Ph.D. Dissertations 2024-25 Daniel Drain. Saving Finite Freedom: On the Meaning of Freedom in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theology of Redemption. Defended October 1, 2024. 2023-24 Matthew Newell. Beauty as “Oxymoronic Polarity” in Gregory of Nyssa. Defended April 24, 2024. Mark Banga. John Paul II’s Catechesis on Human Love: Towards An Adequate Theological Anthropology. Defended April 22, 2024. Aaron Williams. Knowledge of the Mystery: Louis Bouyer's Theology of Sacred Scripture. Defended December 7, 2023. Somer Salomon. Reason as Gift: Reengaging the Onto-Theological Critique with Pope John Paul II. Defended December 7, 2023. 2022-23 Andrew Shivone. Self Becoming as Self-Reception: Ferdinand Ulrich’s Philosophical Anthropology of Childhood. Defended April 20, 2023. 2021-22 Raphael Anthony Arza. The Fate of North America: George Grant's Idea of a Civilizational Destiny. Defended May 6, 2022. Julia Bolzon Palmieri. A Philosophical Critique of American Bioethics in its Origins: Applying the Contribution of Hans Jonas Toward a Way Forward. Defended May 2, 2022. Michael Camacho. Creation as Communion: Augustine on Love, Goodness, and Unity in Dialogue with Plato and Plotinus. Defended April 25, 2022. Joseph Lanzilotti. The Heart in the Thought of Joseph Ratzinger. Defended April 19, 2022. David Henderson. The Poetic Ontology of John Milbank: Divine Novelty and the Re-enchantment of Human Poesis. Defended December 15, 2021. 2020-21 Caitlin Jolly. A Generative Truth: The Adaequatio Mentis et Vitae as Mystery of Fecundity in the Philosophy of Maurice Blondel. Defended April 14, 2021. Lesley Rice. Biology, Technology, and the Beginning of Life: An Appraisal of Recent Catholic Bioethics. Defended March 10, 2021. Tongxin Lu. John C.H. Wu: A Prodigy in Synthesizing East and West and a Prophet for the Evangelization of China. Defended December 3, 2020. 2019-20 Stella Marie Jeffrey. Towards an Adequate Anthropology of the Redemptive Order: A Study of the Pauline Understanding of the Human Person and the Implications for Evangelization. Defended May 5, 2020. 2018-19 Erik van Versendaal. Letting Be: Ferdinand Ulrich on Freedom as the Fruitfulness of Being. Defended April 29, 2019. Rachel Coleman. Matter as an Image of the Good: Ferdinand Ulrich’s Metaphysics of Creation. Defended April 5, 2019. Carly Henderson. Maternal Mediation and the Communio Personarum: John Paul II’s Theology of Mary. Defended February 26, 2019. Daniel Meola. The Drama of Sexual Difference: A Catholic Critique of Judith Butler's Theory of Gender as "Performativity." Defended January 24, 2019. 2017-18 John Laracy. Divine Love as Event: A Study in the Trinitarian Theology of Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Defended January 26, 2018. Michael Higgins. The Essential Divine Attributes in Aquinas’s Trinitarian Theology. Defended December 12, 2017. Rev. Richard Kramer. The Personal Structure of Truth in the Thought of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Defended December 11, 2017. 2015-16 Christine L. Myers. "For God so Loved the World": Christian Existence and Responsibility in Romano Guardini. Defended January 13, 2016. 2014-15 Carlos L. Gamundi. The Nuptial and Liturgical Dimensions of the Body in the Theology of St. Paul: The Aptness of Soma for Holiness, Love and Worship. Defended April 16, 2015. Ellen Roderick. "Living in the Condition of Love’s Gift": Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theological Anthropology of Childhood and Its Significance for the Form of Human Freedom. Defended October 27, 2014. 2013-14 Michael J. Lueken. Dorothy Day and Catholic Social Teaching: The Witness of a Life and the Mission of the Church in the World. Defended April 28, 2014. Grzegorz Ignatik. The Unity of Freedom and Truth: The Human Person in the Order of Love in the Thought of Karol Jozef Wojtyła/Blessed John Paul II. Defended April 24, 2014. Conor D. Hill. "Who Am I?": Experience as the Unity between the Person and the World in the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973). Defended October 25, 2013. 2011-12 Anne P. Devlin. The Theology of Human Personhood According to Joseph Ratzinger. Defended November 4, 2011. William R. Hamant. Iusta Autonomia and the Relational Ontology of Joseph Ratzinger. Defended October 26, 2011. 2010-11 Thomas J. Hurley. The Relation of Political Freedom to the End of Man According to St. Thomas. Defended April 25, 2011. Michelle K. Borras. The Paschal Mystery as Nuptial Mystery in the Theology of Origen of Alexandria. Defended September 27, 2010. For More Information: Doctor of Philosophy in Theology with a Specialization in Person, Marriage, and Family (Ph.D.)
