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The large student loans to pay for the extraordinarily high cost of higher education cause most undergraduates and their parents to view college primarily as a means of obtaining an excellent job. The resulting emphasis on mathematics, science, and technical training is a shift to career training away from a liberal education. Employers are not seeking well-rounded, informed individuals with such supposedly marketable skills as critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication.
Thirty years ago, the tutors of Magdalen College, Warner, New Hampshire, wrote “Liberal Education in the Third Christian Millennium,” a document that takes the lead from Fides et Ratio by John Paul II to make the case a genuine liberal education is not primarily for career advancement or securing democracy or establishing a peaceful family life.
Fides et Ratio
In the preface of Fides et Ratio, John Paul II writes, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.”[1] These two wings, faith and reason, are autonomous, with different methods and principles, but both come from God (truth) and return to Him. Furthermore, each wing needs the other: “Although faith, a gift of God, is not based on reason, it can certainly not dispense with it. At the same time, it becomes apparent that reason needs to be reinforced by faith, in order to discover horizons, it cannot reach on its own.” Consequently, faith and reason are not in competition; rather, each works with the other to lift the human spirit to the contemplation of truth.
However, in modernity, the wing of reason is damaged. Consequently, an important theme of Fides et Ratio is a call for the renewal of philosophy. Much of what the Holy Father says of philosophy holds for liberal education; therefore, Fides et Ratio contains an implicit call for the renewal of liberal education. Fides et Ratio presents the universal principles of liberal education as well as those that are particular to modernity.
Universal Principles of Liberal Education
Liberal Education begins with the human person. Confronted with the mystery of life and the world, a person—unlike every other creature—wonders and asks questions about his or her relationship with all that exists: God, others, nature, and self. To ask questions about all that exists is not in vain, for “God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”
Every person at some time asks the “fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?” Furthermore, every person answers these questions in some way, and then lives by the answer he or she has found. In other words, every person by nature is a philosophic being. John Paul II notes that all men and women have “their own philosophical conceptions with which they direct their lives. In one way or other, they shape a comprehensive vision and an answer to the question of life’s meaning; and in the light of this they interpret their own life’s course and regulate their behavior.” Because human beings are driven by the desire to discover the ultimate truth of their existence, the journey toward the truth is humanly unstoppable. Liberal education, then, seeks to assist young persons on their journey toward truth, so they can live life well and enter more deeply into the mystery of existence.
In their quest for truth, human beings seek to acquire “universal elements of knowledge which enable them to understand themselves better and to advance in their own self-realization. These fundamental elements of knowledge spring from the wonder awakened in them by the contemplation of creation: human beings are astonished to discover themselves as part of the world, in a relationship with others like them, all sharing a common destiny.” Wonder and habits of contemplation are essential to the journey toward truth, for “without wonder, men and women would lapse into deadening routine and little by little would become incapable of a life which is genuinely personal.” Thus, liberal education in its task of assisting young people on their journey toward truth, fosters—or if necessary rekindles—wonder in students, and hopes to instill in them habits of contemplation.
Yet, in the journey toward the ultimate truth of existence, the temptation arises to rest contentedly with a partial and imperfect view of reality by identifying one philosophical system as providing complete answers to life’s meaning and why things are as they are. Every philosophical system must “recognize the primacy of philosophical inquiry, from which it stems and which it ought loyally to serve.” That a philosophical system “ought to serve” shows that the nature of these systems is not truly liberal; only philosophical inquiry is truly liberal. Furthermore, since an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust can easily arise between adherents of different schools of thought, the ancient philosophers “proposed friendship as one of the most important contexts for philosophical inquiry.” These philosophers recognized that philosophical inquiry is sustained by “trusting dialogue and sincere friendship.” Consequently, liberal education assists young persons on their journey toward truth, not by establishing or promulgating a school of thought, but through open inquiry, trusting dialogue, and sincere friendship.
“Beyond different schools of thought there exists a body of knowledge which may be judged a kind of spiritual heritage of humanity.” As examples of universal philosophical insight, the Holy Father points to the principles of non-contradiction, finality, and causality, as well as to certain fundamental moral norms shared by all and to the concept of the person as a free and rational subject, with the capacity to know God, truth, and goodness. Such concepts and first principles as well as the conclusions drawn from them are an implicit philosophy that all human beings possess, albeit in a general and unreflective way. Precisely because the implicit philosophy isshared in some measure by all, it serves as a reference-point for liberal education, so as to ground the odyssey toward living life well in first principles that every person sees for himself or herself.
Knowledge acquired by trusting another may seem inferior to knowledge gained by seeing the truth for oneself; in fact, it may seem that knowledge gained through trust is genuine only when a person sees the evidence for himself and no longer has to trust another. But surprisingly, the knowledge gained by trusting another is humanly richer, for the truths sought lie outside the realm of scientific experimentation or abstract reasoning. In trusting another, what is sought is “the truth of the person—what the person is and what the person reveals from deep within,” and how a person bears witness to the truth. Consequently, liberal education is sustained by a community of persons worthy of trust because of the way each bears witness to the truth.
“It is rightly claimed that persons have reached adulthood when they can distinguish independently between truth and falsehood, making up their own minds about the objective reality of things.” From birth, human beings are immersed in a particular culture that gives them a language, intellectual, emotional, social, moral, and religious formation, and answers to the fundamental questions about the meaning of life. Yet, human growth and development give rise to a time of transition from childhood to adulthood when these answers are examined and may be understood in a deeper way as a result of life experience, further reasoning, and belief in faithful witnesses. In the transition from youth to maturity, young people ask again in a more pressing way the basic questions of human existence, such as “Who am I?” Young people naturally seek a common life of trusting dialogue and sincere friendship with others like themselves and with more advanced learners to seek together the meaning of life through faith, reason, experience, and belief. A time of liberal education primarily devoted to asking about life’s meaning is part of normal human growth and development. Liberal education is a common life devoted to assisting young people on their journey toward maturity.
The above discussion of liberal education holds for all historical periods. What, then, is unique about modernity that liberal education in the third Christian millennium must take into account?
The Response of Liberal Education to Modernity
The modern world has grown enormously in population, economic wealth, scientific discovery, technological innovation, social communication, and political freedom. Furthermore, the growth in all these areas has increasingly accelerated. Yet at the same time, partly through advances in travel and mass communication, the world has become in a way smaller and more uniform. But the increase in power has “not always [been] accompanied by control of that power for the benefit of mankind” (Gaudium et Spes, no. 4). The modern world has also grown enormously in violence, poverty, racial, and ideological antagonism, and anxiety and despair. Modern man is afraid that the products of his genius and initiative may be alienated from him or even may radically turn against him. “Why is it that the power given to man from the beginning by which he was to subdue the earth turns against himself, producing an understandable state of disquiet, of unconscious or conscious fear and of menace, which in various ways is being communicated to the whole of the present-day human family and is manifesting itself under various aspects?” (Redemptor Hominis, no. 15).
The dichotomy of power and weakness, hope and despair, freedom and slavery, progress and threat in the modern world is a sign of the deeper dichotomy in man. Problems in the modern world reflect problems in the spiritual existence of modern man; ultimately, the root is man’s fallen nature and sin. Thus, the external problems and threats that cause so much fear in modern man are rooted in interior problems in man. These interior problems are not unique to modern times; however, the uniformity and commonality of these problems is new, as John Paul II observes in Fides et Ratio: “Surveying the situation today, we see that the problems of other times have returned, but in a new key. It is no longer a matter of questions of interest only to certain individuals and groups, but convictions so widespread that they have become to some extent the common mind.” The Holy Father points out that today the common mind distrusts reason, is convinced of the autonomy of each individual, pursues only fragments of knowledge, and maintains that the fundamental questions of human life are unanswerable. Thus, in the third Christian millennium, the need for liberal education focused on the “ultimate and overarching meaning of life” is common and urgent.
The distrust of reason’s ability to grasp the ultimate meaning of human life impedes a person’s journey toward truth. Since reason is naturally the rule and measure of action, when it is distrusted some other rule and measure must be introduced. The new rule and measure for modern man is himself. “Different philosophical systems have lured people into believing that they are their own absolute master, able to decide their own destiny and future in complete autonomy, trusting only in themselves and their own powers.” Thus, liberal education must, at its start, unmask the opinions and beliefs that are peculiar to modernity, and in particular restore trust in reason’s ability to “acquire a natural, consistent and true knowledge of created realities—the world and man himself.”
The problems resulting from the distrust of reason and the conviction of complete autonomy are compounded by the fragmentation of knowledge. Advances in specialties and accelerated communications often turn a person away from asking fundamental questions. “In this maelstrom of data and facts in which we live and which seem to comprise the very fabric of life, many people wonder whether it still makes sense to ask about meaning. The array of theories which vie to give an answer, and the different ways of viewing and of interpreting the world and human life, serve only to aggravate this radical doubt, which can easily lead to skepticism, indifference or to various forms of nihilism.” For a student merely to learn more facts, to be trained in a specialized field, to investigate new ingenious theories, or to perform single experiments may turn him or her into a miseducated skeptic or nihilist. Thus, liberal education must demonstrate the connectedness of things.
Often liberal education fails to discover interconnectedness, because it is based on the two predominant elements of the common mind of modernity: distrust of reason and personal autonomy. The goal of such an education is to produce critical thinkers. But what good is accomplished by producing critical thinkers if the sole result is technical progress or increased economic, political, and military power without the wisdom to use that power for the good of mankind? In the long run, technique without wisdom is disastrous. The wisdom to use technical advancements in the service of life is urgently needed. Thus, the Holy Father advises that “Philosophy needs first of all to recover its sapiential dimension as a search for the ultimate and overarching meaning of life. In consequence, the human spirit is often invaded by a kind of ambiguous thinking which leads it to an ever-deepening introversion, locked within the confines of its own immanence without reference of any kind to the transcendent. A philosophy which no longer asks the question of the meaning of life would be in grave danger of reducing reason to merely accessory functions, with no real passion for the search for truth.” Thus, liberal education must recover its sapiential dimension as a search for the “ultimate and overarching meaning of life.”
The Role of Faith in Liberal Education
In Fides et Ratio, faith and reason are described as two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth. Each wing is autonomous, employing its own principles and methods. But both faith and reason come from truth (God) and lead to truth (God). Faith makes use of reason, and reason recognizing its own limitations is open to welcome faith.
Further, reason has a natural common ground with faith; the connectedness of things constantly draws reason to think on the object of faith—God: “One cannot ask a philosophical question or think philosophically without bringing the whole of being into play, the totality of existing things, ‘God and the world’” (Josef Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture). Thus, a liberal education within the context of a religious tradition is the most natural form of liberal education. God will not be just one topic amongst the many questions of philosophy, because “God and the world” are necessarily brought into play in all sustained philosophical thinking. A person asking the pressing sapiential question “Who am I?” cannot limit himself or herself to one mode of thinking or to one source of knowledge. Consequently, in liberal education, faith and reason are not in competition but support each other.
Faith supports and deepens reason; and reason supports and deepens faith.
Faith presents horizons to reason that it could not reach on its own. Biblical man “discovered that he could understand himself only as ‘being in relation’—with himself, with people, with the world, and with God.” This openness to mystery, to the essential relation of each finite being to the infinite, invites reason to the realm of the infinite. In addition, faith purifies reason and prevents reason from going too far astray. For example, the Fathers of the Church showed how “reason, freed from external constraints, could find its way out of the blind alley of myth and open itself to the transcendent in a more appropriate way. Purified and rightly tuned, therefore, reason could rise to the higher planes of thought, providing a solid foundation for the perception of being, of the transcendent and of the absolute.” Consequently, a liberal education that includes faith is broader than one based on reason alone.
Reason finds added strength in faith. As reason takes the necessary steps of unmasking opinion and grasping the connectedness of things, answers given by culture and particular philosophies to the fundamental questions about the meaning of human are challenged. To whom can a seeker of wisdom turn in complete trust? What if the ultimate meaning of human life is a truth too terrible to accept? Could death be the ultimate reality? Trusting in the truth revealed by faith, a person is made free to fearlessly follow reason wherever it leads. Truth cannot contradict truth; a liberal education in the context of faith is free to explore every system, every argument, and every great thinker without fear that the search will end in nihilism and despair. “It is faith which stirs reason to move beyond all isolation and willingly to run risks so that it may attain whatever is beautiful, good and true.” Consequently, a liberal education supported by faith is more vibrant and powerful than one divorced from faith.
The results of reason attain their full meaning in the context of the truths revealed by faith. “Man cannot grasp how death could be the source of life and love, yet to reveal the mystery of His saving plan God has chosen precisely that which reason considers ‘foolishness’ and a ‘scandal’. . . The preaching of Christ crucified and risen is the reef upon which the link between faith and philosophy can break up, but it is also the reef beyond which the two can set forth upon the boundless ocean of truth. Here we see not only the border between reason and faith, but also the space where the two may meet.” Consequently, a liberal education open to faith more completely answers the fundamental questions about the meaning of human life.
Faith is the convinced and convincing advocate of reason.
Faith makes use of reason to deepen faith. Believers are certain that God has created them to be explorers. Faith does not silence the sapiential questions asked by persons, but faith uses reason to deepen and explore the gift of faith. Truth made known by revelation is not the product of reason; however, to think that faith might be more penetrating by being tied to weak reason is an illusion. Faith certainly cannot dispense with reason. Thus, the whole of liberal education supports and deepens the study of faith, and consequently, liberal education is encouraged, sponsored by, and integrated into communities of faith; Catholic universities and colleges come from the heart of the Church.
The advocacy of reason by faith and the use of reason in faith in no way detracts from the autonomy of the sphere of action or the autonomy of method that reason must follow to remain true to itself: “Even when it engages theology, philosophy must remain faithful to its own principles and methods. Otherwise, there would be no guarantee that it would remain oriented to truth and that it was moving towards truth by way of a process governed by reason. A philosophy which did not proceed in the light of reason according to its own principles and methods would serve little purpose.” Therefore, faith cannot promulgate any one philosophy or depend on any one method of inquiry. All philosophies and cultures open to being are open to faith also. Faith, in turn, is eager to approach and inform every truly open philosophy or culture. The diverse cultures of the world are a human treasure especially appreciated by faith. Consequently, a liberal education that includes faith recognizes the primacy of philosophical inquiry and does not promote any one philosophical system or any one culture.
Finally, whether in the context of a journey of reason cooperating with grace, or a journey of reason in search of faith, the journey of reason directs all seekers to faith for fulfillment: “Christian faith comes to meet them, offering the concrete possibility of reaching the goal which they seek. Moving beyond the stage of simple believing, Christian faith immerses human beings in the order of grace, which enables them to share in the mystery of Christ, which in turn offers them a true and coherent knowledge of the Triune God. In Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, faith recognizes the ultimate appeal to humanity, an appeal made in order that what we experience as desire and nostalgia may come to its fulfillment.” Consequently, liberal education serves the person and truth most appropriately by directing all seekers to the person of Christ in faith.
Truth as faith seeks understanding through reason; true reason (philosophy) supports and deepens faith. Deepened faith (theology), then, returns to the beginning to serve the proclamation of the Word of God and catechesis, so that all people may journey forward on the humanly unstoppable journey toward the ultimate truth of existence.
In summary, liberal education as a search for the ultimate and overarching meaning of life is served by unmasking opinion and demonstrating the connectedness of things. Only by seeking the truth of the meaning of the mysteries of life through faith and reason can the human person live life well, and only when a person chooses to enter truth and to make a home under the shade of Wisdom and dwell there will he or she find fulfillment.
The featured image is cropped from The School of Athens (1509–1511)by Raphael. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Endnote
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, available https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html.