Does God Care About Suffering? – Dr. Christopher Mooney

Dr. Christopher Mooney asks "whether God really cares about our suffering" and uses biblical narratives, the significance of Christ’s tears, and philosophical responses to death in order to answer in the affirmative, ultimately showing that God can form a greater good from evil without making the evil into something good.This lecture was given on October 9th, 2025, at University of Louisiana at Lafayette.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Dr. Christopher Mooney is an assistant professor of theology at the Augustine Institute Graduate School in St. Louis, Missouri, where he teaches on Catholic theology, scriptural interpretation, and the Church Fathers. His teaching and research specialize in Augustine, the Fathers, and historical theology, and he is the author of Augustine's Theology of Justification by Faith (2026). A native of Connecticut, he studied at Georgetown and Yale Divinity School before receiving his PhD from the University of Notre Dame. He also serves as a theological representative for the USCCB's Catholic-Reformed dialogue. He lives next door to the Augustine Institute's campus with his wife and four children.Keywords: Biblical Meaning of Suffering, Christ’s Tears and the Cross, Divine Providence, Faith and Hope, Forgiveness, Permitted Evil, Problem of Evil, Suffering and Eternal Joy, Tragedy of Death, Wrong Ways to Explain Suffering

Sr. Elinor Gardner asks whether suffering can be called “good” by engaging Stoic thinkers like Seneca, modern echoes in Nietzsche, and biblical wisdom to show how God can use painful trials to heal and deepen the soul without glorifying evil itself.This lecture was given on September 11th, 2025, at University of North Texas.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Sister Elinor Gardner, O.P., is Affiliate Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. Prior to arriving at UD, she taught at Aquinas College (Nashville, TN) and at The Catholic University of America, and spent one year assisting in formation at her Congregation’s Novitiate. She has a PhD from Boston College with a doctorate titled “St Thomas Aquinas on the Death Penalty.” Besides the ethical and political philosophy of Aquinas, her other research interests include the Christian anthropology of Robert Spaemann and Edith Stein.Keywords: Biblical View of Suffering, Discipline of the Lord, Divine Providence and Pain, Healing through Trials, Nietzsche and the Value of Suffering, Seneca on Adversity, Stoicism and Suffering, Suffering and Virtue, Suicide and Stoic Philosophy, Transformation of the Soul in Suffering

Prof. Chris Baglow explores how the God of love can allow evil and suffering by showing that a world created for freedom and love—not as a deterministic machine—necessarily entails the risk of physical and moral evils, yet opens a deeper path of redemptive goodness.This lecture was given on October 30th, 2025, at Mississippi State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Dr. Baglow is Professor of the Practice of Theology and the Director of the Science and Religion Initiative of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. His work is the culmination of 20 years of faith and science scholarship and educational program creation, as well as a lengthy career in Catholic theological education spanning high-school, undergraduate,graduate and seminary teaching. In 2018 he was co-recipient of an Expanded Reason Award in Teaching from the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid) and the Vatican Joseph Ratzinger Foundation (Rome) for his work in integrating faith and science in Catholic education, for which he has also received numerous grants from the John Templeton Foundation.Baglow is the author of Faith, Science and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge (2nd edition, Midwest Theological Forum, 2019) and Creation: A Catholic’s Guide to God and the Universe (Ave Maria Press, 2021). He serves as theological advisor to the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists. He authored the transcripts for Wonder: The Harmony of Faith and Science, a Word on Fire film series directed by Manny Marquez and narrated by Jonathan Roumie. His work has appeared in Church Life Journal, Culture and Evangelization, and Joie de Vivre Quarterly Journal.Keywords: David Hume, Evil, Freedom and Moral Evil, God of Love and Suffering, Joseph Ratzinger on Freedom, Problem of Evil and Suffering, Providence and Natural Laws, Redemption and Human Freedom, Risk of Love, Theodicy and Divine Goodness

Prof. Paul Gondreau explores how Christ’s concrete, fully human life uniquely “fully reveals man to himself,” showing that every human person and all of history are teleologically ordered to him as the final Adam and measure of authentic humanity.This lecture was given on November 20th, 2025, at The Ohio State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Paul Gondreau is professor of theology at Providence College, where he has taught for 28 years. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, doing his dissertation on Christ's full humanity (Christ's human passions/emotions) under the renowned Thomist scholar Jean-Pierre Torrell. He specializes in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and has published widely in the areas of Christology (focusing on Christ’s full humanity and his maleness), Christian anthropology, the moral meaning and purpose of human sexuality and sexual difference, the biblical vision of Aquinas' theology, the theology of disability, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the priesthood, and the Catholic vision of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.Keywords: Christ as Final Adam, Christ's Humanity, Christocentric Anthropology, Docetism, Gaudium et Spes 22, Humanity Revealed in Christ, Incarnation and Human Destiny, Recapitulation of Humanity, Teleological Order to Christ, “The Word Became Flesh”

Dr. Robert McNamara explores how creation is not a distant event but our very act of existing here and now, so that each person’s being is itself a continuous relation of absolute dependence on God that can be freely understood, accepted, and joyfully affirmed.This lecture was given on December 2nd, 2025, at Queen's University at Belfast.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Dr. Robert McNamara is lecturer in philosophy at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth, Ireland, associate series editor of Edith Stein Studies, associate scholar of the Hildebrand Project, associate member of faculty at the International Theological Institute and the Maryvale Institute, and a founding member of the Aquinas Institute of Ireland (currently suspended). Robert researches anthropological and metaphysical questions in medieval and phenomenological thinkers, especially as both bear reference to philosophical personalism. He has studied physics and computing, philosophy and theology, and received his Ph.D. for research in the thought of Edith Stein and Thomas Aquinas. Robert is originally from Galway, Ireland and now lives in Carlow with his wife, Caroline, and their four children, Vivian, John, Catherine, and Oran.KeywordsBeing and Gift, Creation as Relation, Creation ex Nihilo, Existential Dependence on God, Gift of Existence, Hamlet and “To Be or Not to Be”, Joy in Being, Ongoing Creative Act, Saying Yes to Being, Self-Understanding before the Creator

Dr. Erik Dempsey explores whether we make morality or discover it by unpacking Aquinas’s three natural inclinations and arguing that they ground objective, inescapable moral obligations rather than mere social conventions.This lecture was given on October 11th, 2025, at Michigan State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Professor Erik Dempsey an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Departments of Government, Classics, and Religious Studies, and is the Assistant Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin for over ten years, during which time he has offered classes in the history of political philosophy, on the Bible and its interpreters, on American political thought, on classical philosophy and literature, and others. His favorite classes to teach are Jerusalem and Athens, a class comparing the political, moral, and theological ideas of the Hebrew Bible to Aristotle's, and the Question of Relativism, a class on what he considers the central quandary of our time. He writes primarily about Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, and he is currently studying John Locke's commentaries on St. Paul's epistles. Last but not least, he is an Eagle Scout.Keywords: Conventionalism and Justice, Human Moral Inclinations, Modern Science, Morality, Natural Law, Objective Moral Obligation, Rational Order of Goods, Self-Preservation and the Common Good

Prof. John Cuddeback reflects on why many students feel relationally unsatisfied in a hyper-connected world and shows how reclaiming embodied presence, intentional discernment of a few trustworthy friends, and technology-limited, silence-friendly communal spaces can restore the depth, vulnerability, and shared pursuit of the good that real friendship requires.This lecture was given on September 23rd, 2025, at Virginia Military Institute.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:John A. Cuddeback, PhD, is professor of Philosophy at Christendom College, where he has taught for thirty years. He lectures widely on topics including friendship, fatherhood, virtue, homesteading, and household. His professional writings appear in various academic journals and books, and his book True Friendship was republished by Ignatius Press. His podcasts, blogging, and courses at LifeCraft are renowned for applying a timeless wisdom to life today.Keywords: Bodily Presence, Discernment, Friendship, Interior Life, Intentional Friendship, Maturity, Prioritizing a Few Friends, Silence, Virtual Age Relationships, Vulnerability

Prof. Michael Krom explores how athletic rivalry, when rooted in justice and love of the good, can deepen genuine friendship, build virtue, and lead toward a contemplative vision of life.This lecture was given on November 13th, 2025, at Indiana University.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Michael Krom started reading Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae shortly after his conversion at the end of college. Upon learning about Flannery O’Connor’s “hillbilly Thomist” habit of reading Aquinas every night, he started studying two articles a day and completed the Summa while in graduate school at Emory University. As a professor at Saint Vincent College, he saw the urgent need for collegians and seminarians to receive a solid foundation in Aquinas’s philosophical theology. In 2020, he published Justice and Charity:  An Introduction to Aquinas’s Moral, Economic, and Political Thought (Baker Academic Press), and teaches a Thomistic philosophy course each fall. In addition to continuing work on the moral, economic, and political topics covered in the book, his current research is on the influence of monastic spirituality on Aquinas; he is working on a monograph tentatively entitled Aquinas Among the Benedictines.Keywords: Athletic Excellence and Virtue, Competition and Friendship, Contemplation and Sport, Desire for the Good, Let the Best One Win, Sportsmanship and Justice, Virtue and Human Flourishing, Vocation and Play, Workaholism and Fanaticism, Wrestling with Rivalry

Prof. Joshua Hochschild argues that digital culture reshapes friendship and attention through Curiositas and acedia, offering a path of renewal by cultivating virtue, mindful leisure, and rooted communal belonging.This lecture was given on November 5th, 2025, at John Hopkins University.Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Joshua Hochschild is Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University, where he also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.Keywords: Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, Attention and Technology, Common Action and Solidarity, Curiositas and Acedia, Digital Age, Friendship and Human Flourishing, Leisure and Attention, Trustworthiness and Integrity, Virtue Cultivation in College Life, Virtue Ethics in Friendship

Prof. Michael Dauphinais explains marriage as a lifelong covenant of self-giving love between a man and a woman that images Christ’s union with the Church, ordered to the spouses’ sanctification and the procreation and education of children .This lecture was given on October 15th, 2025, at Iowa State University.Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Michael A. Dauphinais, Ph.D., serves as the Fr. Matthew Lamb Professor of Catholic Theology and the co-director of the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida. He has co-authored with Matthew Levering Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of Thomas Aquinas; Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction to the Bible; and The Wisdom of the Word: Biblical Answers to Ten Questions about Catholicism. He specializes in C.S. Lewis, the Bible, and St. Thomas Aquinas. He speaks frequently in both academic and popular settings, and particularly enjoys visiting Thomistic Institute student chapters. Dr. Dauphinais hosts The Catholic Theology Show podcast to help a wide audience discover the richness of coming to know and love God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.Keywords: Catholic Theology of Marriage, Covenant and Sacrament, Christ and the Church as Spousal Model, Family and Vocation, Fidelity and Indissolubility, Openness to Life and Children, Self-Giving Love and Freedom, Spousal Sanctification, Vocation of Husband and Wife, Wedding and Lifelong Commitment