Matthew Walz Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Director, Philosophy & Letters and Pre-Theology Programs, Director of Intellectual Formation, Holy Trinity Seminary
Matthew Walz was born in New York, but grew up mostly in Ohio. He completed undergraduate studies at Christendom College, double-majoring in philosophy and theology and graduating as the valedictorian of the class of 1995. He did graduate studies in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America (CUA). There he earned a doctorate in philosophy by completing a dissertation on Thomas Aquinas's understanding of free will.
Matthew has been teaching at the college level since 1998. As a graduate student, he taught for two years at CUA. Then he began teaching at Thomas Aquinas College, where he remained for eight years. Since 2008 he has been a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Dallas (UD). He has served as Chair of the Philosophy Department for four years and as Associate Dean of Constantin College for two years. Since 2012 he has been the Director of the Philosophy & Letters and Pre-Theology Programs at UD and the Director of Intellectual Formation at Holy Trinity Seminary.
Matthew's research and writing focus primarily on medieval philosophy, ancient philosophy, and philosophical anthropology. Besides Aquinas, his favorite philosophical authors include Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and Wojtyla.
Matthew has been married since 1999 to his lovely wife Teresa. They have been blessed with eight children (two boys and six girls) who keep them busy, of course, but also joyful and grateful to God for His multitudinous gifts.
Education
Ph.D. in Philosophy, School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America, 2003
M.B.A., Gupta College of Business, University of Dallas, 2019
M.A. in Philosophy, School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America, 1998
B.A. in Philosophy and Theology [double major], Christendom College, 1995
Areas of specialization
Medieval philosophy
Ancient philosophy
Philosophical anthropology
Courses taught
IPS 8326: Augustine and Aquinas
PHI 6335: Aquinas’s Anthropology
PHI 6331: Bonaventure
PHI 6331: Metaphysical Texts of Thomas Aquinas
PHI 6322: Anselm
PHI 6320: Plotinus
PHI 4351: Thought of John Paul II
PHI 4341: Senior Seminar (Friendship and Marriage)
PHI 4338: Philosophy of Religion
PHI 4337: Philosophy of God
PHI 4141: Senior Thesis
PHI 3351: Junior Seminar
PHI 3346: Contemporary Philosophical Approaches
PHI 3326: Medieval Philosophy
PHI 3311: Philosophy of Being
PHI 2323: Human Person
PHI 1301: Philosophy and the Ethical Life
PHL 4342: Senior Thesis
PHL 4341: Senior Seminar (Incarnate Persons and Their Vocations)
PHL 3305: Logic and Nature
PHL 3306: Nature and Knowledge
Book translation
Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion (including Gaunilo's objections and Anselm's reply), translated and introduced by Matthew D. Walz (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2013).
Articles
"A Kingdom of Friends: Personal Dimensions of Aquinas's Moral World," The Aquinas Review 25 (2022): 59-76.
"Study, Truth, and Personal Formation: Reflections on John Paul II's Pastores dabo vobis," International Journal of Christianity and Education 25 (2021): 277-89.
"Toward a Causal Account of Priestly Formation: A Reading of Pastores dabo vobis," Homiletic and Pastoral Review (January 28, 2021).
"Education as Intellectual Healing: Pedagogical Dimension of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy," in: Liberal Arts and Core Texts in the World of Our Students, ed. G. Camp (The ACTC Liberal Arts Institute, 2021), 33-37.
"From Monasticism to Scholasticism: Reflections on Anselm and Aquinas," in: The Arts and Sciences of a Core Text Education: What Are They? Why Do We Need Them?, ed. S. Ashmot and K. Tom (The ACTC Liberal Arts Institute, 2021), 45-49.
"At the Heart of Atheism: Aquinas on the Two Basic Objections to a God's Existence," in: Bridging Divides, Crossing Borders, Community Building: The Human Voice in Core Texts and the Liberal Arts, eds. T. Hoang and D. Nuckols (The ACTC Liberal Arts Institute, 2021), 139-44.
"Death by Incarnation," Logos 23 (2020): 19-35.
"Synthesizing Aquinas and Newman on Religion," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 86 (2019): 173-98.
"Augustine's Modification of Liberal Education: Reflections on De doctrina Christiana," Arts of Liberty 1 (2013): 51-97.
"Stoicism as Anesthesia: Philosophys Gentler Remedies in Boethius's Consolation," International Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2011): 501-19.
"An Erotic Pattern of Thinking in Anselm's Proslogion," Quaestiones Disputatae 2 (2011): 126-45.
"The Logic of Faith Seeking Understanding: A Propaedeutic for Anselm's Proslogion," Dionysius 28 (2010): 131-66.
"The Opening of On Interpretation: Toward a More Literal Reading," Phronesis 51 (2006): 230-51.
"What is a Power of the Soul? Aquinas's Answer," Sapientia 60 (2006): 319-48.
"Theological and Philosophical Dependencies in Bonaventure's Argument Against an Eternal World," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 97 (1998): 75-98.
Invited publications
“Overcoming the Limits of Identity Politics: Religion and Manners as Dispositive for Social Justice,” in: “Vielfalt, Gleichstellung und Inklusion” im Licht der katholischen Soziallehre (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2023), 137-52.
Foreword to Wayne Hankey, Aquinas’s Neoplatonism in the Summa theologiae on God: A Short Introduction (South Bend: St. Augustines Press, 2019).
"Boethius, Christianity, and the Limits of Stoicism," Perspectives in Religious Studies 45 (2018), 407-25.
"Boethius and Stoicism," in: The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition, ed. J. Sellars (London: Routledge, 2016): 70-84.
Book reviews
Review of P. Kreeft, Summa Philosophica (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2012), in: Review of Metaphysics 67 (2013): 171-73.
Review of K. Pritzl (ed.), Truth: Studies of a Robust Presence (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), in: Quaestiones Disputatae 1 (2011): 288-301.
Review of S. Visser and T. Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), in: American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84 (2010): 837-41.
Review of A. Mele, Motivation and Agency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), in: Review of Metaphysics 57 (2004): 856-58.
Additional publications
“Educating Maria,” Simply Classical Journal (Summer 2021).
“Teaching on COVID Time,” Crisis online (April 2, 2020).
“Why Not Classical Education?” America, vol. 222, no. 6 (March 16, 2020) [online version].
"Benedict XVI, Doctor of Reason," Arts of Liberty website
Fellowships/Awards
Senior Fellow, Boethius Institute for the Advancement of Liberal Education
Senior Fellow, Albertus Magnus Institute
Michael A. Haggar Fellow, University of Dallas, 2016