The 2024 Summer Institute is open to all rising high school students and college freshman.
The Lumen Christi Fellows are selected from students at the University of Chicago and other area universities. Fellows demonstrate an interest in the Catholic intellectual tradition and in sharing community with peers. They receive invitations to private events, dinners, and seminars, while committing to reasonable participation in Lumen Christi programs. Fellows are invited to focus on key areas relevant to their interests: Scripture, Theology and Philosophy, Political Thought, Science and Religion, Catholic Literature and Culture, the University and Liberal Education. The Fellows’ leadership team coordinates with Lumen Christi staff on vision and programming. Interested students are encouraged to apply.
Direct any further questions to Michael Le Chevallier.
“St. Thomas Aquinas on Free Choice”
June 16- June 22, 2024
Stephen Brock
University of Chicago
This seminar will be a five-day, intensive discussion aimed at understanding and evaluating St Thomas Aquinas’s account of liberum arbitrium and of the psychological and metaphysical principles that underlie it. The sessions will center on passages from the Summa theologiae, but we will also refer to other works of Aquinas, such as the De Malo and the Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and to pertinent texts from other philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Anscombe. We will want to address some of the more controversial questions about Thomas’s views, such as the following: Does he differ from Aristotle on the will, and if so, how? Did he change his own mind about the will? To what extent, in Aquinas's account, does the freedom of the will depend upon the distinction between the will and the intellect? Does St Thomas’s apparent intellectualism commit him to some kind of determinism with regard to choice? Does he offer an adequate account of the choice of evil? In comparison with modern thinkers, does he sufficiently appreciate the value of freedom?
Format: There will be two 2 ½ hour sessions each day. Each session will include an opening lecture and seminar-style discussion of the text and the issues at hand. Students will be expected to prepare the readings carefully and participate in the discussions of the material.
Location: The seminar will take place at the University of Chicago. Students will be provided with lodging, meals, and a travel stipend of up to $350.
Application Information: This seminar will be open to Ph.D. students in the humanities and relevant fields (such as philosophy, theology, english, classics, & history).|
Applicants will be required to submit:
- A completed online application form.
- An updated CV.
- At least one and as many as two letter(s) of recommendation from a member of the program in which the student is currently enrolled.
- A statement of research interest no longer than 750 words, which includes an explanation of how this seminar might bear on the student’s current or future research plans.
- One academic writing sample (30 pages maximum).
All application materials can be submitted via the online application. Incomplete applications will not be considered. 15 students will be admitted to this seminar.
Seminar Leader:
Stephen L. Brock is is a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei. He is Ordinary Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome. He earned a B.A. in Philosophy at the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. Brock writes widely on Thomas Aquinas and action theory, ethics, and metaphysics. He is the author of The Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas. A Sketch (Wipf & Stock, 2015) and Action & Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action (T&T Clark, 1998). During 2017 he was a visiting scholar in the Philosophy Department at the University of Chicago, collaborating in the Templeton Foundation project “Virtue, Happiness, and Meaning in Life,” directed by Candace Vogler and Jennifer Frey.