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APPLY HERE This intensive seminar will discuss St. Thomas Aquinas’s Five Ways of proving the existence of a God and the conception that he thinks they yield: that of a God who is at once utterly simple and utterly perfect, and therefore utterly beyond our comprehension. The sessions will center on Summa theologiae, I, qq. 2-4—especially, of course, I, q. 2, a. 3, which contains the Five Ways themselves—and on selected texts from I, qq. 12 & 13.  Participants will also discuss relevant passages from other works of St. Thomas, as well as his historical influences and some related contemporary...

APPLY HERE Now in its ninth year, this intensive seminar will examine the achievements of Saint John Henry Newman as a theologian, philosopher, educator, preacher, and writer. Remarkably, in each of these areas Newman produced works that have come to be recognized as classics: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, The Grammar of Assent, The Idea of a University, The Parochial and Plain Sermons, and the Apologia Pro Vita Sua. This seminar will approach Newman’s thought through a critical engagement with these texts. LOCATION AND FORMAT The seminar will be held at Merton College, Oxford. The seminar will be led by Fr. Fields with Fr. Ker...

APPLY HERE The goal of this seminar is to provide students with the background knowledge and conceptual tools necessary to understand and think clearly about the relation of science and faith. This will help them to integrate scientific and theological ways of understanding in their own thinking, and make it possible for them to help others (including their future colleagues and students) to achieve such integration. The overarching goal is to help develop a cadre of people with a broad and informed understanding of these issues who can be the nucleus from which wider outreach efforts might grow. Among the...

APPLY HERE This seminar will be a close reading of Origen’s On First Principles, supplemented by various other texts from his corpus. One of the first systematic presentations of the Christian faith, On First Principles, written c. 220, is also a complex text to engage. While we possess some Greek fragments, the whole survives only in a much later Latin translation. At the same time, it is essential to see how the positions that Origen puts forth in this work relate to those we find developed in his biblical exegesis. Accordingly, we will examine texts from the On First Principles in parallel with selections from his Commentary...

APPLY HERE In this seminar, students will read, analyze, and discern continuities and discontinuities in Catholic social thought from the late 19th century to the present. Lectures, seminar reports, and discussion will focus on original sources (encyclicals and other magisterial documents), beginning with Rerum novarum (1892) and concluding with Caritas in veritate (2009) and Evangelii Gaudium (2013). This intensive course is multi-disciplinary, since this tradition of social thought overlaps several disciplines in the contemporary university including political science, political philosophy, law, economics, theology, and history. LOCATION AND FORMAT The seminar will be held in Berkeley, CA. Meals and lodging will be provided. Participants will receive a...

APPLY HERE The goal of this seminar is to provide students with the background knowledge and conceptual tools necessary to understand and think clearly about the relation of science and faith. This will help them to integrate scientific and theological ways of understanding in their own thinking, and make it possible for them to help others (including their future colleagues and students) to achieve such integration. The overarching goal is to help develop a cadre of people with a broad and informed understanding of these issues who can be the nucleus from which wider outreach efforts might grow. Among the...