In Defense of Political Anti-Perfectionism
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Abstract:
The Thomistic tradition, following the ancients, regards the promotion of virtue to be among the primary goods of politics. Few appear to recognize that the promotion of virtue through direct state regulation is a role the modern state, and perhaps any longstanding political order, is ill-equipped to fulfill. Laws in the realm of sexual morality, or that otherwise do not directly harm others, are particularly troublesome and political authorities would do well to recognize their limitations. This does not mean abdication over the private realm by the state. It suggests the importance of the separation of church and state, giving rise to robust forms of regulation within families and religious institutions. Government regulates best when it recognizes and reinforces spheres of social order independent of the state and does not seek to interfere with or limit their proper autonomy.
Date/Time: November 14, 2011 @ 7pmLocation: Eaton Humanities 1B50
Speaker: Dr. Seana Sugrue
Bio:
Seana Sugrue is Associate Professor of Politics at Ave Maria University and one of the University's top-rated teachers among students. She joined the faculty in 2004 and served as the Chair of the Department of Politics for five years. She came to Ave Maria University from Princeton University, where she was the Associate Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Her research interests include civil liberties and constitutional governance, the role of law in the formation of a just society, the civic significance of institutions such as marriage and the family, and pro-life concerns. She teaches courses in Constitutional Law, American Civilization, International Relations, and Public Policy, among others. Dr. Sugrue holds the degrees of B.B.A. from Bishop's University, LL.B. from the University of Ottawa, and both LL.M. and D.C.L. from McGill University. She has taught at Princeton and McGill.
GOD IS DEAD - Friedrich Nietzsche vs. G.K. Chesterton
Abstract:
The world perhaps has not seen two more distinct writers than the brooding German philosopher and the jolly journalist from England who followed him by one generation. The conflict of their worldviews set the tone for the 20th century.
Come and hear a talk unlike any you have ever heard before.
Date/Time: October 17, 2011 @ 7pmLocation: Eaton Humanities 1B50
Speaker: Mr. Dale Ahlquist
Bio:
Dale Ahlquist
Dale Ahlquist is President of the American Chesterton Society, host of the EWTN series "G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense," and Publisher of Gilbert Magazine. He has written three books on Chesterton, edited five more, and has written for over a dozen publications. He has lectured at major colleges and universities and other venues, including Yale, Columbia, Norte Dame, Cornell, Rice, the Vatican Forum in Rome, the Thomas More Centre in Melbourne, and at the House of Lords in London.
He is the co-founder of Chesterton Academy, a high school in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and the executive producer of Manalive, a film based on a novel by G.K. Chesterton, which will be released in 2012.
Dale received a B.A. from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and a M.A. from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He and his wife Laura have six children.
"Ahlquist on Chesterton is like Plato on Socrates, or Boswell on Johnson." New Oxford Review.
The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church
Abstract:
One of the world's foremost religion journalists offers an unexpected and provocative look at where the Catholic Church is headed—and what the changes will mean for all of us.
What will the Catholic Church be like in 100 years? Will there be a woman pope? Will dioceses throughout the United States and the rest of the world go bankrupt from years of scandal? In THE FUTURE CHURCH, John L. Allen puts forth the ten trends he believes will transform the Church into the twenty-second century. From the influence of Catholics in Africa, Asia, and Latin America on doctrine and practices to the impact of multinational organizations on local and ethical standards, Allen delves into the impact of globalization on the Roman Catholic Church and argues that it must rethink fundamental issues, policies, and ways of doing business. Allen shows that over the next century, the Church will have to respond to changes within the institution itself and in the world as a whole whether it is contending with biotechnical advances—including cloning and genetic enhancement—the aging Catholic population, or expanding the roles of the laity.
Like Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, THE FUTURE CHURCH establishes a new framework for meeting the challenges of a changing world.
Date/Time: September 19, 2011 @ 7pmLocation: Easton Humanities 1B50
Speaker: Mr. John Allen
BIO:
John L. Allen Jr. is the prize-winning Senior Correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and the Senior Vatican Analyst for CNN. He's the author of six best-selling books on the Vatican and Catholic affairs, and writes frequently on the Church for major national and international publications. He's also a popular speaker on Catholic affairs, both in the United States and abroad. The London Tablet has called Allen "the most authoritative writer on Vatican affairs in the English language," and renowned papal biographer George Weigel has called him "the best Anglophone Vatican reporter ever." When Allen was called upon to put the first question to Pope Benedict XVI aboard the papal plane en route to the United States in April 2008, the Vatican spokesperson said to the pope: "Holy Father, this man needs no introduction." That's not just a Vatican judgment. Veteran religion writer Kenneth Woodward of Newsweek described Allen as "the journalist other reporters – and not a few cardinals – look to for the inside story on how all the pope's men direct the world's largest church." Allen's work is admired across ideological divides. Liberal commentator Fr. Andrew Greeley calls his writing "indispensable," while the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, a conservative, called Allen's reporting "possibly the best source of information on the Vatican published in the United States." His weekly internet column, "All Things Catholic," is widely read as a source of insight on the global Church. John divides his time between Rome and his home in Denver, Colorado. He grew up in Western Kansas, and holds a Master's degree in Religious Studies from the University of Kansas.
Books:
- Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith (Continuum, 2000)
- Conclave: The Politics, Personalities and Process of the Next Papal Election (Doubleday, 2002)
- All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks (Doubleday, 2004)
- The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the Pope was Elected and What it Means for the Catholic Church (Doubleday, 2005)
- Opus Dei: An Objective Look behind the Myth and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church (Doubleday, 2005)
- The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church (Doubleday, 2009)
Other articles and Blogs:
Allen has been profiled in various national and international publications.
Here's a piece from Newsweek: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3704902/
His weekly column "All Things Catholic" can be found here: http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic
Natural Law, God, and Human Dignity
Extra!: "Reason, Freedom, and the Rule of Law"
"An afternoon presentation given to the Faculty/Staff of CU's Law Department"
Abstract:
Professor George will argue that there are irreducible aspects of human well-being and fulfillment that can be understood and affirmed on the basis of rational (if ordinarily informal and even casual) reflection on data provided by our experiences of such activities as friendship, knowledge, and aesthetic appreciation. These “basic human goods” are the referents of what Aquinas called the first principles of practical reason and basic precepts of natural law. By attending to the integral directiveness of these principles, it is possible to identify norms of morality distinguishing fully practically reasonable choices (i.e., those compatible with a will towards integral human fulfillment, and thus in line with human dignity) from those that fall short of what reason demands and must, therefore, be judged to be morally deficient. Professor George will consider the skeptical (non-cognitivist) challenge to this understanding of morality advanced by advocates of instrumentalist accounts of practical reason, and he will also explore some significant respects in which his neo-Aristotelian (eudaimonistic) approach to moral judgment is both like and unlike utilitarian and other consequentialist approaches, on the one side, and Kantian or purely “deontological” approaches, on the other. In the course of the lecture, he will address the question of religious faith and revealed moral truth in relation to natural law theory and the place of virtues in a comprehensive account of natural law.
Date/Time: March 31st, 2011 @ 7pmLocation: Easton Humanities 1B50
Speaker: Dr. Robert George
BIO:
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Founder and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is also a Professor of Politics and an associated faculty member of the Department of Philosophy at Princeton.
He is a member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). He has served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.
Professor George’s scholarly focus has been on the dignity of the human person and its implications for moral, legal, and political philosophy. He is author of Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (1993), In Defense of Natural Law (1999), and The Clash of Orthodoxies (2001). He is editor of several volumes, including Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays (1992), The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism (1996), Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality (1996), and Great Cases in Constitutional Law (2000), and co-editor with Jean Bethke Elshtain of The Meaning of Marriage (2005). He is co-author of two recent books: Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (Doubleday) and Body-Self Dualism and Contemporary Ethical and Political Controversies (Cambridge University Press).
Professor George’s articles and review essays have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Review of Politics, the Review of Metaphysics, and the American Journal of Jurisprudence. He is a frequent contributor to First Things, where he is a member of the editorial advisory board, and has also written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Times Literary Supplement.
A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, Professor George also earned a master’s degree in theology from Harvard and a doctorate in philosophy of law from Oxford University. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Swarthmore, and received a Knox Fellowship from Harvard for graduate study in law and philosophy at Oxford. He holds honorary doctorates of law, letters, science, ethics, humane letters, civil law, and juridical science.
On December 10, 2008, at a ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House, Professor George received the Presidential Citizens Medal, one of the highest honors that can be conferred by the United States on a civilian. Among his other awards and prizes are the Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the Philip Merrill Award of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Paul Bator Award of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, a Silver Gavel Award of the American Bar Association, and the Stanley Kelley, Jr. Teaching Award in Politics at Princeton. He was the 2007 John Dewey Lecturer in Philosophy of Law at Harvard, the 2008 Judge Guido Calabresi Lecturer at Yale, and the 2008 Sir Malcolm Knox Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Professor George is general editor of New Forum Books, a Princeton University Press series of interdisciplinary works in law, culture, and politics. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a Distinguished Visiting Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In addition to his academic and civic work, he is Of Counsel to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee.
The Reservation of Priestly Ordination to Men: An Analysis of the Catholic Debate
Abstract:
After decades in which “women’s ordination” was openly discussed, Pope John Paul II declared, in 1994, that priestly ordination is reserved to men and the Church has no authority to change this. Many Catholics remain puzzled as to how or even whether the question has been fully resolved. This analysis will review the chief arguments in the debate and attempt to explain why the Catholic doctrine of the priesthood does not compromise the Church’s teaching on women’s equal rights and dignity with men.
Date/Time: February 28th, 2011 @ 7pm
Location:Eaton Humanities 1B50
Speaker: Sister Sara Butler
BIO:
Sister Sara Butler, M.S.B.T., S.T.L., Ph.D. holds the Paluch Chair of Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary, in the Archdiocese of Chicago. She is a member of the International Theological Commission and the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, and a consultant to the Baptist-Catholic International Commission and the U.S. Bishops’ Doctrine Committee. The author of many scholarly articles, Sister Sara recently published The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books). She belongs to the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity.
‘Pardon me ma’am, but would you like to die?’Autonomy and Self-killing: You Decide
Abstract:
A few questions for you philosophy and pre-med majors: How wide does the so-called “principle of autonomy” extend? To anything we desire? Is its purpose exclusively to secure freedom from all constraints? Is it limited by morality? Or does it construct morality? As abstract as they seem, these question possess steely practicality today in our courts, legislatures and hospital rooms. Their chief extension is to the question of self-killing. If I no longer desire to live, may I (morally speaking), in one great sovereign exercise of “autonomy,” end my life? And do I have the right to press medical practitioners into assisting me? This lecture will address the problem of the implications of a run-away conception of human autonomy on areas of medical ethics, especially physician assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Speaker: Dr. E. Christian Brugger
BIO:
E. Christian Brugger is an Associate Professor of Moral Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, CO. Dr. Brugger has master degrees in moral theology and moral philosophy from Seton Hall, Harvard and Oxford Universities and received his D.Phil. in Christian ethics from Oxford in 2000. His areas of scholarly interest are bioethics, natural law, marriage family & sexual ethics, action theory, integration of psychology and philosophy, and capital punishment. He is the author of Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition (Notre Dame Press, 2003), and has published widely on topics in moral theology and philosophy in journals such as the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, The Heythrop Journal, The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Thomist, Communio, National Review On-Line, and First Things.
Since 2008, he has been the Senior Fellow in Ethics at the Culture of Life Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he publishes a bi-monthly brief on current issues in bioethics (http://www.culture-of-life.org). Dr. Brugger serves on the Editorial Board for the Center for Morality in Public Life and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He is an ethics advisor to the Colorado Catholic Conference and regularly testifies on behalf of the Conference before the House and Senate of the State of Colorado. He also serves on the Ethics Review Board for Catholic Hospitals of the Archdiocese of Denver. Since 2002 he has been a Senior Fellow at the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person (NY).
Dr. Brugger lives in Evergreen, CO, with his wife Melissa and five children.
Desperate Desire: Demonstrating God's Existence from the Data of Human Experience (with particular attention to L. Giussani's The Religious Sense)
Abstract:
Imagine a child lost in a dark wood. In desperation the child cries out for help. Might the child's screams be proof for the existence of a good and gracious God? And if there were no God, and the child's screams went unanswered (forever), would life then be no more than 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'? Between nihilism and faith, in other words, there is no third way.
Speaker: Dr. Regis Martin
BIO:
Regis Martin, S.T.D. is a Professor of Systematic Theology at Franciscan University in Steubenville, where he specializes in courses on the Trinity, Christ, Church, Grace, and the Sacraments. In addition, he has a keen interest in the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Luigi Giussani, and the Catholic Literary Revival. He is the author of a half-dozen books, including The Suffering of Love, Confessions of a Cradle Catholic, The Last Things, and Garlands of Grace. He has written and lectured widely. Married and the father of ten children and five grandchildren, he is happy to report that none of them are in prison.
Redeeming the Erotic: John Paul II’s Reading of the Song of Songs
Abstract:
The Song of Songs is the biblical book about love between man and woman, a poetic dialogue or duet between bride and bridegroom of intense erotic power. It is the single most frequently commented text in the Christian tradition, although it has received comparatively little attention in recent Catholic theology. It has traditionally been read as a symbol of our deepest longing, union with God, the bridegroom par excellence.
In his Theology of the Body, John Paul II reads the Song of Songs with a particular purpose in mind. He reads it as throwing light on the sacramental sign of marriage. The sacramental sign of marriage consists, on the one hand, in the words of the marriage vow, “I take you...” which implicitly contains the other person’s words, “I give myself to you;” it consists, on the other hand, in the physical mutual giving and taking in sexual union, which consummates the vow.
As a sacramental sign of the New Covenant, this sign effectively communicates the redemptive power of Christ. The lecture will present John Paul II’s reading of the Song of Songs and show its practical consequences for the redemption of eros in the relation between man and woman.
Speaker: Dr. Michael Waldstein
BIO:
Michael Maria Waldstein has been Max Seckler Professor of Theology at Ave Maria University since 2008. In 1988 he began teaching at the University of Notre Dame where he received tenure in 1996. From 1996 until 2006 he served as the founding president and associate professor of New Testament at the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria, and from 2006-2008 as its St. Francis of Assisi Professor of New Testament.
He holds a B.A. from Thomas Aquinas College, a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Dallas, an S.S.L. summa cum laude from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, and a Th.D. from Harvard University in New Testament and Christian Origins.
His published works include a critical edition of the four Coptic manuscripts of the Gnostic Secret Book of John and a new translation of John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body as well as articles on the Gospel of John, Gnosticism, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Paul II and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
The God That Did Not Fail
Dr. Robert Royal
Religious belief is a universal human phenomenon that has played an important role throughout human history. Contrary to the expectations of many people, even in the modernized West belief has remained strong; attachment to religious institutions, however, has weakened. The challenge for the Church in America and the world is to find new ways to reconnect the natural religious impulse with a Catholic tradition that offers believers an incomparable richness and depth.
Abstract:
Using Archbishop Charles J. Chaput's thought in his book Render Unto Caesar as grounding, this talk looks into the work of Jesuit scholar John Courtney Murray on the relationship of Church and state, religious liberty and the role of faith in American political life; and forward to some of the radically new challenges facing Catholics in the decades ahead.
Link to Works By Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J.
Speaker: Mr. Fran Maier, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver
BIO:
Francis X. Maier has served as chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver and special assistant to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput since 1997. His prior work includes service as archdiocesan secretary for communications, 1993-97, under then-Archbishop J. Francis Stafford; editor in chief of the National Catholic Register, 1978-93; screenwriter and story analyst for Warner Brothers, United Artists and various independent film producers; and staff writer for various affiliates of National Review magazine. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Sunday magazine, Christian Science Monitor, America, Commonweal, l'Osservatore Romano, National Catholic Reporter, The American Spectator, National Review, On the Square/First Things, and various other secular and religious publications. A graduate of the the University of Notre Dame and New York University, he is a former Fellow of the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Studies.
The Authority of Women in the Catholic Church and Ordinatio sacerdotalis
Dr. Pia de Solleni
Speaking on the inablity of the Catholic church to ordain women and the intrensic dignity that has been left behind in the discussion on vocation.
The Financial Crisis and Moral Dimensions of Economics
Fr. Robert Sirico
In this environment, the need for morals and ethics in the marketplace and the free market system has never been more important. Come hear the role that a return to virtue would play in leading the economy forward in these unprecedented times.
Embryo-Destructive Research and Abortion: Are They Different Moral Issues?
Dr. Christopher Tollefsen
Research on human embryos and embryonic stem cells appears to offer
great health benefits for the future. At the same time, controversy
over embryo destructive research is reminiscent of the disputes over
abortion. What should we think about the moral and political
permissibility of research and medical technology that destroys human
embryos? And is this controversy really the same as the abortion
controversy? In this paper, I discuss the moral and political
questions surrounding embryo research, and the ways in which this
research is different from, and similar to, abortion.
Augustine of Hippo, a Thinker for the 21st Century
Dr. Robert Wilken
Augustine of Hippo, the fifth century bishop in North Africa, theologian and philosopher, was the most significant thinker in western history from Plato in ancient Greece to Thomas Aquinas in medieval Europe. His imagination moved across a vast canvas and in his writings he discussed all the great questions human beings have discussed for centuries, freedom and determinism, how does one know, what is the highest good (summum bonum), what makes human beings unique, what kind of a being is God, how did the world come to be, how does one account for evil, what is the place of the affections in the moral life, the meaning of time and of memory. The lecture will briefly discuss Augustine's intellectual contributions and then focus on three groups of writings that deal with perennial questions: the nature of marriage, lying and human speech, the Church and the political order.
Taking on Christianity, Atheism, Islam, fundamentalism and the war on terror, Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza draw intellectual swords in an impassioned debate. From opposite sides of the spectrum they present cases for and against organized religion, its infl uence on world history and impact on current events. Together they explore the social, political and historical foundations of faith.
Is God Green?: A Christian View of Environmental Stewardship
Dr. Jay Richards
Critics have often claimed that the Christian view of man having dominion over nature is responsible for environmental problems.* But what is the Christian view of environmental stewardship? And how should Christians address the most central issue of today's debate over the environment--global warming? Richards will argue that Christians have a solid basis for an environmental ethic, but they still have to separate fact from fiction. This is nowhere more important than with global warming.
*For example, Lynn White wrote a famous paper in Science blaming the Bible view of man's dominion for environmental problems: "By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature. . . . [W]e shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man."
The Great Tradition of the Liberal Arts Education: What Was It? Why and At What Cost Have We Lost It? How Can You Regain It?
Dr. James Gaston
A true liberal arts education must address the essential nature and purpose of the cosmos and man's relationship to it. Contemporary higher education generally fails to address such primal matters to the detriment of the student, the academy, society, and the modern world. A brief historical review of the purpose and place of education in society will elucidate these issues and in turn offer an essential perspective for those who wish to rediscover the great Western tradition of learning.
The New Sexual Revolution: Men, Women and the Mystery of Love in John Paul II's Theology of the Body & Love and Responsibility
Dr. Ted Sri
The modern world offers a picture of relationships, love and marriage that has caused much uncertainty, confusion and heartache in our relationships with the opposite sex. John Paul II spent much of his life reminding us of what true Christian love is and offering a vision for relationships between men and women that is life-transforming. Discover John Paul II's practical wisdom on the real relationship issues we face every day and learn how it can transform our relationships with the opposite sex and prepare us for strong marriages rooted in Christ's love.
Restoring a Culture of Truth
Dr. R.R. Reno
The contemporary university seems paradoxical. On the one hand, we find many sophisticated scientific disciplines pursuing research projects with confidence. On the other hand, influential figures in the humanities promote what Pope Benedict has called a "dictatorship of relativism." Careful analysis shows that the current crisis of reason is exclusively in the area of our study of culture, and this crisis emerges out of a failure to cultivate the virtue of docility, the disposition of receptivity that opens the soul to the possibility of moral and spiritual truths.
How We Play is Who We Are: The Impact of Videogames on Art, Entertainment and Culture
Speaker: Mr. Fran Maier, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver
BIO:
Francis X. Maier has served as chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver and special assistant to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput since 1997. His prior work includes service as archdiocesan secretary for communications, 1993-97, under then-Archbishop J. Francis Stafford; editor in chief of the National Catholic Register, 1978-93; screenwriter and story analyst for Warner Brothers, United Artists and various independent film producers; and staff writer for various affiliates of National Review magazine. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Sunday magazine, Christian Science Monitor, America, Commonweal, l'Osservatore Romano, National Catholic Reporter, The American Spectator, National Review, On the Square/First Things, and various other secular and religious publications. A graduate of the the University of Notre Dame and New York University, he is a former Fellow of the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Studies.
Jesus Under Fire: 12 Reasons Why We Can Trust the Gospels
A Contemporary Rendition of A Philosophical Proof for the Existence of God
Rev. Robert Spitzer, S.J.
Bernard J.F. Lonergan presented a contemporary argument for the existence of God in his important work insight: A Study of Human Understanding. The argument proceeds from his cognitional theory and epistemology and took the following general form:
If the real is completely intelligible, then God exists. But the real is completely intelligible. Therefore, God exists.
Fr. Spitzer has reworked this argument so that it begins with ontological premises, but arrives at the same conclusion, namely, that a unique, unrestrictedly intelligible reality (i.e. an unrestricted act of understanding) exists, and that this reality is the ground of the intelligibility and reality of all else that is. This proof is systematically presented in Fr. Spitzer's new book: New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy which will be published by Eerdmans in early 2010.
Download Bonus: Seminar on the Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life
John Henry Newman's Idea of a University
Rev. Ian Ker
After dealing briefly in general with Newman's life-long engagement with education, I shall then consider what Newman meant by a liberal education and the liberal arts, by which he did not mean quite what those terms signify today. There has also been misunderstanding about the kind of university that Newman had in mind where students would receive this liberal education, particularly regarding the relationship between research and teaching. Newman's idea was to combine the Oxbridge collegiate tutorial model of a university with the continental model of the professorial research-orientated continental university in the Catholic University of Ireland of which he was the founding president. His aim was to set up in Dublin a university that would be a kind of amalgam of Oxford and the recently founded Catholic University of Louvain, which was Newman's model for his university insofar as it was intended both to be a professorial and a Catholic university. The lecture will conclude with Newman's defense of the idea of a university that would be both academically rigorous and authentically Catholic.
Theology as a "Science" according to Aquinas
Abstract:
In order to understand how theology is a science for St. Thomas Aquinas, it is necessary, first, to understand what he means by "science." In contrast to the dominant view in the academy today, Aquinas did not hold that scientific knowledge is possible only through empirical means, that is, only through the action of one or more of the five physical senses. In this lecture, Dr. Sirilla explains that Aquinas' understanding of science corrects and supplements the opinion that science is exclusively empirical. Aquinas' epistemology enables us to identify sciences that are not limited to sense-data, such as metaphysics and theology.
Speaker: Dr. Michael Sirilla
BIO:
Dr. Sirilla is an Assistant Professor of Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He received his Ph.D. in systematic theology from The Catholic University of America in May, 2008. His dissertation is entitled, "St. Thomas Aquinas's Theology of the Episcopacy in his Commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles." This work is currently under review for publication. In addition to the theology of the episcopacy, his research interests include the natural knowledge of God's existence and attributes, the theology of grace and justification, and the distinction among different kinds of magisterial pronouncements and the corresponding types of assent required by each.
