Is Anything More Tortuous than the Human Heart? I Prof. Steven Jensen

The Thomistic Institute

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

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Prof. Steven Jensen analyzes the complexity of the human heart by distinguishing the interplay between emotions and will, drawing on Aquinas and Aristotle to explain how passions like love, desire, sorrow, anxiety, guilt, vainglory, and pride shape human behavior and moral decision-making.

This lecture was given on September 6th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speaker:

Steven J Jensen, who holds the Bishop Nold Chair in Graduate Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, teaches in The Center for Thomistic Studies. His fields of research include bioethics, moral psychology, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, human nature, and natural law. He is the author of several books, including Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics and The Human Person: A Beginner’s Thomistic Psychology.

Keywords: Aristotle, Emotions and Will, End-of-Life Ethics, Human Passions, Moral Psychology, Virtue Ethics

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Timistic 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
0:22.5	to mystic institute.org. Is anything more tortuous than the human heart? The prophet Jeremiah tells us,
0:31.7	more tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy? Who can understand it?
0:39.0	I, the Lord, probe the mind and test the heart, giving to all according to their ways,
0:45.5	according to the fruit of their deeds.
0:49.0	Our task today is to understand the impossible, to understand the tortuous human heart, to understand what
0:56.6	only God, it seems, can understand.
1:00.7	Our task should not make us utterly disconsolate.
1:04.2	We can understand at least some aspects of the human heart.
1:08.1	We can understand what the emotions are and what the will is, and we can
1:13.6	even understand particular acts of the emotions and of the will, such as love, desire, and sorrow.
1:20.6	We can, so to speak, understand the parts of the human heart. What is it then that we cannot understand?
1:30.3	We cannot understand, at least not fully,
1:33.3	the tortuous interweaving of these many parts.
1:37.3	We may begin, at least, with what we can understand
1:41.3	by explaining the parts of the human heart. And this is the handout that hopefully you all have,
1:47.0	will be in this section.
1:49.0	But throughout, you can kind of refer to it
1:52.0	to place various emotions that I talk about.
	...

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