Who are we?

The Institute of Philosophy “Edith Stein” is an institution established by the Archbishop of Granada, Msgr. Javier Martínez, on the feast of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) 2005. The Institute is born of knowledge of the Christian fact as it is professed by the Catholic Church and understood as the answer to the deepest question of the human heart.

The Institute pursues a triple purpose: (i) scientific, promoting academic research; (ii) educational, providing students with the best possible training; and (iii) pastoral, as it conveys to the Church and society that love of truth that is an inherent feature of the Catholic Church.

The work of the Institute is inspired by the outstanding figures of Western Christian thought, especially St. Augustine and St. Tomas Aquinas. The latter is especially important because his thinking has a keen awareness of the consistency of the created order without doubting revelation, redemption and grace. We engage with these figures especially along the lines of the ressourcement encouraged by theologians such as Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar.

In its approach to the tradition of Christian thought the Institute pays special attention to the thought of Alasdair Macintyre, both for his critique of the enlightenment culture (shared with other contemporary thinkers), his rediscovery of the value of the Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy as a means to illuminate the central issues facing human life and society at this moment in history. He is also important for the way he recovers the concepts of tradition and community as essential for intellectual and moral life, as well as for the fruitful dialogue between cultures. Naturally, the Institute is also interested in other contemporary figures, such as Edith Stein, our Patroness.

Finally, given the circumstances of Granada, the Institute is interested in Eastern Christian thinkers, both Byzantine and Slavic (such as V. Soloviev and N. Berdyaev), as wells as Middle Eastern Christian philosophers and theologians, who worked primarily in Syrian, Armenian and Arabic.