Aquinas and Catholic Theology – Prof. Gaven Kerr

The Thomistic Institute

Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Christianity, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 873 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2026

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Prof. Gaven Kerr argues that Aquinas is central to Catholic theology because Thomas provides the systematic, deductive, and scripturally grounded framework needed to articulate doctrine about God, Trinity, and salvation.

This lecture was given on March 26th, 2026, at Maynooth University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Gaven Kerr is a married father of three and a third order Dominican. He has degrees in scholastic philosophy and philosophy from Queen’s University Belfast: BA, MPhil, and PhD. His doctoral research was on the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant. Gaven’s research focuses on the thought of St Thomas Aquinas and his connection with other important thinkers in the history of philosophy and theology. He has published articles in the Thomist, the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Journal of Philosophical Research, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society. Gaven has two books with Oxford University Press. The first was published in 2015, Aquinas’s Way to God, and it dealt with Aquinas’s proof of God in the De Ente et Essentia. His second book which is due out later this year is on Aquinas and the metaphysics of creation. Gaven has taught philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast, St. Malachy’s Seminary Belfast, and Maynooth University. He has taught at Mary Immaculate College Limerick. He currently teaches philosophy at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

Keywords: Aquinas, Catholic Theology, Divine Simplicity, Dogmatic Theology, Fides et Ratio, Scriptural Interpretation, Sacramental Causality, Trinity, Theology as Science, Thomism

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Tumistic Institute podcast.
0:06.0	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.0	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Tumistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.0	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at Thomistic Institute.org.
0:24.9	What I'm going to talk about this evening is Aquinas and Catholic theology.
0:29.3	And just in case anybody's interested, because there's a few wee tip bits about, you know,
0:34.2	some Thomas Aquinas, it's nice to get into.
0:36.1	These two images of Thomas Aquinas here, that's the Botticelli image of thomas aquinas is a very famous one botticelli
0:42.6	painted that going through all the critical biographies of st thomas and constructing what
0:48.7	st thomas would have looked like this image here was constructed using ai on st thomas's skull
0:54.1	which was recently put on display in Toulouse.
0:56.0	So we had St. Thomas's skull, and artists used AI to produce what St. Thomas would have looked like on the basis of that skull.
1:04.0	And you can see the two images are quite similar to each other.
1:08.0	So this is an accurate representation of what St. Thomas would have looked like
1:11.3	just in cases are interested. Okay. So I'll leave that with you. Right. Aquinas and Catholic
1:16.2	theology. So historically speaking, the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, it's been recognized throughout
1:23.3	the centuries as central to Catholic theology. It's always been seen to be central to Catholic theology.
1:29.6	Numerous popes, numerous church councils, they've all drawn on the thought of Aquinas to articulate
1:34.3	Catholic doctrine. Now what that goes to show is that historically speaking, the Thottis and
1:39.7	Thomas, it's been very important for Catholic theology. Okay, just historically speaking,
1:43.9	it's been very important. It does. Okay, just historically speaking, it's been very important.
1:45.0	It does not show that Thomism is essential for Catholic theology.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 12 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Thomistic Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Thomistic Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.