The Thomistic Institute

Professor Michael Root explores the question of who has the authority to make binding decisions on matters of faith within Christianity. It traces the historical development of this issue from the early Church through the Reformation, highlighting Luther's principle of sola scriptura and the concept of private judgment in Protestantism. The speaker contrasts this with the Catholic understanding of authoritative decision-making through councils, papal declarations, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, emphasizing the ability to close questions definitively in Catholicism versus the potentially "fissiparous" nature of Protestantism.This lecture was given on February 3rd, 2024, at the Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker:Prof. Michael Root (Catholic University of America) is formerly Ordinary Professor of Systematic Theology at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Root is a native of Norfolk, Virginia and studied at Dartmouth College (B.A.) and Yale University (Ph.D. in theology). He was received into the Catholic Church in August, 2010. His particular theological interests are ecumenical relations, eschatology/last things, and grace and justification. Root has been a member of the US and international LutheranCatholic dialogues, the US LutheranUnited Methodist dialogue, the AnglicanLutheran International Working Group, and the Anglican Lutheran International Commission. He served on the drafting teams that produced the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

This lecture was given on February 3rd, 2024, at the Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker:Prof. Bruce Marshall (Southern Methodist University) is the Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine at Southern Methodist University. He holds a masters from Yale Divinity School and a doctorate from Yale University. His teaching interests include medieval and reformation theology and systematic theology. His research interests include doctrine of the Trinity, christology, philosophical issues in theology, sacramental theology, and Judaism and Christian theology.

This lecture was given on February 3rd, 2024, at the Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker:Prof. Michael Root (Catholic University of America) is formerly Ordinary Professor of Systematic Theology at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Root is a native of Norfolk, Virginia and studied at Dartmouth College (B.A.) and Yale University (Ph.D. in theology). He was received into the Catholic Church in August, 2010. His particular theological interests are ecumenical relations, eschatology/last things, and grace and justification. Root has been a member of the US and international LutheranCatholic dialogues, the US LutheranUnited Methodist dialogue, the AnglicanLutheran International Working Group, and the Anglican Lutheran International Commission. He served on the drafting teams that produced the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

This lecture was given on February 3rd, 2024, at the Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker:Prof. Bruce Marshall (Southern Methodist University) is the Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine at Southern Methodist University. He holds a masters from Yale Divinity School and a doctorate from Yale University. His teaching interests include medieval and reformation theology and systematic theology. His research interests include doctrine of the Trinity, christology, philosophical issues in theology, sacramental theology, and Judaism and Christian theology.

This lecture was given on February 9th, 2024, at St. Joseph's in Greenwich Village.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the speaker:Brad S. Gregory is Professor of History and Dorothy G. Griffin Collegiate Chair at the University of Notre Dame, where he has taught since 2003, and where he is also the Director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. From 1996-2003 he taught at Stanford University, where he received early tenure in 2001. He specializes in the history of Christianity in Europe during the Reformation era and on the long-term influence of the Reformation era on the modern world. He has given invited lectures at many of the most prestigious universities in North America, as well as in England, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Israel, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand. Before teaching at Stanford, he earned his Ph.D. in history at Princeton University and was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows; he also has two degrees in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. His first book, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Harvard, 1999) received six book awards. Professor Gregory was the recipient of two teaching awards at Stanford and has received three more at Notre Dame. In 2005, he was named the inaugural winner of the first annual Hiett Prize in the Humanities, a $50,000 award from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture given to the outstanding midcareer humanities scholar in the United States. His most recent book is entitled The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Belknap, 2012), which received two book awards. His forthcoming book is entitled Rebel in the Ranks: Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Conflicts that Continue to Shape Our World (Harper, 2017).

This lecture was given on February 17th, 2024, at the Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker:Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, O.P. (Thomistic Institute) is originally from Ohio, received his master's in architecture from Virginia Tech, and after working for a religious architecture firm, he entered the Dominicans of the Province of St. Joseph in 2013. He was ordained a priest in 2020 at the Dominican House of Studies during the height of the pandemic. He previously served as associate pastor of St. Pius V Catholic Church in Providence Rhode Island and instructor at Providence College. Additionally, he served as an Assistant Chaplain for Campus Ministry and Chaplain for the Men's Lacrosse team. He currently serves the Thomistic Institute as the Coordinator for Campus Outreach, organizing retreats and leading Summa seminars with students across the country. You can find his writing in Sacred Architecture Journal, Word on Fire, and The Catholic Exchange.

Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Raymond Hain about the evolution of Catholic education, the role of the teacher in humanities education, how to cultivate a love for the liberal arts in students, and more!You can watch this interview on YouTube here: https://tinyurl.com/3cfn3639About the speaker:Raymond Hain is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Humanities Program at Providence College in Providence, RI. Educated at Christendom College, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Oxford, he is the founder of the PC Humanities Forum and Humanities Reading Seminars and is responsible for the strategic development of the Humanities Program into a vibrant, world class center of teaching, research, and cultural life dedicated to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. His scholarly interests include the history of ethics (especially St. Thomas Aquinas), applied ethics (especially medical ethics and the ethics of architecture), Alexis de Tocqueville, and philosophy and literature (especially Catholic aesthetics). His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Templeton Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Charles Koch Foundation. His essays have appeared in various journals and collections including The Thomist, International Journal of Applied Philosophy, and The Anthem Companion to Tocqueville. He is the editor of Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture and is currently working on a monograph titled The Lover and the Prophet: An Essay in Catholic Aesthetics. He joined Providence College in 2011 and lives just across the street with his wife Dominique and their five children.