Where Aquinas Went Wrong: Debates between St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure | Dr. Brendan Case

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Brendan Case to discuss his new book, Doubting Thomas (UND Press), which covers a host of debates between St. Thomas Aquinas and his Franciscan counterparts, especially St. Bonaventure. In this discussion, Dr. Case shares a few instances where he thinks Bonaventure got the better of Thomas. Moreover, he shares why these debates matter and how they might better help us understand the place of Thomas in modern theology.

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About the Guest: Brendan W. Case, Th.D., serves as the Associate Director for Research at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program. A Christian theologian by training, Case’s work brings theology and philosophy into conversation with the empirical social sciences to understand the nature, distribution, and determinants of a good life. Dr. Case is the author or co-author of five books: The Gentleness of Wisdom: A Christian Ethics of Charity, Anger, and Enmity (Routledge, 2026); Doubting Thomas: Early Franciscan Disputes with Aquinas (University of Notre Dame Press, 2026); The Justification of the Sinless: Supralapsarian Christology and the Goodness of the Incarnation (Baker Academic, 2026); The Accountable Animal: Justice, Justification, and Judgment (T&T Clark, 2021), and (with William Glass) Least of the Apostles: Paul and His Legacies in Earliest Christianity (Pickwick Press, 2022).

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Read the book: https://amzn.to/3UnrxQQ
The Justification of the Sinless: https://amzn.to/4ccbZFP
Learn more: https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/team/brendan-case

Chapters
00:00 The Place of St. Thomas in Theology
04:46 St. Bonaventure's Approach
10:01 Reception of Thomas in his time
20:04 The Trinity and divine relations
25:12 The Ontological Argument
30:07 Implications of different theological emphases
35:05 Bonaventure today
39:55 Beyond the Summa
45:13 Mystical theology in Bonaventure
49:48 Historical and contemporary views on Thomas and Bonaventure
54:57 The future of theological study

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