Beyond but Not Against Nature: How Grace Perfects and Transforms Nature – Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P.

The Thomistic Institute

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

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy explores the relationship between grace and nature, demonstrating how grace perfects, transforms, and preserves the continuity of human nature without destroying its fundamental reality.

This lecture was given on July 20th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., is a priest of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph. He serves as the general editor of the Thomist Tradition Series, and he is co-author of Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters. He has written for numerous publications on the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomist Tradition.

Keywords: Accident and Substance, Divine Revelation, Grace and Nature, Human Nature, Obediential Potency, Original Justice, Philosophy and Theology, Prime Matter, Salvation, Supernatural Finality

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks to donors like you, Aquinas 101 is setting the world aflame with the truth, but the next season can't be filmed without your help.
0:09.1	Dozens of new episodes are planned, but they'll only be brought to life if you make them possible.
0:15.0	Your gift by October 31st will bring the truth to students, families, and people around the world.
0:21.8	Please use the link in the episode description below to give today.
0:29.1	Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.
0:32.0	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church,
0:36.6	and the wider public square.
0:38.3	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute
0:42.9	chapters around the world. To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at
0:47.8	to mystic institute.org. So the topic we are looking at today lies at the very perplexing nexus of where matters natural and supernatural come together.
1:03.0	And because it's the very nexus of where matters natural and supernatural come together, this is also, without exagger exaggeration essential necessary for human salvation in other words
1:18.7	the dynamics that we'll look at render intelligible what Jesus came to do so
1:26.6	without a robust and accurate conception of the relation
1:32.3	between, distinction between, yet continuity of the natural and the supernatural orders,
1:39.3	salvation is not possible. So that's what's at stake. So what we will do then this morning
1:49.0	for briefly is we will look at and just to make sure we, because mass is coming up, good, we will have a clock, the clock has disappeared.
1:57.0	This is the Dominican House of Studies. One wonders if poltergeists are around because things get moved around and disappear all the time, including the clock.
2:04.6	What we will do today is we're going to look at how and why and the manner in which these things unfold.
2:11.6	Then we will present briefly some to mystic distinctives that are relevant to these questions, particularly vis-a-vis,
2:19.9	the nature of sacred theology and also the nature of philosophy.
2:24.9	And then we'll look at a couple personal and practical implications about why this matters to our lives.
2:30.2	Okay. All right. So, very interestingly, when you look at the Sumatheologia, which
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