Why We Need the Saints – Prof. Adam Eitel

The Thomistic Institute

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

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Prof. Adam Eitel argues that God’s divine pedagogy makes the examples of the saints indispensable for our salvation, since their concrete, imperfect yet graced lives teach us how to endure sorrow, grow in virtue, and imitate Christ in the real circumstances of our own time.

This lecture was given on October 6th, 2025, at Brown University.

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

About the Speakers:

Professor Eitel is an Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Dallas. Before joining the UD faculty in 2023, he taught for eight years at Yale University, holding appointments in the Divinity School, the Program in Medieval Studies, and the Humanities Program. A specialist in medieval scholasticism, his research interests include doctrinal and moral theology, with a particular focus on the works of Thomas Aquinas and his contemporaries. His teaching and research bring historical Christian theology into dialogue with contemporary moral and political issues.

Keywords: Augustine On Virtue, Cardinal Virtues In Scripture, Communion Of Saints, Divine Pedagogy, Exemplarity And Moral Formation, Imitation Of Christ, Job’s Patience, Moral Theology, Summa Theologiae, Thomistic Biblical Commentary

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Tumistic Institute podcast.
0:06.0	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church,
0:10.3	and the wider public square.
0:12.3	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Tumistic Institute
0:16.8	chapters around the world.
0:18.7	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at
0:21.7	Thomistic Institute.org. I am going to be speaking this evening about the Saints, and what I think
0:31.2	I'll do at different points during the talk is simply raise a couple of questions. I want to maybe present you
0:38.4	with a puzzle or two. And as you're digesting your food, maybe even ask you to try to think
0:47.2	and then answer one of those puzzles. But I don't want to just offer puzzles. I want to provide
0:54.0	some solutions. But we're talking about the saints.
0:57.1	And we have to begin, I think, by just noting, have you noticed, that we live at a time that is altogether suspicious of the past?
1:10.5	Yes?
1:12.2	So you don't want to be characterized as unduly nostalgic for the past.
1:22.3	You don't want to, if you want to be liked,
1:27.1	you don't want to be thought to have too much to say or to
1:33.1	think too much about the past or specifically about past persons. We are, well, you don't
1:42.4	learn it this way anymore. I did when I was in school.
1:45.8	There was a time, yes, in the history of American education where students were taught about the dark ages.
1:54.1	Dark because we seem to know little about them, though we know more than we did when I was a boy, but dark as well
2:01.9	because they're thought to be shrouded in darkness, in moral obscurity. Don't cling to the past.
2:15.6	Clinging to the past makes you liable to dangerous excess.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 14 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

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.