On September 9, 2025, Duke University theologian and clinical psychiatrist Warren Kinghorn spoke in Professor Charles Marsh’s fall seminar on anxiety. His lecture examined the theological and philosophical foundations of mental health treatment, focusing on how agency, freedom, and medication intersect in theological contexts. Drawing on Thomas Aquinas, he showed how classical theological anthropology can inform our understanding of mental illness and psychiatric care.
Unlike some theologians, Kinghorn did not diminish or oversimplify the complexities of psychological issues and mental health, nor did he reduce theology to platitudes. Instead, his lecture responded to the lived realities of mental health challenges and emphasized the importance of integrating theological insight with psychiatric expertise.
Excerpt:
“Many of you focused on the theme of agency, freedom, and medication… What I find interesting is the way that Dr. Kinghorn introduces the idea of medication in the context of Thomistic theologies—world conceptions, anthropologies—that is, views of the human person shaped by the thought of the 13th century theologian Thomas Aquinas.”
The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.