Simon Francis Gaine, OP Named to New Pinckaers Chair

The Thomistic Institute at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) is happy to announce that Fr. Simon Francis Gaine, O.P. has been named to the new Pinckaers Chair in Theological Anthropology and Ethics, beginning in academic year 2020-2021. Named after Servais Pinckaers, this chair exists for understanding and research pertaining to the human person, grounded in the theological and philosophical wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas. Pinckaers was instrumental in the 20^th century for recovering an approach to ethics characterized by the search for happiness, virtue theory and an understanding of human freedom grounded in the notion of teleological flourishing. His research, both historical and thematic, has altered the field of ethics and led to new branches of study in anthropology and metaphysics, often in conversation with dogmatic theology as well as modern sciences and social theory.

Fr. Simon Francis Gaine completed his doctoral studies at Oxford University on the topic of uncreated and created grace, and has served for many years as a Lector in Fundamental and Dogmatic Theology at Blackfriars, Oxford. He is the author of two monographs, Will There Be Free Will in Heaven? Freedom, Impeccability and Beatitude (London and New York: T and T Clark, 2003)  and Did the Saviour See the Father? Christ, Salvation and the Vision of God (London: Bloomsbury T and T Clark, 2015).  His current research is concerned especially with topics of theological anthropology.