symposium on the theology of creation 2025:
An Exploration of Creation as God’s Temple
The seven-day work on the tabernacle replicates the seven-day work on creation. The account of the construction of the tabernacle ends with a vision of the Sabbath... The completion of the tent anticipates the completion of creation. God makes his dwelling with the world. Heaven and earth are united.
Biblical scholars have drawn much attention to the fact that the creation narratives in sacred scripture present the creation as a temple for the presence of God. We hope to further explore this theme, both in itself and in its implications in on the whole of theology and philosophy.
Together with the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, the St. Basil Institute for the Study of the Theology of Creation is welcoming abstracts of 300-600 words for paper topics for our symposium on this topic. Submission are open until December 15. Notification of acceptance will be given by February 1.
Papers presented at the conference may be eligible for publication in a future volume of Studies in the Theology of Creation.
Dr. Scott Hahn is the Founder and President of the St. Paul Center, an apostolate dedicated to teaching Catholics to read Scripture from the heart of the Church. And he is the Scanlan Professor of Biblical Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990.
An exceptionally popular speaker and teacher, Dr. Hahn has delivered numerous talks nationally and internationally on a wide variety of topics related to Scripture and the Catholic faith. His talks have been effective in helping thousands of protestants and fallen away Catholics to (re)embrace the Catholic faith.
Dr. Hahn has been married to Kimberly for forty-four years. They have six kids and twenty-three grandkids. They also have one son ordained to the Diocese of Steubenville, Fr. Jeremiah Hahn.
As the author and editor of over forty popular and academic books. Dr. Hahn’s works include best-selling titles Rome Sweet Home, The Lamb’s Supper, Hail Holy Queen, and the Fourth Cup. His most recent releases are titled Holy is His Name and Catholics in Exile: Biblical
Wisdom for the Journey Home now available at StPaulCenter.com.
Dr. John Bergsma serves as Professor of Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville and Vice President at the St. Paul Center. He holds the Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and Master of Theology (Th.M.) degrees from Calvin Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and served as a Protestant pastor for four years before entering the Catholic Church in 2001, while pursuing a doctorate (Ph.D) in Theology from the University of Notre Dame. He specialized in the Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls, graduating with high honors in 2004.
Dr. Bergsma over the years has become a sought-after speaker and author. Last year alone, John spoke at a dozen priests conferences, to an estimated 1,000 Priests. He is the author of over a dozen books on Scripture and the Catholic faith, including his most recent release: The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A.
Other popular books include Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Revealing the Jewish Roots of the Church, Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, the Bible Basics series, and Stunned by Scripture which details John’s conversion story.
Dr. Bergsma can also be found frequently each week on the St. Paul Center’s Letters from Home podcast and YouTube channel. He also hosts a weekly show with Dr. Scott Hahn titled: Word of the Lord which reaches Catholics all around the world at stpaulcenter.com.
Most importantly: John and his wife Dawn have been married since 1993 and have eight children and one grandchild (so far)!
Dr. Jared Isaac Goff is professor of philosophical theology at the College of St. Joseph the Worker in Steubenville, Ohio and professor of dogmatic theology at Ss. Cyril & Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Saint Louis University in 2013.
He is the author of Caritas in Primo: A Study of Bonaventure’s Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity (2015), an editor of The Theologian of Auschwitz: St. Maximilian M. Kolbe on the Immaculate Conception in the Life of the Church (2020), and co-editor of A Companion to Bonaventure (2014) and The Spirit and the Church: Peter Damian Fehlner’s Franciscan Development of Vatican II on the Themes of the Holy Spirit, Mary, and the Church—Festschrift (2018). He recently completed an English translation with Wayne Hellman of Bonaventure’s Sentence Commentary writings on the theological virtues and finished editing the Collected Essays of Peter Damian Fehlner, O.F.M. Conv. He is currently working on a book on the theology of creation.
Fr. Thomas Crean is a Dominican friar of the English province. He did his initial studies in philosophy and theology at Oxford University. He has a licence in theology from the Institut s. Thomas d’Aquin in Toulouse, and a doctorate from the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria. He is the author of Vindicating the Filioque: the Church Fathers at the Council of Florence (Emmaus Academic, 2023), and, with Alan Fimister, of Integralism: a Manual of Political Philosophy (Editiones Scholasticae, 2020). He lives at St Dominic’s priory in England, and teaches on-line for Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut. He has published in Antiphon, Augustinianum, Divinitas, and New Blackfriars.
Dr. Timothy Kearns is a lecturer of humanities, integrated studies, and Biblical and Patristic Greek and Latin at the college seminary of the Legionaries of Christ in Cheshire, Connecticut. His research and teaching focuses on restoring a theological vision of the cosmos and the order of knowledge through integrating modern disciplines into a broadly Aristotelian framework. His research has appeared in the International Philosophical Quarterly, in LOGOS, in the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association and of the American Maritain Association, and in Proceedings of the Society for the European History of Ideas. He was the opening speaker at Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Assembly 2023.
Br. Matthew T. Warnez is a member of the Brotherhood of Hope, a Catholic religious community in the United States. He is in the final year of his DPhil in theology at the University of Oxford. Much of his published work treats the biblical and patristic theology of the unfalleness of the natural world.
Dr. Doyen Nguyen was born in Paris, France. She is from a Vietnamese family and grew up in a multicultural and multireligious environment. At the age of 15, she was baptized into the Catholic Church, and became a Lay Dominican in 2021. Dr. Nguyen is proficient in multiple languages, including English, French, Italian, and German, and she is learning Portuguese. She recieved an MD at Temple University School of Medicine in 1981 and an STD in moral theology at the Angelicum, graduating magna cum laude, in 2017. Her dissertation was entitled The New Paradigms of Death for Organ Transplantation: A Critical Analysis from the Perspective of Christian Ethics. She has published countless other books and articles in both medicine and theology, which can found in her CV. Apart from her academic and religious pursuits, Dr. Nguyen enjoys various hobbies that nourish her mind and body. She has a profound appreciation for classical European culture and classical music, with a particular fondness for composers like Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky. Additionally, she finds solace in mountain walking, often exploring the scenic beauty of the Austrian Alps. Dr. Nguyen lives by a personal motto that reflects her approach to life: “Be childlike with critical thinking, be transparent and coherent.”
The St. Basil Institute for the Study of the Theology of Creation is excited to announce our first ever book, I Believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth: Studies in the Theology of Creation volume 1.
Studies in the Theology of Creation is a new series of collected essays. Each volume contains various essays, both from our symposia and other submissions.
This first volumes contains essays on historical and speculative topics, Catholic Social Teaching, and the spiritual life. The essays are from a wide variety of authors, such as Thomas Storck, Gideon Lazar, Lance Gracy, Vito Čapeta, Shawn and Beth Dougherty, and David Valerio.
Papers at this upcoming symposium may be eligible for publication in future volumes.
“A much-needed and erudite volume illuminating the frequently neglected doctrine of creation from a catechetical and theological perspective. Anchored in the theology of creation, the authors profoundly explore the interplay between nature and the divine, the doctrine of original sin, the role of animals in creation, and creation theology’s influence on Catholic Social Teaching, with nuanced discussions on bioethics. What does dominion over nature signify? This seminal inaugural volume by St. Basil Institute Press is a most welcome contribution.” – Jan Bentz, DPhil, Lecturer at Blackfriars, Oxford