An Oxford University law professor spoke to about 40 people Friday night on the life and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. The speech was part of Aquinas House's celebration of the Feast of St. Thomas, a Catholic holiday.
John Finnis is "best known in world's academic community as the author of great contemporary restatement of St. Thomas Aquinas's legal philosophy," said Government Professor James Murphy, who introduced the speaker.
Finnis is a Regis Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford but is currently teaching at Boston College Law School.
Finnis said Aquinas's relevance to the modern world is as timeless as the questions the philosopher tried to answer about the nature of the world and human beings.
Aquinas, a 13th-century Christian scholar, urged his followers to respect and learn the secular aspects of other cultures, Finnis said.
"Aquinas was also against the use of the scientific and philosophical arguments to confirm the faith, but he wrote that a believer should do all he or she can to show that there is no contradiction between philosophical and scientific conclusions, and the teachings of the faith," Finnis said.
John McHugh, Aquinas House head chaplain, said the church named itself after Aquinas because of his commitment to learning.
"St. Thomas Aquinas was chosen as our patron because, in his position as one of the greatest professors at the University of Paris in his day, he exemplifies the Catholic commitment to the intellectual or academic life in a university setting," McHugh said.
Finnis talked again to a smaller group of students at a Saturday luncheon before he left Hanover to give a speech at Vermont Law School.
Finnis, who is originally from Australia, is also writing a book about Aquinas's political, legal and moral theory.
The speech was a part of the Distinguished Visitor's Series.
Previous speakers included Joseph Bernadine, the Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal; Xavier Suarez, the mayor of Miami; and Dave Shula, the coach of Cincinnati Bengals, McHugh said.
