Prof. Erik Dempsey explains St. Thomas Aquinas’s account of justification as God’s free gift of grace, which heals sin, moves human freedom, and forms believers in faith working through charity.
This lecture was given on March 21st, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies.
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About the Speaker:
Professor Erik Dempsey an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Departments of Government, Classics, and Religious Studies, and is the Assistant Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin for over ten years, during which time he has offered classes in the history of political philosophy, on the Bible and its interpreters, on American political thought, on classical philosophy and literature, and others. His favorite classes to teach are Jerusalem and Athens, a class comparing the political, moral, and theological ideas of the Hebrew Bible to Aristotle's, and the Question of Relativism, a class on what he considers the central quandary of our time. He writes primarily about Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, and he is currently studying John Locke's commentaries on St. Paul's epistles. Last but not least, he is an Eagle Scout.
Keywords: Baptism, Charity, Faith and Works, Grace, Holy Spirit, Incarnation, Justification, Merit, Original Sin, St. Thomas Aquinas