Very informative. I think that today, given the proliferation of our human experiences with advances in technology, we should be better able to articulate a definition of life and soul today. For example, a system engineer would look at the element "Life" as an external system dependency (like electricity) and the subsystem "Soul" as that subsystem with the primary function of actuating and sustaining within the system the act or action of living. Taylor Hughes, MA, Theological Studies from Christendom College in Virginia.

This lecture was given on March 25, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology."

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Dr. Heereman was born and raised in a devout Catholic family in Germany. Originally trained to become a lawyer, she experienced a deep encounter with the Lord which led her to discern a vocation as a lay woman celibate for the sake of the kingdom. She received two years of spiritual formation and attended the ICPE school of Evangelization in India, Banglore, which eventually led her to theological studies so as to consecrate her life to the study and teaching of the Word of God.  She received an STB from the Pontifical Gregorian University, an SSL from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and the SSD from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem on and the Université de Fribourg. During and after her doctoral studies she lectured at the Collège des Bernhardins, Paris, and the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome as a visiting professor. Explaining her discernment to join St. Patrick’s faculty, Dr. Heereman writes: “In particular, I desire to open up the treasures of the Scriptures to future priests so that their ministry might be rooted in the Word of God as the living source of their life and preaching.  I am deeply committed to the Church’s desire to make ‘the study of the sacred page the very soul of theology’ (DV 24).”

Thy Kingdom Come | Prof. Nina Heereman

This lecture was given on October 14, 2022, as part of the Thomistic Circles conference entitled, "Life in the Cosmos: Contemporary Science, Philosophy, and Theology on the Origin and Persistence of Life on Earth(and Beyond?)."

The two-day conference at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. featured a stellar, cross-disciplinary lineup of speakers: scientists Jonathan Lunine (Cornell University) and Maureen Condic (University of Utah), philosopher Christopher Frey (University of South Carolina), and theologian Fr. Mauriusz Tabaczek, O.P. (Angelicum).

This conference is part of the Thomistic Institute’s Scientia Project.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org

About the speaker:
Christopher Frey is an associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of South Carolina. Prof. Frey works primarily in Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle’s natural philosophy and metaphysics. He is writing a book entitled The Principle of Life: Aristotelian Souls in an Inanimate World. It concerns the distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the unity of living organisms, nutrition, birth, death, and, more generally, what one’s metaphysical worldview looks like if one takes life to be central. He also works in contemporary philosophy of perception and mind and has written extensively on the relationship between the intentionality and phenomenality of perceptual experience. In addition to these two main areas of research, he has secondary projects in metaphysics, the philosophy of action, Medieval philosophy, Early Modern philosophy, and the history of analytic philosophy.

Aristotle on the Impossibility of Defining Life | Prof. Christopher Frey

This lecture was given on March 17th, 2023, at "The Passion & the Sacred Wounds: An Intellectual Retreat" at the Dominican House of Studies.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events

Speaker Bio:

Fr. Michael O'Connor, O.P.(Dominican House of Studies) was raised in Illinois and did his undergraduate studies at St. Mary’s University in Winona, Minnesota, where he earned a B.A. in music performance and philosophy. He worked as a church musician and as an editor of the St. Michael Hymnal for a few years before entering the Dominican Province of St. Joseph in 2006. He was ordained a priest in 2012 and completed the S.T.L. at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in 2013. Fr. O’Connor was then assigned to Providence College, where he taught courses in Theology and the Development of Western Civilization for three years. In 2016, he moved to Rome to begin doctoral studies (S.T.D.) in moral theology at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, where he completed a dissertation on a Thomistic understanding of the orientation of human sexuality.

Aristotle on the Impossibility of Defining Life | Prof. Christopher Frey

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