“I Have Called You Friends”, Speaker in San Diego

We tend to think of friends as people whose company we enjoy, and, in our professional lives, friendships nearly always revolve around mutual advantage or even mere transactions. Yet thinkers such as Aristotle, Cicero, and Jesus invest in friendship a far more profound meaning. This deeper understanding of friendship has been central to the thought of John Finley, Ph.D., throughout his teaching career at Kenrick Glennon Seminary, and now Thomas Aquinas College. His insights will answer a critical question for us: Beyond utility and profits, and even simply good company, what does friendship mean for us as followers of Christ?

About the speaker:  Dr. John Finley is the Academic Director of the Valor Institute. Prior to joining Valor, Dr. Finley was Professor of Philosophy at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis. For several years he was a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College in California, where he led seminars in an interdisciplinary Great Books program. He has authored several publications on philosophical anthropology, metaphysics, phenomenology, and Ancient and Medieval philosophy and is a member of the Aquinas Institute of Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford. Dr. Finley received his masters and doctorate in philosophy from the University of Dallas and his Bachelor of Arts from Thomas Aquinas College. In 2016 he was awarded a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to pursue collaborative research on the human person from the standpoints of science, medicine, philosophy, and theology.