“Partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4): Aquinas’s Participatory Metaphysics and Moral Theology

Our Colloquium series reignites in 2026 with a provocative question from Dr. Christopher Ragusa on the importance of “participation” in Thomas Aquinas’ moral theology.

Dr. Ragusa is a Louisiana native and an assistant professor of Theology at FranU. Dr. Ragusa specializes in natural law, virtue ethics, and Aquinas’s metaphysics of participation. He is the Coordinator of FranU’s Bioethics Lecture Series and the incoming Director of the Great Books program at FranU. Dr. Ragusa is also a consultant for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and helped launch the USCCB’s Institute on the Catechism. He is a 2025-2026 Fellow for the Inklings Project and has articles out on sport and freedom, natural law and natural rights, and how St. Thomas Aquinas can be a model of discipleship in our modern world. His most recent article on euthanasia and the 9 major myths surrounding it is out with The Public Discourse.

Lyceum Institute Colloquium

“Partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1: 4)

Aquinas’s Participatory Metaphysics and Moral Theology

ABSTRACT: “Participation” language permeates Aquinas’s moral theology. It is at the center of both the natural law and the infused virtues—most especially charity. However, while painstaking work has been undertaken by scholars to clarify what Aquinas means by “participation” in his metaphysics, there has not been an equal effort to investigate this topic in Thomistic moral theology. This paper will seek to do exactly that: present Aquinas’s metaphysics of participation and the way he synthesizes the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions and then show the way he carries this participatory vision through his understanding of natural law, acquired virtue, and infused virtue (especially charity). In the final analysis, Aquinas’s participatory account of metaphysics and ethics presents a thorough-going divinization morality

This event is exclusive to registered Lyceum Institute members. The lecture will be made available to the public approximately one calendar year from now. Our Q&A session will be held on 19 June 2026 at 7:00pm ET (see event times around the world here).