Joseph Pearce, Aquinas College’s Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Center for Faith and Culture, presented his inaugural lecture on the Feast of St. Augustine, August 28, 2014, on the following topic:

Evangelism is not an option for the Christian. It is a commandment. To love God and neighbour has to mean that we want to bring our neighbour to God. The three ways of evangelizing our neighbour are through the power of the good, the true and the beautiful. The way of the good is the way of love or virtue. The way of the true is the way of reason. The way of beauty is the way of Creation and creativity. These three ways are necessary but in an age of hedonism and relativism, our neighbours may misconstrue the meaning of love and reason. In such a culture, the way of beauty becomes an even more powerful way of evangelizing the culture. Illustrations of the evangelizing power of beauty will be given, including Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

About Joseph Pearce:

A native of England, Joseph Pearce is Aquinas College’s new Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Center for Faith and Culture. He is editor of the St. Austin Review, series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions, and executive director of Catholic Courses. Mr. Pearce is a world-recognized biographer of modern Christian literary figures such as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Oscar Wilde, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Pope Benedict’s momentous 2006 Regensburg Lecture created a storm of controversy. Lost in the uproar was the true significance of his address concerning the indispensable role of reason within the Church’s life of faith. The Regensburg Lecture expresses the Holy Father’s concern regarding “the call for a dehellenization of Christianity,” the separation of Christian faith from the deep insights of classical Greek thought. Why does that matter? What response does he seek to promote? This talk will explore these questions and the broader significance of the Holy Father’s Regensburg Lecture.

About Dr. Pagan

Peter Pagan, Ph.D. is a professor of philosophy at Aquinas College. He received his bachelor of arts from University of California, Berkeley, and his master’s and doctorate in philosophy from Fordham University. Dr. Pagan has presented across the country and has published articles in The Thomist, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, and in publications of the American Maritain Association. He co-edited the book The Human Person and a Culture of Freedom with Sister Terese Auer, O.P.

Continuing our exploration of the relationship between faith and reason, Dr. Schreck will highlight the theological virtue of faith and our ability to be confident in the truth it brings us. He will also examine the need for the Holy Spirit to give us the grace to live in faith and truth. As St. Paul tells us, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3).

About Dr. Schreck

Alan Schreck is a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto. He is a frequent guest on EWTN and hosted the series “The Catholic Challenge: Vatican II and You.” Dr. Schreck is the author of several books, including The Essential Catholic Catechism, Catholic and Christian for Young Adults, and Your Life in the Holy Spirit. He and his wife Nancy have five children and reside in Steubenville, Ohio.

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? The common discussions regarding truth, beauty and goodness often stem from very subjective opinions and end with an “agree to disagree” resolution. But should they? In his presentation Dr. Cuddeback will raise the questions: What is beauty? What is truth? What is goodness? Who decides? Does it matter? Drawing from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Dr. Cuddeback will pursue the relationships between truth, beauty and goodness especially as they refer to moral goodness and contemplation.

About Dr. Cuddeback

John Cuddeback is a professor of philosophy at Christendom College. He received his doctorate in philosophy from The Catholic University of America and writes and lectures on various topics including virtue, culture, natural law, contemplation, and friendship. His book Friendship: The Art of Happiness was published in 2003 and republished in 2010 as Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness. Dr. Cuddeback is a lay Dominican and lives with his wife and five children in the Shenandoah Valley.

In his famous work, Back to Virtue, Dr. Kreeft warned against modern society’s rejection of virtue and reduction of values to feelings. Can I say that my values are true? Or would this be judgmental, implying that some values are wrong? Are values a matter of individual taste? This talk will explore these questions, their implications, and their consequences in our modern society.

About Dr. Kreeft

Peter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and the King’s College in New York. A former Calvinist, he received his bachelor of arts from Calvin College and his master’s degree and doctorate from Fordham University. Dr. Kreeft is a well-known speaker and writer, authoring more than forty books, including Back to Virtue, Fundamentals of the Faith, and Catholic Christianity. A taste of his work can be found at www.peterkreeft.com.

Have you ever been accused of being intolerant, simply because you’ve claimed something is true? Are truth and tolerance inevitably enemies? In our modern society, relativism is often disguised as openness and compassion. In this talk, Dr. Kreeft will discuss the meaning of tolerance and the repercussions of relativism in modern society.

About Dr. Kreeft

Peter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and the King’s College in New York. A former Calvinist, he received his bachelor of arts from Calvin College and his master’s degree and doctorate from Fordham University. Dr. Kreeft is a well-known speaker and writer, authoring more than forty books, including Back to Virtue, Fundamentals of the Faith, and Catholic Christianity. A taste of his work can be found at www.peterkreeft.com.

We live in an age that fails to grasp the nature of the relationship between faith and reason. Could this be the result of compounding misunderstandings regarding the relationship between the intellect and the will? With St. Thomas Aquinas as her guide, Sister Mary Angelica, offers deep insight into the nature of the intellect and will and demonstrates how these two noble faculties of the soul are connaturally oriented to Ultimate Truth and Good.

About Sr. Mary Angelica

is a theology instructor at Aquinas College and a member of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation in Nashville, Tennessee. She received her bachelor’s degree in art from Belmont University and her licentiate in moral theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. While completing doctoral studies in theology, she studied the nature of the will according to St. Thomas Aquinas and Servais Pinckaers.

When the Church canonized the Scriptures in the fourth century, the books included in the canon were those read in the liturgy. According to Pope Benedict, the liturgy remains “the privileged place where the Word is alive, is present, indeed, where the Word, the Logos, the Lord, speaks to us and gives Himself into our hands.” In this presentation, Dr. Hahn examines the writings of Pope Benedict to show that the holy Scriptures, no matter how intensely they resonate within us, still most fully and powerfully speak to us in the environment for which they were written and where they flourish today—in the liturgy, the heart of the Church.

Although modern biblical exegesis seems to split the Scriptures into fragments, with various “experts” deciding what can be trusted and what cannot, Pope Benedict stresses the necessity of reading the Bible as a whole and approaching the Scriptures as a single book of books. Studying Scripture in its unity within the hermeneutic of faith reveals the dramatic richness present throughout the Word of God—and the gradual unfolding of God’s plan. Through the writings of Pope Benedict, Dr. Hahn demonstrates the importance of reading Scripture as the Fathers read it—typologically, covenantally, and in its unified whole — in order to read the Scriptures in the only light that can illumine them: the Light of Christ.

We often think of “culture” as an anonymous force, or perhaps as the irresistible tide of human interaction that sweeps us into its current. Yet the human person, gifted with a will and living within a community, has an opportunity to effect change within a culture most effectively through imagination and beauty. This talk examined some ways in which we might see beauty and the arts as an integral part of the new evangelization

Sister Elinor Gardner, O.P., is a professor of philosophy at Aquinas College.