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.
Episodes
Fr. Terence Crotty argues that Christianity spread so rapidly because it uniquely answered the human search for truth and happiness while transforming social life through charity, dignity for slaves and women, and a compelling vision of a good and loving God that pagan religion and philosophy could not provide.
This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
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Dr. Paul LaPenna uses the dramatic case of a man in a coma from autoimmune brain disease to show that personal identity endures despite severe loss of abilities, arguing from neurology and Thomistic philosophy that a human person is a unified body–soul substance whose soul grounds changing traits over time.
This lecture was given on October 17th, 2025, at St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village.
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Prof. Mats Wahlberg argues that “necessitarian universalism”—the claim that hell is metaphysically impossible and that God must save all rational creatures—is incompatible with core Christian metaphysical commitments, and he develops three Thomistic arguments to show that the possibility of eternal damnation follows from God’s wisdom, respect for created natures, and desire for truly free self-gift.
This lecture was given on Sep...
Prof. Thomas Osborne explains reprobation and the permission of sin in Thomas Aquinas as the asymmetrical counterpart to predestination, where God positively causes the grace and merits leading the elect to glory but only permits the sins of the reprobate without ever willing or causing moral evil, thus safeguarding both divine justice and human responsibility.
This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House o...
Fr. Piotr Roszak shows how Thomas Aquinas interprets predestination through a deeply biblical lens, reading predestination as God’s merciful, Christ-centered plan to lead creation freely to a supernatural end and insisting that scriptural context is essential for avoiding deterministic distortions of the doctrine.
This lecture was given on September 5th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
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Fr. Cajetan Cuddy explains that Thomism is “fixated” on predestination because this doctrine lies at the speculative and practical center of the Thomistic vision of reality, uniting its key philosophical principles and theological convictions about God, creation, grace, and salvation in a single, coherent account.
This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
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Fr. Dominic Legge explains predestination as a profoundly hopeful Catholic doctrine rooted in God’s eternal, loving plan to give grace and lead rational creatures freely to the supernatural end of the beatific vision, drawing especially on Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine.
This lecture was given on September 5th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
Thr...
Prof. Raymond Hain examines whether nature “makes” laws by exploring classical and contemporary accounts of natural law, arguing that human moral norms arise from our rational participation in the ordered structure of life and the universe as understood in both philosophy and Catholic thought.
This lecture was given on September 8th, 2025, at United States Military Academy.
Prof. Matthew Thomas explains why justification—God’s transformative act of making sinners righteous in Christ by grace through faith and incorporation into the Church—is, for Aquinas, greater even than creation, and explores how Catholic teaching on faith, works, and grace can address Reformation-era controversies and open paths toward Protestant–Catholic reconciliation.
This lecture was given on April 6th, 2025, at Stanford Un...
Prof. Carlos A. Casanova argues that a properly understood Aristotelian–Platonic metaphysics of form, final causality, and nature allows human reason, without biblical revelation, to infer a governing divine intellect that orders the cosmos and human history in a providential way.
This lecture was given on October 22nd, 2025, at Clemson University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/u...
Fr. John Langlois presents Saint Louis de Montfort’s Marian spirituality of “total consecration” as the surest, easiest, and most secure way to live Mary’s maternal mediation and grow in intimate union with Jesus by entrusting one’s whole life to her.
This lecture was given on December 14th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
Abo...
Fr. John Langlois traces how Marian doctrine and devotion—from Scripture and the early Fathers through medieval councils, liturgy, and architecture—culminate in the rosary as a Christ-centered, biblically rooted prayer that brings believers to Jesus through Mary’s maternal intercession.
This lecture was given on December 14th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomistic...
Prof. Joshua Hochschild argues that free will is not an illusion but a real, rational power by which human beings participate in God’s causality, and that the supposed “problem of free will” arises from a reductive modern picture of causation and human nature rather than from the classical Aristotelian–Thomistic framework.
This lecture was given on October 10th, 2025, at St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village.
Prof. Thomas Osborne argues that, on an Aristotelian–Thomistic account of human nature, it is never truly good for you to be bad, because vice damages your very being as a rational, social creature ordered to common goods and ultimately to God.
This lecture was given on October 29th, 2025, at University of Pittsburgh.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Spe...
Dr. David McPherson argues that human beings are “meaning-seeking animals” and that an adequate neo-Aristotelian ethics must see the virtues as constitutive of a meaningful life ordered to strong goods such as the noble, the sacred, and love of God and neighbor.
This lecture was given on October 16th, 2025, at University of Florida.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
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Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy presents Aquinas as a medieval theologian whose love of Scripture, clear metaphysics of happiness, integrated view of body and soul, and profound Eucharistic devotion offer urgently needed guidance for Christians facing modern confusion about truth, identity, and God.
This lecture was given on October 30th, 2025, at Southern Methodist University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomis...
Prof. Adam Eitel argues that God’s divine pedagogy makes the examples of the saints indispensable for our salvation, since their concrete, imperfect yet graced lives teach us how to endure sorrow, grow in virtue, and imitate Christ in the real circumstances of our own time.
This lecture was given on October 6th, 2025, at Brown University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eve...
Dr. John-Paul Heil critiques modern marketing’s implicit anthropology, explaining that marketing driven by manipulation, simulation, and quantity undermines human dignity, authentic friendship, and the pursuit of truth, advocating for a vision of marketing grounded in transparency, service, and the intrinsic value of persons.
This lecture was given on October 7th, 2025, at Washington and Lee University/Virginia Military Institut...
Prof. Carl Vennerstrom explores how perseverance, prayer, ordered work, and thanksgiving transform boredom and the temptation to acedia into opportunities for deep spiritual growth, joy, and resilient virtue in an age of digital distraction.
This lecture was given on April 12th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speake...
Prof. Paige Hochschild analyzes John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, contrasting the Catholic vision of bodily integration, purity, and vocation with both contemporary purity culture and philosophical dualism to reveal how grace, self-gift, and resurrection ground true human flourishing.
This lecture was given on October 6th, 2025, at University of South Florida.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomistici...
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