism in AI Ethics, Simulation vs. Reality in AI, Thomas Hobbes’ Materialism

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• Reconciling the Image of God with the Scientific Image of Human Persons | Dr. Daniel De Haan

  Dr. Daniel De Haan examines the interplay between philosophical, theological, and scientific images of human persons, emphasizing their complementarity and addressing challenges posed by reductionist scientific perspectives.This lecture was given on September 28th, 2023, at University of Edinburgh.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Dr. Daniel De Haan is a Research Fellow of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford. He is working on the Renewal of Natural Theology Project directed by Professor Alister McGrath. Before coming to Oxford, De Haan was a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge working on the neuroscience strand of the Templeton World Charity Foundation Fellowships in Theology, Philosophy of Religion, and the Sciences Project, directed by Sarah Coakley. During this postdoctoral fellowship, he conducted research on the intersections of theology, philosophy, and neuroscience in Lisa Saksida’s Translational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory in the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge.Keywords: Aristotelianism, Augustine’s De Trinitate, Catholic Anthropology, Divine Image, Human Dignity, Psychological Analogy of the Trinity, Rational Animals, Reductionism in Neuroscience, Scientific Challenges to Theology

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• Sharing in Divine Goodness by Grace | Fr. John Mark Solitario, O.P.

  Fr. John Mark Solitario explores the transformative power of grace offered by Christ, emphasizing the perfection of charity and voluntary poverty as a means to participate in divine goodness and a sure path to eternal life.This lecture was given on July 10th, 2024, at Theodore House at Stonyhurst.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. John Mark Solitario, O.P. is a coordinator for campus outreach at the Thomistic Institute. He met the nuns and friars of the Order of Preachers at the Dominican Monastery of the Mother of God in his hometown of West Springfield, MA. Their lives of Christian totality, marked by sacrifice, prayer, and preaching but above all, a supernatural goodness and joy, made a huge impact on him. After studying the liberal arts and philosophy at Christendom College and teaching high school theology as a member of Providence College’s PACT program, Father entered the Dominican novitiate in Cincinnati, OH, and went on for theological studies at the Dominican House of Studies. Following the solemn profession of religious vows, he was ordained a priest of Jesus Christ in 2019. Focusing on the Universal Call to Holiness in the theology of the Spanish Dominican Juan Arintero, Fr John Mark earned his licentiate in sacred theology in 2020. He is delighted to be working with students and professors as they seek to know better the truth about God and his creation through the patronage of St. Thomas Aquinas.Keywords: Abandonment of Riches, Evangelical Poverty, Grace and Divine Goodness, Incarnation Theology, Material Detachment, Perfection of Charity, Saint Augustine’s Eighty-Three Questions, Saint Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew, Voluntary Poverty, Way of Perfection

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