How to Know God? Philosophical Wisdom and Divine Revelation – Prof. Michael Dauphinais

The Thomistic Institute

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

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Prof. Michael Dauphinais explores how Thomas Aquinas integrates philosophical wisdom and divine revelation, showing that genuine knowledge of God arises from both reason and the transformative experience of Christ’s incarnation and the Holy Spirit.

This lecture was given on June 28th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

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

About the Speakers:

Michael A. Dauphinais, Ph.D., serves as the Fr. Matthew Lamb Professor of Catholic Theology and the co-director of the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida. He has co-authored with Matthew Levering Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of Thomas Aquinas; Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction to the Bible; and The Wisdom of the Word: Biblical Answers to Ten Questions about Catholicism. He specializes in C.S. Lewis, the Bible, and St. Thomas Aquinas. He speaks frequently in both academic and popular settings, and particularly enjoys visiting Thomistic Institute student chapters. Dr. Dauphinais hosts The Catholic Theology Show podcast to help a wide audience discover the richness of coming to know and love God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

Keywords: Christian Wisdom, Divine Revelation, Faith And Reason, Fulton Sheen, Idolatry, Incarnation, Sacred Doctrine, Spiritual Union, Theological Study

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.
0:06.2	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.7	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.3	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org.
0:25.2	So this session is on how to know God.
0:28.9	How can we come to know God?
0:30.7	Philosophical wisdom and divine revelation.
0:33.7	So whenever we're beginning to think about Aquinas,
0:36.4	so many people have an understanding of Aquinas, especially as philosopher, and often as rationalist.
0:45.3	This is part of the kind of confusion of our age, is that we've turned kind of the metaphysical approach of philosophy into rationalism, and we want to replace
0:55.3	revelation with reason.
0:58.8	So I want to look at three objections in a way to Aquinas, and then see how Aquinas
1:03.5	clarifies what he's doing.
1:06.8	The first is that when Aquinas does his theology,
1:11.6	why does he begin with God and not with Jesus Christ?
1:15.6	Why does he begin the Summa with God and then creation, and then the moral life,
1:21.6	and then only in the third part of the Summa does he actually talk about Jesus?
1:25.6	This would seem to be a bit of a problem for a Christian
1:28.2	theology. Secondly, does his emphasis on philosophy eclipse revealed theology? And then third, does his
1:40.7	emphasis on the study of theology eclipse spiritual union with God.
1:47.4	So those are the three things I want to look at.
1:51.3	Kind of just stepping back a little bit, one of the great tomists of the 20th century,
	...

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