sponsored by the Thomas International Center, in conjunction with the Duke Divinity School, the Gerst Program in Political, Economic, and Humanistic Studies and the Focus Program
This Seminar was made possible by the generous support of the Lehrman Institute.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Speakers
ROBERT LOUIS WILKEN is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia. His fields include early and medieval Christian history and thought, Byzantine and Eastern Christianity, the history of biblical interpretation, early Christian ethics, Christianity and Islam, and Augustine. A world-renowned historian and former president of the American Academy of Religion and of the North American Patristics Society , Prof. Wilken is interested in the history of Christianity and Christian thought, particularly the use of the Bible, how it was read, and how it shaped culture. He is the author of 10 books, including The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (2003), The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (2003), and Remembering the Christian Past (1995). Some of his reflections on the contemporary university appear in “Catholic Scholars, Secular Schools” in First Things (January, 2008).
CHRISTOPHER WOLFE is emeritus professor of political science at Marquette University and co-director of the Thomas International Center, and he holds the Thomas International Chair in Public Philosophy. His main area of research and teaching for two decades was American constitutional law, and his best known book in this area is The Rise of Modern Judicial Review (1986). Dr. Wolfe subsequently shifted his work back to political philosophy, especially natural law and liberal political theory, and his most recent book is Natural Law Liberalism (2006). In 1989, Dr. Wolfe founded the American Public Philosophy Institute, a group of scholars from various disciplines that seeks to bring natural law theory to bear on contemporary scholarly and public discussions. He became Vice-President of the Thomas International project in 2005. He outlined a distinctive university vision in “A University for All,” in The Idea of the Catholic University, ed. K. Whitehead (2009).
ALFRED J. FREDDOSO is the John and Jean Oesterle Professor of Thomistic Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and he is a specialist in metaphysics and ethics in the Catholic intellectual tradition, as well as in various aspects of the relation of faith and reason. A prolific translator of medieval philosophy, Dr. Freddoso has penned the authoritative English translations of works by William of Ockham, Luis de Molina, Francisco Suarez, and Thomas Aquinas. He most recently published a celebrated translation of Aquinas’ Treatise on Law, part of his grand on-going project of producing the first single-authored English translation of the Summa Theologiae. Some of his thoughts on university education appear in his article "Whose Standards of Excellence? Secularity and the Mission of the University" (2000) and in his Introduction to Charles Rice’s What Happened to Notre Dame? (2009).
REINHARD HUETTER teaches systematic and philosophical theology at Duke Divinity School. In his most recent work he has turned to theological anthropology and the closely related topics of nature and grace, divine and human freedom, faith and reason, theology and metaphysics, with a special interest in the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. His most recent books include Reason and the Reasons of Faith (ed. with Paul J. Griffiths) (2005) and Bound to Be Free: Evangelical Catholic Engagements in Ecclesiology, Ethics and Ecumenism (2004). Prof. Huetter was formerly the editor of Pro Ecclesia: a Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology and currently co-edits Nova et Vetera: The English Edition of the International Theological Journal. Some reflections on the contemporary university appear in his recent review in The Thomist (April, 2009): “God, the University and the Missing Link – Wisdom: Reflections on Two Untimely Books.”
Sponsor
The Thomas International Center aims to promote and develop the classical and Christian intellectual traditions, especially as represented in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Modern intellectual life, and especially modern education, has lost an understanding of the unity of knowledge and is beset by the challenges of relativism and positivism. Technical excellence through intense specialization has become the dominant goal, and has achieved impressive results, but it has also lost sight of the broader horizon: wisdom. Our goal is to encourage people, particularly students, to see that all knowledge is part of a unified whole, in which genuine knowledge of human nature and the ends of human life (above all, from philosophy and theology) play a directive role. The Center pursues these goals by organizing conferences and lectures, publishing books, setting up internet resources, and offering courses. The long-term goal of the project is to sponsor a new international university that understands knowledge to be an integrated whole, firmly grounded in the classic works of Western Christian civilization, and especially the Catholic intellectual tradition, and that educates the free and responsible citizens required by constitutional governments.
