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David Fleischacker, PhD

  • The Saint John Henry Newman Chair of Liberal Arts
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About Me

I love to find all the ways that God is working through creation, through history, and through human lives. The world to me a wonder beautiful mystery that is an unfolding of how God raises up goodness, especially when that goodness is brought out of the midst of evil. I hold dear to my heart my family and friends, and all of those God has placed in my path, though I walk in fear and trembling as the saying goes, knowing my fallibility and the fragility of things in this world. We are thrown into the strength of God.

Why I’m At Mary

Because the light of truth bathed in love is the aim of the University of Mary, and with others, I want to find that mercy in all that I do and in all of those whom I serve and who God places in my path.

Expertise

I am considered an expert in the writings and thoughts of St. John Henry Newman, Bernard Lonergan, and Saint Augustine. I have studied the Holy Trinity more than any other area. I have studied and written on science and religion, philosophy and theology of education, and the development of the human person.

“Marriage within the Economy of Salvation: An Introduction to the Catholic Teaching on Marriage” and “Our Moral Life Determines Our After Life: Catholic Notes on the Relationship of the Moral Life to the Last Things” in Walking with Jesus Christ: Catholic and Evangelical Visions of the Moral Life edited by Christian Washburn and Steve Hoskins. St. Paul Seminary Press, 2024.

Primary Editor of Justified in Jesus Christ: Evangelicals and Catholics in Dialogue. University of Mary Press, 2019. This is a collection of the papers, presentations and joint statements delivered in the USCCB sponsored Evangelical-Catholic dialogue from 2014-2016. This book includes two papers that I wrote, “Justification and Sanctification in the Catechism of the Catholic Church” and “Original Sin: The Catholic Position.”

“Review of ‘An Integrative Habit of Mind.”’ By Frederick D. Aquino. NIU Press, DeKalb, Illinois, 2012. In The Thomist, 2017, forthcoming. • “St. Augustine, Foundations for a Christian Humanism.” Chapter in Medieval Christian Humanism, edited by John Bequette. Brill Press, 2017.

“The Place of Modern Scientific Research in the University According to John Henry Newman.” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 15, no. 2 (Spring 2012): 101-117.

“Metaphysics and its Role in East-West Christian Division: A Review Essay Discussing David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom,” Logos: A Journal of Easter Christian Studies 50, no. 3-4 (2009): 481 – 494.

“John Henry Newman on the History of the University: From Athens to the Catholic University of Ireland.” Newman Studies Journal 6, no. 2 (Fall 2009).

“Higher and Lower Viewpoints and Beings in the Metaphysics of Bernard Lonergan” Paper presented and published in a collection printed by Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea. April, 2008.

“The Scale of the Good as a Tool for Mediating Religious Education Amidst Cultural and Religious Diversity,” Paper presented and published in collection printed by Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea. April, 2008.

“Montessori, Lonergan, and the Four Stages of Development” Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education, published by the Salesian Institute of Philosophy, India (August, 2007).

“Newman’s Vision of the Catholic Medical School.” Newman Studies Journal 4, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 21-30.

Education

PhD: The Catholic University of America, 2004
MA (Theology): The Catholic University of America, 1996

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