Dr. Robert McNamara explores how creation is not a distant event but our very act of existing here and now, so that each person’s being is itself a continuous relation of absolute dependence on God that can be freely understood, accepted, and joyfully affirmed.

This lecture was given on December 2nd, 2025, at Queen's University at Belfast.

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About the Speakers:

Dr. Robert McNamara is lecturer in philosophy at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth, Ireland, associate series editor of Edith Stein Studies, associate scholar of the Hildebrand Project, associate member of faculty at the International Theological Institute and the Maryvale Institute, and a founding member of the Aquinas Institute of Ireland (currently suspended). Robert researches anthropological and metaphysical questions in medieval and phenomenological thinkers, especially as both bear reference to philosophical personalism. He has studied physics and computing, philosophy and theology, and received his Ph.D. for research in the thought of Edith Stein and Thomas Aquinas. Robert is originally from Galway, Ireland and now lives in Carlow with his wife, Caroline, and their four children, Vivian, John, Catherine, and Oran.

KeywordsBeing and Gift, Creation as Relation, Creation ex Nihilo, Existential Dependence on God, Gift of Existence, Hamlet and “To Be or Not to Be”, Joy in Being, Ongoing Creative Act, Saying Yes to Being, Self-Understanding before the Creator

Creation as Relation: An Existential Consideration – Dr. Robert McNamara

The Thomistic Institute