St. Thomas Aquinas on the Gift of Deification' (Part 1 of 4) | Prof. Daria Spezzano

The Thomistic Institute

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

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2023

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This lecture was given on April 14, 2023, at St. Albert's Priory in Oakland California. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Dr. Daria Spezzano (Providence College) is Associate Professor of Theology at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master’s in Liturgical Studies from the Liturgical Institute. Her book, The Glory of God's Grace: Deification according to St. Thomas Aquinas, was published by Sapientia Press in 2015. She has published 10 scholarly articles in Nova et Vetera, Cistercian Studies and the Journal of Moral Theology, and chapters in several edited volumes, including Aquinas on Initiation and Mystagogy (Peeters, 2019), Reading Job with St. Thomas Aquinas (CUA Press, 2020), Thomas Aquinas, Biblical Theologian (Emmaus Academic, 2021), and Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology (Sapientia Press, 2021). Among other projects, she is currently coediting a volume, Christ, the Wisdom of God in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Thomistic Institute podcast.
0:05.9	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.2	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:18.2	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at
0:21.6	to mystic institute.org. Thanks to the Timistic Institute for inviting me to this retreat
0:30.6	to talk about such a beautiful topic. Easter week's really the perfect time to think about deification because it's only through the crucified and risen Christ that we can become deified, that we can become like God by being united to God through grace.
0:52.6	So that gift, the gift of deification, is maybe Christianity's most
0:58.1	radical and amazing promise. This highest gift of God to be like him so that we can see him
1:07.1	as he is in heaven. It's actually the whole purpose of our creation. In the very first
1:13.6	paragraph of the catechism of the Catholic Church, it says, I'm going to quote, God infinitely
1:21.2	perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own
1:31.3	blessed life. So that quote is on the back of your handout. So I'm going to, throughout the talk,
1:38.0	a few of these quotes are going to be on the back. You want to meditate on them a little bit more.
1:43.9	The church teaches here that to share in
1:47.2	God's own blessed life by becoming somehow like God is the very purpose of our existence.
1:54.7	And yet this teaching that God creates us in order to deify us is not very well known nowadays, even by many Christians.
2:04.6	So to start us off, I'm going to begin with an introduction to deification and some of its
2:11.6	scriptural and historical background. In other words, what is the basis on which Christianity can make such a surprising
2:20.2	claim that humans can actually become like God? Then I'm going to go into more depth on Thomas
2:27.3	Aquinas' understanding of deification. He's my main guy. How it relates us to Christ and to God's own inner life of love and joy.
2:39.9	And what it might mean for us to live a deified life right now here on Earth.
2:46.5	And then I'm going to finish up with some thoughts on what the promise of deification lets us look forward to,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

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.