Annual Aquinas Lecture
The Aquinas Lecture is designed to engage contemporary scholarship and culture in a way that enriches both. Scholars from DSPT and elsewhere present topics related to current research in the field of Thomistic studies.
March 17, 2026, at 7:30 PM at Newman Hall-Holy Spirit Parish
Join us for this year's Aquinas Lecture, featuring Dr. Richard C. Taylor Ph.D. from Marquette University. Dr. Taylor will be exploring how Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), prominent Persian medieval philosopher and physician, shaped Thomas Aquinas’s early metaphysics, especially ideas on essence, existence, and creation. While Aquinas adopted Avicenna’s distinction between what a thing is and that it is, he rejected Avicenna’s hierarchical model of causation, arguing instead that God alone directly causes all existence. This talk highlights how Aquinas critically transformed Islamic and Neoplatonic philosophy into his Christian metaphysical vision.
2025 – John R. T. Berkman, Regis College; Toronto, Canada, "Christian Life beyond Virtue: Aquinas on the Importance of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit."
2024 – James Kintz, DSPT; Berkeley, CA, "Personhood and the Problem of Mutual Awareness."
2023 – Matthew Levering, “Christ’s Cross at the Center of the Mystical Body: Scripture, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Recent Theology”
2022 – Linda Zagzebski, “Subjectivity and the God’s-eye View of the Universe”
2021 – Most Rev. Anthony Fisher, O.P., “Loss of Trust and Crisis of Leadership: Responses with the Help of St Thomas Aquinas”
2020 – Justin Gable, OP, “God After Metaphysics: Heidegger, Aquinas, and the Future of Natural Theology”
2019 – Mirela Oliva, University of St. Thomas, Houston, "Causality in the Human Life"
2018 – Therese Scarpelli Cory, "What does it mean to be immaterial?"
2017 – Marianne Farina, CSC, "Guides for the Perplexed: Aquinas and al-Ghazali on the Moral Life"
2016 – Olivier-Thomas Venard, OP, “Life, Language and Christ: A Thomistic Approach”
2015 – Michael Morris, OP, “Saint Thomas Aquinas in Legend and Art”
2014 – Diana Fritz Cates, “Hatred in the Light of Love: A Thomistic Analysis”
2013 – 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”
2011 – Bryan Kromholtz, OP, STD, “The Dead in Christ Will Rise: Thomas Aquinas and Current Ideas on the Time of the Resurrection”
2010 – Bruce Marshall, PhD, "Christ and Israel: An Unresolved Question in Catholic Theology"
2009 – Margarita Vega, PhD, "The Ontology of Art: An Anthropological Perspective"
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 – Fr. Anselm Ramelow, OP, "Language Without Reduction - Aquinas on the Linguistic Turns"
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
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David Burrell, CSC, “Aquinas’ Use of the Liber de Causis to Formulate the Creator as Cause-Of-Being”
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Fran O’Rourke, “Unity in Aquinas’ Neoplatonic Commentaries”
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Mark Damien Delp, “Abstract and Concrete Names: Logic and Metaphysics in Aquinas’ Platonic Commentaries”
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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”.
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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’.”
1994 – Jean Porter “Does Aquinas Believe in Moral Rules’?”
1993 – Gregory Rocca, OP, “Hovering over the Abyss: Aquinas on God-Talk”
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”