Participation and the Natural Law
What is the deep philosophical connection between divine wisdom and human moral reasoning? Professor Rudi te Velde, member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, unveils Aquinas’ revolutionary understanding of natural law as the eternal law profoundly imprinted on rational creatures. Learn how this concept of participation empowers human self-government, offering insight into the source of our deepest ethical principles and the nature of the good life.
Experience the Event
What is the deep philosophical connection between divine wisdom and human moral reasoning? Professor Rudi te Velde, member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, unveils Aquinas’ revolutionary understanding of natural law as the eternal law profoundly imprinted on rational creatures. Learn how this concept of participation empowers human self-government, offering insight into the source of our deepest ethical principles and the nature of the good life.
The comprehensive and systematic character of Thomas Aquinas’ thought has for centuries informed inquiry into questions of human dignity, freedom, economic development, work, poverty, the environment, and other issues of global significance. Celebrate the 800th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Aquinas, exploring the ongoing importance of his thought to contemporary cultural, philosophical, and theological discussions. In gathering many of the most accomplished contemporary scholars of Aquinas’ thought from throughout the world working on themes in Ethics, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Anthropology, Political Theory, Christology, Trinitarian Theology, Sacramental Theology and Ecclesiology, among others, this series promotes fruitful interchange of diverse perspectives on the importance of Aquinas in the world today.
Meet the Speaker: Rudi te Velde
Rudi te Velde is Professor of Philosophy in the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University (Netherlands). Recently named a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, he is perhaps best known for his groundbreaking work on the (neo)Platonic elements of Aquinas’s metaphysics. Te Velde is the author of dozens of articles and several books, including Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (1995), Aquinas on God: The “Divine Science” of the Summa Theologiae (2006), and Metaphysics between Experience and Transcendance: Thomas Aquinas on Metaphysics as a Science (2021).