Aquinas, Racism, and Secular Accounts of Human Equality

Last updated on: June 26, 2025 at 11:32 am By Francis J. Beckwith

In April I published a new article in The Thomist that may interest some Patheos readers. Entitled, “Thomistic Essentialism, Racism, and Secular Accounts of Human Equality,” what follows is the abstract: This article makes a case for why human equality and the wrongness of racism are best accounted for by the philosophical anthropology derived from Thomistic Essentialism. After presenting this view and explaining its contemporary application in the American civil rights struggle, the author briefly reviews three major secular alternatives–Ruse and... Read more

Jenkins – “After Francis: What’s Next In The Vatican?”

Last updated on: March 13, 2025 at 8:49 am By Francis J. Beckwith

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My Baylor colleague, the historian Philip Jenkins, has posted over at The Anxious Bench the first of three entries on the Francis Papacy and how it portends to the next conclave’s selection of a successor. Here is how it begins: In the quite near future, the world’s largest religious institution will be choosing a new head. As everyone knows, Pope Francis is extremely sick, and for a man of his age, there is a strong possibility that he will be... Read more

The Paradox of Big Charity

Last updated on: March 12, 2025 at 6:15 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

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Imagine that you make a fine salary employed by a multibillion dollar charitable organization whose purpose is to eradicate some horrible human malady or condition, e.g., cancer, heart disease, poverty, etc. Suppose you were to succeed. But then you’re out of a job. To make matters worse, a lot of your funding comes from corporate donors whose products actually increase these maladies in their customers. Because of your “partnership” with these donors it may not be in your economic interest... Read more

Religious Freedom and Abortion

Last updated on: March 12, 2025 at 5:05 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

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Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), scholars who support abortion rights have defended different ways to ground a constitutional right to abortion. Some have argued for a religious liberty angle. In a just-published article I co-authored with Australian legal scholar, Alex Deagon, we offer a detailed critique of this approach. Appearing in the Baylor Law Review (76 [Fall 2024]: 511-574), it is entitled, “Religious Freedom and Abortion: Why State-Imposed... Read more

My review of Ross Douthat’s new book, Believe.

Last updated on: February 15, 2025 at 10:20 am By Francis J. Beckwith

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I am happy to report that I just published in World Magazine a review of the book, Believe: Why Everyone Should be Religious (Zondervan 2025), authored by the New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat. Here’s how the review begins: In 1952, a well-known public intellectual named C.S. Lewis published Mere Christianity, a small and accessible book in which he made a case for the Christian faith in response to a particular set of objections that were becoming increasingly prevalent in the... Read more

Thomistic Inst. Essay: Moral Relativism & the Natural Law

Last updated on: December 21, 2024 at 11:52 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

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One of the great blessings of my career as a professor is being invited to speak at the many chapters of the Thomistic Institute found on college campus throughout North America and Europe. Over the past year I have spoken at the University of Miami, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, University of Toronto, and Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City. In 2025 I am set to give lectures at the University of North Florida and New York University. One... Read more

My Review of Rod Dreher’s Living in Wonder

Last updated on: November 18, 2024 at 10:42 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

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In the November 2024 issue of World Magazine is my review of Rod Dreher’s new book, Living In Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age (Zondervan, 2024). Entitled “Disenchantment and Truth,” here’s how the review begins: “Like all dreamers, I confused disenchantment with truth.” Those pithy words, penned by the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, encapsulate the plight of the modern West. It’s this plight that writer and journalist Rod Dreher confronts in his latest book, Living in Wonder: Finding... Read more

New book: A Catholic Engagement with Latter-Day Saints

Last updated on: October 1, 2024 at 11:19 am By Francis J. Beckwith

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I am pleased to announce the publication of my new book, A Catholic Engagement with Latter-Day Saints. Co-edited with my dear friend, Utah State University philosopher and Catholic convert, Richard Sherlock, the book is set for release by Ignatius Press on November 30, 2024. Among the other contributors are Rachel Lu, Alexander Pruss, Matthew Levering, and Brad S. Gregory. Here is the description of the book from the Ignatius website, followed by the Table of Contents: A collection of... Read more

Did ChatGPT concede that there exists a First Cause?

Last updated on: July 11, 2024 at 1:10 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

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In a 2002 debate book he did with J. J. Smart–Atheism and Theism—the Scottish philosopher John Haldane offers a First Cause argument for God’s existence. It is not a First Cause argument based on the impossibility of an infinite past series of events–like the Kalam Cosmological Argument–but one that makes a case for a First Cause of everything whose existence depends on another in the here and now even if the universe had always existed. It is an argument within... Read more

Walker Percy’s 1981 NY Times Op-Ed on Abortion

Last updated on: July 7, 2024 at 7:53 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

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While working on the revised edition of my 2007 book, Defending Life, I came across a June 8, 1981 New York Times opinion piece written by the great Catholic novelist Walker Percy. Entitled “A View of Abortion, With Something to Offend Everybody,” I publish it here in its entirety (with a spelling correction): I feel like saying something about this abortion issue. My credentials as an expert on the subject: None. I am an M.D. and a novelist. I will... Read more