Aquinas Lecture and Symposia Overview

How can the tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas provide answers to the questions we face in our world today?

Every year the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology hosts The Aquinas Lecture with a reception following. In keeping with the mission of DSPT - to engage contemporary scholarship with the wisdom of tradition, especially as exemplified by St. Thomas Aquinas - our faculty nominate a scholar to present a paper in which the thought and method of Aquinas are applied to a contemporary issue.

2013- Fr. Augustine Thompson, OP - "Baptismal Theology and Practice in the Age of St. Thomas Aquinas"

2012- Michael Tkacz, PhD - "Albert the Great and the New Aristotelianism: A Turning-Point in the Western Intellectual Tradition" 

2010- Bruce Marshall, PhD - "Christ and Israel: An Unresolved Question in Catholic Theology"

 2008 - Eleonore Stump, PhD - "Thomas Aquinas and the Problem of Human Suffering"

2007 - Thomas S. Hibbs, PhD - "Everything that Rises Must Converge: Aquinas's Theological Re-formation of the Cardinal Virtues"

2006 - Anselm Ramelow, OP - "Language Without Reduction - Aquinas on the Linguistic Turn"

2005 - Most Rev. Allen H. Vigneron, ThD, "Gratitude and Religion of the Day: A Theological Enquiry into a Pastoral Question"

2004 - Gregory Tatum, OP, "Prolegomena to a Grammar of Theosis in the New Testament"

2003 - Eugene Ludwig, OFM Cap, "Religion and Philosophy in the Big City: Alexandria in the Late Fourth Century"

2002 - Aquinas Symposium

• David Burrell, CSC, "Aquinas" Use of the Liber de Causis to Formulate the Creator as Cause-Of-Being"

• Fran O'Rourke, "Unity in Aquinas' Neoplatonic Commentaries"

• Mark Damien Delp, "Abstract and Concrete Names: Logic and Metaphysics in Aquinas' Platonic Commentaries"

• Richard Schenk, OP, "From Providence to Grace: Dionysius in the Mid- Thirteenth Century"

• Vivian Boland, OP, "Thinking About Good: Aquinas on Divine Names IV, De Hebdomadibus and Nicomachean Ethics I"

• Wayne John Hankey, "Thomas' Neoplatonic Histories: His Following of Simplicis"

2001 - Benedict Ashley, OP, "Aquinas, Creation and Cosmic Evolution"

2000 - Gonzalo Ituarte Verdusco, OP, "Aquinas and Las Casas: Two Fighters for the Truth of Christ Revealed in the Poor"

1999 - Hilary Martin, OP, "Thomas Aquinas on Mission"

1998 - Robert Barron, "Thomas Aquinas' Christological Reading of God and the Creature"

1997 - Richard Schenk, OP, "Towards a More Ambiguous Ambivalence: To What Degree are Pluralistic Theories of Religion "Capable of a Crisis in their Basic Concepts""

1996 - Thomas O'Meara, OP, "Tarzan, Las Casas, and Rahner: Outside of Christianity. Thomas Aquinas' Theology of Salvation"

1995 - Edward Krasevac, OP, "Questing for Jesus: Need We Continue? Reflections of a Systematic Theologian on "The Historical Jesus""

1993 - Gregory Rocca, OP, "Hovering over the Abyss: Aquinas on God-Talk" and Jean Porter "Does Aquinas Believe in Moral Rules?"

1992 - David Burrell, CSC, "Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam"

1991 - Michael Dodds, OP, "Thomas Aquinas, Human Suffering, and the Unchanging God of Love"

See the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology Calendar and Upcoming Events Page for all current events. For more events in the area, visit the Graduate Theological Union events calendar and the University of California, Berkeley events calendar.