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. Anselm Ramelow examines how technology shapes and reflects our relationship with God, cautioning against both idolizing technology and seeking salvation through it, while affirming its proper role as an instrument serving man's chosen ends.
This lecture was given on June 11th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
Secular campuses are being transformed, but the students need your help! Your gift before September fifteenth ...
Prof. Jordan Wales examines how AI-aided decision making and bias in fields like medicine and criminal justice risk reducing human engagement to idolatrous control, urging that technology must serve authentic love and responsibility rather than replace genuine insight and ethical discernment.
This lecture was given on June 11th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
Secular campuses are being transformed, but the students need...
Fr. Anselm Ramelow explores the tension between predictive artificial intelligence and human freedom, drawing on St. Thomas Aquinas to argue that while AI and social systems can influence and predict behavior to a certain degree, genuine free will and moral responsibility remain grounded in rational deliberation and virtue.
This lecture was given on June 12th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
Prof. Jordan Wales explores the ethical and spiritual implications of interpersonal relationships with artificial intelligence, emphasizing the dangers of mistaking AI’s simulated personhood for authentic human connection.
This lecture was given on June 11th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
Secular campuses are being transformed, but the students need your help! Your gift before September fifteenth can launch a new TI ch...
Fr. Anselm Ramelow examines the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence, highlighting both its beneficial uses and its risks to human dignity, personal relationships, moral growth, and authenticity.
This lecture was given on June 10th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
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Prof. Jordan Wales explores how artificial intelligence and neural networks engage with meaning and knowledge, contrasting their statistical methods with the depth of human conceptual understanding rooted in philosophical and theological traditions.
This lecture was given on June 10th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
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Fr. Anselm Ramelow examines whether machines can possess consciousness or personhood, arguing from philosophical and theological perspectives that artificial intelligence lacks the essential qualities of subjective experience, intentionality, and rational unity found in living beings.
This lecture was given on June 9th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
Secular campuses are being transformed, but the students need your hel...
Prof. Jordan Wales critically examines the relationship between artificial intelligence and human personhood through the lens of Christian theology, exploring how AI challenges traditional notions of intelligence, consciousness, and relationality.
This lecture was given on June 9th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
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Dr. Paul LaPenna delves into the neuroscience of vice and virtue, explaining how neuroplasticity, habit formation, and philosophical insights from figures like Aquinas inform our understanding of humility, magnanimity, pride, and vainglory in the development of moral character.
This lecture was given on May 2nd, 2025, at Thomistic Institute in New York City.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstit...
Fr. Andrew Hofer explores the origins of the Christian just war tradition through Augustine’s anti-Manichean writings, examining the theological debates around violence, authority, and moral law within early Christianity.
This lecture was given on June 11th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
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Prof. Michael Krom analyzes the ethics of drone warfare through the lens of Aquinas’s just war tradition and virtue ethics, addressing moral principles of discrimination, proportionality, and the indispensability of human judgment in the use of violent technology.
This lecture was given on March 18th, 2025, at Virginia Military Institute.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eve...
Prof. Joseph Capizzi presents the just war account within the Catholic tradition, arguing that the use of force in war can be a moral act of peacemaking grounded in pursuit of the common good, and emphasizing the importance of authority, intention, cause, proportionality, and distinction between guilt and innocence.
This lecture was given on April 11th, 2025, at The Ohio State University.
Prof. Michael Krom explores Thomas Aquinas’s view on the relationship between religion and politics, discussing the distinction between obligations to political authority and to God, as reflected in the biblical command to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's."
This lecture was given on November 7th, 2024, at University of Florida.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstit...
Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel explores the project of literature from the classical to the modern era, highlighting how stories like Anna Karenina shape the moral imagination through themes of virtue, marriage, culture, and the perennial question of what it means to be human.
This lecture was given on March 11th, 2025, at Trinity College Dublin.
Secular campuses are being transformed, but the students need your help! Your gift befo...
Prof. Lee Oser explores the intertwined lives, faith journeys, and literary legacies of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the Inklings, highlighting their countercultural Christian imagination against modernist trends.
This lecture was given on November 22nd, 2024, at College of William and Mary.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
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Fr. Isaac Morales and Prof. Michael Root explore how Thomas Aquinas’ biblical commentaries on Matthew and 1 Corinthians illuminate the beatific vision, resurrection, and the role of Scripture in shaping Christian life through literal and spiritual interpretation.
This lecture was given on June 28th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
Secular campuses are being transformed, but the students need your help! Your gift before S...
Dr. Rebekah Lamb explores J.R.R. Tolkien’s “detached aesthetics,” revealing how his Christian understanding of spiritual detachment shapes his writing, especially in "The Lord of the Rings," as a means of cultivating hope, wonder, and a rightly ordered love for the world.
This lecture was given on January 30th, 2025, at University of Edinburgh.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcomi...
Prof. Thomas Ward explores C. S. Lewis’s "The Abolition of Man", analyzing how technology’s conquest of nature risks diminishing humanity unless anchored by objective moral values.
This lecture was given on April 8th, 2025, at Indiana University.
Secular campuses are being transformed, but the students need your help! Your gift before September fifteenth can launch a new TI chapter and change lives. Visit thomisticinstitute.o...
Prof. Christopher Malloy defends the Catholic understanding of Mary’s role in salvation history, refuting common objections and demonstrating how her divine maternity, perpetual virginity, and immaculate grace magnify rather than diminish the glory of Christ.
This lecture was given on April 6th, 2025, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming...
Prof. Christopher Mooney's lecture confronts the philosophical objection that heaven would be unbearably boring due to its infinite duration, arguing instead that Christian eternity is fulfilled in the beatific vision of God, which offers infinite and undiminished joy.
This lecture was given on April 23rd, 2025, at Texas A&M University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-e...
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