Members of the DSPT faculty present ideas through special lectures both at DSPT and beyond and invite theologians from other universities, parishes or orders to discuss important theological issues and how they relate to contemporary society.
A key issue in the dialogue between theology and science has been the question of God's action in the world. Given all that science explains about the world's happenings, is there really any "room" for God to act? Exploiting both Aquinas and contemporary science, the book finds new ways to understand God's action in the natural world and in human life, including such topics as Providence, prayer and miracles. Presenters: Dr. Robert John Russell, Dr. Ted Peters, Dr. Lara Buchak and Fr. Mariusz Tabaczek, OP.
A series of lectures and workshops to explore the Islamic tradition and Catholic-Muslim relations in the Church and the Dominican life, study and ministry.
December 12, 2012 - The momentous third and final volume in the Pope’s international bestselling Jesus of Nazareth series, The Infancy Narratives, details the stories of Jesus’ infancy and boyhood, and how they are relevant in the modern world. Our panel of three profesors will engage and reflect on this final work as we prepare for the coming of Jesus at Christmas.
October 13, 2012 - The new popular atheism movement may lead one to suspect that faith and science are opposed to one another. Fr. Spitzer will address (in laymen's terms) the three most significant kinds of evidence for intelligent creation from physics (space-time geometry proofs, new evidence from entropy, and fine-tuning of cosmological constants). He will give special consideration to recent theories concerning eternal inflation, the multiverse hypothesis, and a bouncing universe (in the higher-dimensional space of string theory) to show that these hypotheses also require a definitive beginning.
As members of the Dominican Family in the Americas, we will begin to commemorate this important anniversary through a webcast. The program will focus on the past and present issues challenging the Dominican Family in America. Webcast will include: Rev. James Barnett as Fr. Montesinos, Panel of Preachers: Marcelline Koch, OP, Margaret Mayce, OP and Chuck Dahm, OP with presentation by Toni Harris, OP.
December 3, 2011 - Fr. Michael Dodds, OP: The Beatitudes are a familiar feature of the gospels-- eight ways to happiness that Jesus describes in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 1-12). Perhaps less familiar is the notion of acedia. The Fathers of the Church describe it as a crippling moral defect that makes even the smallest step towards God, or the spiritual life, or even simple human flourishing, seem impossible. This talk will review what contemporary authors are saying about acedia and then look to the Beatitudes as a possible remedy, a pathway back to joy and hope.
October 20, 2011 - The thirteenth century saw a great change in the approach to saints' lives: the transition from admiration and wonder to the call to imitation.
September 20, 2011 - Fr. Wojciech Giertych, OP "Virtuous human action -- an icon of God. Aquinas’s vision of Christian morality." -- In defending the icons St. John Damascene made a profound statement about how the image of God is visible in a human being, and it is this remark that Aquinas placed in the opening lines of his moral theology.
April 20, 2010 - In the second volume of his study of Jesus, Pope Benedict takes up what happened in the final week of Christ's earthly life: was he a political revolutionary? How did Jesus understand his own sufferings and death? How should we understand his resurrection, and what relevance does it have for us today? A panel of three profesors will engage these and other questions in an evening of reflection and discussion.
April 6, 2011 - Sister Marianne Farina led a wide-ranging conversation with Habib Umar bin Hafiz and Imam Zaid Shakir about the relationship between religion and education in the modern world.
December 1, 2010 - Fr. Eamon Kelly, LC, Vice-Chargé of the Pontifical Institute Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, gave of a first-hand account of a unique discovery in Magdala, Israel of a synagogue from the time of Jesus: one of only seven Second Temple period synagogues ever discovered.
October 15 & 16, 2010 - The Ibn Arabi Society, in partnership with the Center for Islamic Studies and the Dominican School for Philosophy and Theology, hosted 5 scholars to discuss the role of God's call and man's response in the thought of Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi.
September 17, 2010 - The Intercollegiate Studies Institute sponsored a lecture by Dr. Francis Beckwith, professor of Philosophy and Church Studies at Baylor University, at DSPT.
April 7 & 21, 2010 - DSPT and CARE present a two-part series by Fr. John Hilary Martin, OP on the art of the oldest continuous culture on the planet. Fr. Hilary spent twenty years with an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory of Australia and has studied that art which, like the Dreaming, is timeless and unchanging, but grows and develops, too.
January 28, 2010 - Fr. Schenk was the special guest lecturer for the celebration of St. Thomas Aquinas' feast day at Thomas Aquinas College. This is the text of his lecture.
