Oxford University

The Thomistic Institute at Oxford University presents a lecture by Prof. Gaven Kerr of St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth titled “God, Creation, and the Act of Existence.”

Monday, February 6

7:30 PM

Blackfriars | St Giles, OX1 3LY

This lecture is free and open to the public.

About the Lecture:

A central and unifying theme in Aquinas’s metaphysical thought is the act of existence. This signifies an actuality more fundamental than form. In exploring the act of existence and its relation to the thing whose act it is, Aquinas is led to consider the causality of that act. It is through considering the causality of the act of existence that Aquinas is led to affirm God’s existence, and in turn is able to analyse God’s causality in the act of creation.

About the Speaker:

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.