What is Wisdom and Why Do We Need It? I Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, 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 September 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this lecture, Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy explains how wisdom—philosophical, theological, and mystical—transcends mere technical knowledge and, therefore, is able to orient man's action toward divine truth and human flourishing.

This lecture was given on May 2nd, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

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

About the Speakers:

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, OP is a Coordinator for Campus Outreach at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He has served as a parochial vicar at St. Pius V Church in Providence, RI, as well as an adjunct professor and assistant chaplain at Providence College. He originates from Columbus, OH, studied architecture in Virginia and Switzerland, and practiced in the DC area before entering the Order of Preachers in 2013. He was ordained a priest in 2020 at the Dominican House of Studies during the quarantine. In his work with the Thomistic Institute, he has given talks on the virtue of penance, loving God with the mind, and the intersection of theology and architecture. He often travels the country visiting Thomistic Institute Campus Chapters, leading seminars that help students grasp Thomistic concepts. Additionally, he coordinates the TI's intellectual retreat programming, which affords students time to pray and integrate into their lives Thomistic theology and philosophy.

Keywords: Aristotelianism, Charity, Ethics, Gaudium et Spes, Human Dignity, Liberal Arts, Metaphysics, Summa Theologiae, Technology, Wisdom Literature

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
0:22.4	to mystic institute.org. Getting of wisdom is get wisdom. Whatever else you get, get understanding.
0:32.6	That's Proveds 4, verse 7. This charming command comes from the early text of wisdom literature in the Old
0:39.4	Testament, and it has the ring of Nike's motto, you know, just do it. If the command to get
0:46.7	wisdom from the sage writer of Proverbs is not enough motivation, it's worth turning toward an unlikely
0:52.7	source to consider the need for wisdom today.
0:57.4	The church's pastoral constitution on the church in the modern world, better known as Gaudium-Ezz,
1:04.2	has been met with not an insignificant amount of criticism for its optimism in some say lack of clarity. The tone of the document
1:13.5	has all the feeling of the 1960s, which knew remarkable progress in so many areas. Medical advances
1:22.1	were almost a daily occurrence. The economy was growing. Unemployment was down. In space travel had advanced from
1:30.3	dogs in space to chimpanzees in space and even humans by the mid-60s. We landed on the moon.
1:38.3	Contrast that with our own time, where it seems that we're unenthused to see a daisy-bearing pop star floating 100 kilometers over the sea level.
1:52.0	Without getting tied up with too much of the theological disputes, surrounding the proper interpretation of Gaudi Mitzpès,
1:59.0	which has some interesting crystallogical considerations,
2:02.6	I want to point out a paragraph that contrasts a lot of the narrative concerning the documents naive optimism.
2:09.6	What you hear is a direct teaching about the stark reality of the modern world and a clear call for wisdom.
2:16.6	So that's paragraph 15, it's the longer quote on your handout.
2:22.3	Man judges rightly that by his intellect he surpasses the material universe,
2:27.3	for he shares in the light of the divine mind.
	...

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