Prof. Gaven Kerr argues that Aquinas is central to Catholic theology because Thomas provides the systematic, deductive, and scripturally grounded framework needed to articulate doctrine about God, Trinity, and salvation.

This lecture was given on March 26th, 2026, at Maynooth University.

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About the Speakers:

Gaven Kerr is a married father of three and a third order Dominican. He has degrees in scholastic philosophy and philosophy from Queen’s University Belfast: BA, MPhil, and PhD. His doctoral research was on the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant. Gaven’s research focuses on the thought of St Thomas Aquinas and his connection with other important thinkers in the history of philosophy and theology. He has published articles in the Thomist, the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Journal of Philosophical Research, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society. Gaven has two books with Oxford University Press. The first was published in 2015, Aquinas’s Way to God, and it dealt with Aquinas’s proof of God in the De Ente et Essentia. His second book which is due out later this year is on Aquinas and the metaphysics of creation. Gaven has taught philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast, St. Malachy’s Seminary Belfast, and Maynooth University. He has taught at Mary Immaculate College Limerick. He currently teaches philosophy at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

Keywords: Aquinas, Catholic Theology, Divine Simplicity, Dogmatic Theology, Fides et Ratio, Scriptural Interpretation, Sacramental Causality, Trinity, Theology as Science, Thomism