Action: Human and Divine, Civic and Ecclesiastical
25th June: 8:00 am - 26th June: 8:00 pm BST
A Research Symposium
A joint collaboration between Ave Maria University and the Aquinas Institute, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, to be held at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, on 25-26 June 2026. Open to the public.
Speakers include: Gerald Boersma, Janice Chik Breidenbach, Michael Breidenbach, Richard Conrad, Daniel De Haan, Gaven Kerr, Dawn LaValle Norman, Roger Nutt, William Simpson, Jeffrey Walkey
Day 1, Thursday, June 25, 2026
Aula, Blackfriars Hall
08:45-09:00 Introduction
09:00-10:00 Dawn LaValle Norman, “What Monica Learned: Enslaved Women as Educational Agents in Augustine’s Confessions”
Respondent: Michael Breidenbach
10:00-11:00 Michael Breidenbach, “Enslaved to a Bishop: Slave Agency and Sacramental Action in Early America”
Respondent: Dawn LaValle Norman
11:00-11:30 Tea & Coffee break
11:30-12:30 Daniel De Haan, “Developmental Flourishing: Answering the Riddle of the Eudaimonic Sphinx”
12:30-14:30 Lunch Break
14:30-15:00 Tea & Coffee
15:00-16:00 Janice Chik Breidenbach, “Civic Action and Social Ontology: The Organic Homonymy Principle in Political Life”
Respondent: Daniel De Haan
16:00-17:00 William Simpson, “Created Instruments of Grace: Hylomorphism and Sacramental Action”
Respondent: Janice Chik Breidenbach
17:00-18:00 Drinks Reception
Day 2, Friday, June 26, 2026
Aula, Blackfriars Hall
09:00-10:00 Gaven Kerr, “An Anscombian Analysis of God’s Causal Acts”
Respondent: Gerald Boersma
10:00-11:00 Jeffrey Walkey, “Providence and Proofs for the Existence of ‘God’: Reflections on the Scope of Divine Action and (Un)Successful Reference to the God of Jesus Christ”
Respondent: Joshua Madden
11:00-11:30 Tea & Coffee break
11:30-12:30 Gerald Boersma, “Aristotle’s horme in Aquinas’s Theology of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.”
Respondent: Gaven Kerr
12:30-14:30 Lunch Break
14:30-15:30 Roger Nutt, “The Virtue of Penance and Sacramental Absolution: Historical and Speculative Considerations from Thomas Aquinas’s De forma absolutionis.”
Respondent: Fr Richard Conrad, OP
15:30-16:00 Tea & Coffee
16:00-17:00 Fr Richard Conrad, “The Sacrament and Virtue of Repentance for the Remission of Sins: Translating the Latin Graciously and Hopefully.”
Respondent: Roger Nutt
17:00-18:00 Drinks Reception
Venue: Blackfriars Hall -
St Giles
Oxford,
OX1 3LY
United Kingdom
Contact:
Aquinas Institute
aquinas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk