A Student Summa Theologiae Reading Group on The Triplex Via in Aquinas’ Natural Theology led by Dr. Daniel De Haan of Oxford University.

Tuesdays and Thursdays

March 2-25

1:00 pm EST

Reading groups gather once or twice a week via Zoom for relaxed, 1-2 hour discussions, working their way through a few articles of the Summa Theologiae or another classic work. Open to current university students and young professionals.

Applications for this group are now closed

About this Group:

To reach God as an ultimate end, you have to begin somewhere. St. Thomas decided to begin at the ending. After the Summa's first question, Aquinas asks: what is God? He applies a classic threefold way (triplex via) to knowing God in his opening questions: causation (knowing a cause through its effects), negation (what God is not), and supereminence (created perfections in a more excellent mode). This group will examine selections from questions 2–15 of ST I, considering Aquinas's "natural theology."

About the Speaker:

Daniel De Haan is a Research Fellow in Natural Theology at the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. Before coming to Oxford he was a postdoctoral fellow working on the neuroscience strand of the Templeton World Charity Foundation’s Theology, Philosophy of Religion, and the Sciences project at the University of Cambridge. He has a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of Leuven and University of St. Thomas in Texas. His research focuses on philosophical anthropology and the sciences, natural theology, and the thought of Thomas Aquinas.