The Thomistic Institute

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.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Fr. Terence Crotty is the Regent of Studies in the Irish Province of the Dominican Order. Since graduating with his doctorate from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland in 2011 he has been mainly involved in formation and in teaching Scripture Studies to the Dominican students in the Studium of the Irish Province in his community in Dublin and to the lay faithful in the Priory Institute, Tallaght. His first monograph is about to appear, The Irish Dominicans: 800 Years and he has also published various articles in reviews and journals, including a chapter in The Glenstal Companion to the Easter Vigil.Keywords: Caritas and Christian Charity, Conversion of the Roman Empire, Dignity of Slaves and Women, Greek and Roman Pagan Religion, Irish Conversion and St. Patrick, Letter to Diognetus and Early Apologetics, Pagan Philosophy and Stoicism, Roman Empire and Early Christianity, St. Brigid and Irish Monasticism, Truth, Happiness, and Human Desire​

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.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Dr. Paul LaPenna is a neurologist based in Greenville, South Carolina, specializing in the care of patients with neurological emergencies. He is also an award-winning professor at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he teaches neuroscience and has been recognized as the Professor of the Neuroscience Block from 2019 to 2025.Dr. LaPenna’s professional and academic work is deeply informed by the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, particularly regarding the integration of faith and reason, science and religion, and the Thomistic understanding of the human person. Through his lectures and writings, he explores how modern neuroscience complements classical philosophy and theology, offering insights into human cognition, virtue formation, and the relationship between mind, brain, and soul.Dr. LaPenna lives in Greenville with his wife Nicole and their three daughters, Catherine, Susanna, and Lucia, who daily remind him of life’s greatest joys and deepest blessings.Keywords: Body–Soul Unity, Catholic Anthropology, Consciousness and Brain, Human Person, Identity and Memory, Neuroscience and Philosophy, Personal Identity, Rational Soul, Thomistic Metaphysics, Trauma and Coma​

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 September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Mats Wahlberg, Ph.D., is docent and associate professor of systematic theology, a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology, and a research fellow in the Discipline Group of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology at the Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. In 2021, he was the Aquinas Chair at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome.He has published two monographs, Reshaping Natural Theology: Seeing Nature as Creation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Revelation as Testimony: A Philosophical-Theological Study (Eerdmans, 2014), as well as many articles in journals such as Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, and First Things.His research interests include arguments for God’s existence, the problem of evil, the doctrine of revelation, theology and science (especially the theological implications of evolution) and the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Wahlberg's research about the problem of evil and evolution has been funded by the John Templeton Foundation.Keywords: Beatific Vision, Catholic Doctrine of Hell and Damnation, Creator–Creature Distinction, David Bentley Hart and Universal Salvation, Divine Goodness, Divine Providence, Necessitarian Universalism and Possible Worlds, Permanent Separation from God, Thomistic Account of Debitum Naturae, Thomistic Defense of the Possibility of Hell, Universalism​

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 of Studies.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. (Ph.D, Duke University, 2001) is the Frank A. Rudman Endowed Chair in Philosophy and the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas. He has published widely on Thomas Aquinas, Thomism, and medieval and late scholastic philosophy. His interests cover moral psychology, ethics, political philosophy, and metaphysics. His latest book is Thomas Aquinas on Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2024).Keywords: Augustinian Theology of Grace, Calvinist Double Predestination, Divine Justice and Eternal Punishment, Divine Providence and Human Freedom, Grace, Negative and Positive Reprobation, Predestination and Foreseen Merits, Salvation, Sin

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.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Piotr Roszak is an adjunct professor of Fundamental Theology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland; associated professor of Systematic Theology at University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, where he obtained his PhD in 2009. Member of Pontifical Academy of St Thomas Aquinas; editor-in-Chief of the journal ‘Scientia et Fides’ dedicated to science-religion debate and director of the series ‘Scholastica Thoruniensia’, where the polish translations of medieval biblical commentaries are published. Together with Mateusz Przanowski OP is leading the project of “Opera Omnia” of St. Thomas Aquinas in Poland. In 2021 he received Medal for Excellence in Christian Philosphy awared by International Étienne Gilson Society. He obtained several grants from the Templeton Foundation, National Science Centre in Poland and in Spain. He is a honorary member of Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis and Comite de Expertos del Camino de Santiago in Spain. He published recently (with Jörgen Vijgen): Reading the Church Fathers with St. Thomas Aquinas Historical and Systematical Perspectives (Brepols: Turnhout 2021).Keywords: Biblical Thomism, Christocentric Predestination, Divine Providence and Human Freedom, Election, Ephesians 1, Pauline Theology of Predestination, Potter Clay Metaphor, Romans 8, Scripture and Systematic Theology in Summa Theologiae, Trinitarian Missions