Teachers, Knowledge, and Failures...

In our current culture it is not unusual to address education in terms of methods and productivity. National test scores define the success of institutions ordered to the pursuit of intellectual excellence across the country. In an age of utility education tends to be viewed in terms of productivity. What can you do? Entire schools exist to specialize in the education of human beings in terms of productivity. As an aside when I was hired at Great Hearts, while they hired because of my previous experience, education, interview, and teaching demonstration. The state could not be assured of my ability to effectively teach until I took a standardized test. It was a standardized test, taken on a computer and scored via computer that determined whether I was highly qualified as a teacher. No one from the state ever spoke to me or saw me in the classroom. But their test assured my institution that I was highly qualified. This mentality has it’s origin in philosophy. Bad philosophy. A utilitarian world view of the human person is responsible for such destruction as Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia. Neither, of which occurred overnight. They were the product of a slow and then sudden revolution against the nature of the human person.  Our current “civilized” culture has slowly rejected the dignity of the human person. A Civilization which used to be called Christian, later became known as Western and is currently forging a new name for itself, was not in need of this talk. Bishop Athanasius Schneider has said that the Church is in the midst of it’s “fourth great crisis,” at the center of this crisis is the rejection of the nature of the human person. A return to the classical and timeless truths of natural and supernatural theology would be a great aid in the renewal of the culture. The first two paragraphs of Gravissimum Educationis call for this return to proper first principles for the renewal of education. “For a true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies of which, as man, he is a member, and in whose obligations, as an adult, he will share.” Gravissimum Educationis Pp. 1“A Christian education does not merely strive for the maturing of a human person as just now described, but has as its principal purpose this goal: that the baptized, while they are gradually introduced the knowledge of the mystery of salvation, become ever more aware of the gift of Faith they have received, and that they learn in addition how to worship God the Father in spirit and truth (cf. John 4:23) especially in liturgical action, and be conformed in their personal lives according to the new man created in justice and holiness of truth (Eph. 4:22-24); also that they develop into perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ (cf. Eph. 4:13) and strive for the growth of the Mystical Body; moreover, that aware of their calling, they learn not only how to bear witness to the hope that is in them (cf. Peter 3:15) but also how to help in the Christian formation of the world that takes place when natural powers viewed in the full consideration of man redeemed by Christ contribute to the good of the whole society.” Gravissimum Educationis pp. 2I would like to focus in particular on the two modes of our knowledge of God. Gravissimum clearly suggests that there are two fields of study. Two different manners of coming to know our ultimate end. What are these to fields? Whenever we read the Council, in order to progress it is fitting that we look to the light of the tradition. In that regard, we look to Pope Leo the XIII and others who spoke definitively and with clarity about the gravity of scholasticism and more importantly the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. If  we truly want to understand the nature and unity of natural and sacred theology or faith and reason as they are often referred, St. Thomas is the teacher par excellance. “But, furthermore, Our predecessors in the Roman pontificate have celebrated the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas by exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials. Clement VI in the bull In Ordine; Nicholas V in his brief to the friars of the Order of Preachers, 1451; Benedict XIII in the bull Pretiosus, and others bear witness that the universal Church borrows lustre from his admirable teaching; while St. Pius V declares in the bull Mirabilis that heresies, confounded and convicted by the same teaching, were dissipated, and the whole world daily freed from fatal errors; others, such as Clement XII in the bull Verbo Dei, affirm that most fruitful blessings have spread abroad from his writings over the whole Church, and that he is worthy of the honor which is bestowed on the greatest Doctors of the Church, on Gregory and Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome; while others have not hesitated to propose St. Thomas for the exemplar and master of the universities and great centers of learning whom they may follow with unfaltering feet. On which point the words of Blessed Urban V to the University of Toulouse are worthy of recall: "It is our will, which We hereby enjoin upon you, that ye follow the teaching of Blessed Thomas as the true and Catholic doctrine and that ye labor with all your force to profit by the same."(35) Innocent XII, followed the example of Urban in the case of the University of Louvain, in the letter in the form of a brief addressed to that university on February 6, 1694, and Benedict XIV in the letter in the form of a brief addressed on August 26, 1752, to the Dionysian College in Granada; while to these judgments of great Pontiffs on Thomas Aquinas comes the crowning testimony of Innocent VI: "His teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error.” Aeterni Patris - On the restoration of Christian PhilosophyPope Leo XIII summarizes in one paragraph the traditional preference of the Church for the work of St. Thomas Aquinas in the pursuit of this union. The precision of St. Thomas Aquinas was a product not of his purely intellectual gifts, rather, it was the combination of both his gifts and his pursuit of the mystical life. Both were the impitice for his nearly unerring marriage of faith and reason in his work. For Aquinas all theology was sacred. He never tired of asking questions and formulating answers in regard to the reality of things as they could be known. His discovery of Aristotle was no small victory for divine revelation. St. Thomas discovered in Aristotle a sincere pursuit of the truth in accord with reason and the human nature. Aristotle was drawn to reality to the very concrete nature of the world he appreciated the empirical reality of things. St. Thomas recognized in Aristotle a shared pursuit. The pursuit of truth. Not as an idea generated from within the mind and validated, like Kantian idealism, rather, as a reality written into the very fabric of nature to be discovered and obedient to. Aristotle unlike any other philosopher ascended the heights of natural reason. St. John Newman said of him:“He has told us the meaning of our own words and ideas, before we were born. In many subject matters, to think correctly is to think like Aristotle.” Piper Guide to St. Thomas Aquinas.In regard to natural theology he understood the universe as an ordered reality. So to did St.Thomas. According to St. Thomas..“They hold a plainly false opinion who say that in regard to the truth of religion it does not matter what a man thinks about the Creation so long as he has the correct opinion concerning God. An error concerning the Creation ends as false thinking about God.” Piper Guide to St. Thomas Aquinas. Though he saw them as a complimentary whole. There can be nothing true in reality that contradicts the divine revelation. Thomas understood theology as a science, the science of God, in other words, it is empirical. In a broad sense it is a science with two disciplines. The first is the philosophical study of God as He can be known by reason alone or natural theology and the second as the study of God as known through revelation or supernatural theology. St. Thomas begins his Summa Theologica by asking the question: Why is it necessary that there be a science of God based on Revelation and faith? Isn’t philosophy and empirical science enough for man?  Objections popular in his own time, which seem to maintain there popularity today. There error of naturalism manifests itself in various ways in our own culture. It rejects the need for a doctrine above our nature. Effectively, reducing the dignity of human nature to that of irrational animals. St. Thomas responds to these objections by making a distinction between the scriptures and philosophy. He elevates the sacred scripture as inspired by the one true God and goes on to say..“I answer that it was necessary for man’s salvation that there should be a body of knowledge revealed by God besides the philosophical sciences built up by human reason. First because man is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: eye has not seen, O God, besides thee, what things thous hast prepared for them that wait for thee.”. But men must first know the end in order for them to direct their thoughts and actions to it. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation. Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that man should be aught by a divine revelation. For the truth about God such as reason could discover would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. whereas man’s whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this truth. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly anymore surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation.” In other words all of our knowledge is ordered to a particular end. As The Angelic Doctor suggests education is about more than utility. God has willed to elevate us to a supernatural end. In His mercy, reconciliation, sanctification, and salvation are now possible. Our end is intimate union with the inner life of the Holy Trinity and God wishes to reveal that to us now. We could have no idea of this end had He not revealed Himself as the means to attain it. We would have no idea how to direct our lives. It is therefore, fitting that God would reveal to us these supernatural truths.In the same way, it is fitting that God has revealed to us truths that natural reason could discover. Such as the existence, unity, goodness, omnipotence and unity of God or the natural moral law and it’s principles. All of which are based on knowledge of the existence and goodness of God. Natural theology is the mountain peak of philosophy or the work of our natural reason. If these truths, things such as goodness is to be pursued and evil avoided, human life is valuable, or marriage is the indissoluble and faithful union of one man and one woman ordered to the procreation and education of children could not be known by reason, then they would be known only by a few and with an admixture of grave errors. Failure to effectively incorporate Christian philosophy and Sacred Theology into the instruction of man is detrimental to his interior  and union with Christ. These truths need to be incorporated into man’s education from the beginning of his moral life. When a man reaches the age of reason  if he is not exposed to these principles he will have difficulty governing his moral life. Though he could discover them on his own, the age of reason begins at 7. In other words, we begin to form habits at a very young age. If there is no one to guide us in the true principles of faith and reason our moral actions will suffer. Both are necessary. One without the other is unsuitable. They inform and enlighten each other and in turn strengthen the mind and the will in fidelity to God. They are different in kind as St. Thomas says, but both are necessary. The First Vatican Council reaffirms this when it says:“It must be attributed to this divine Revelation that such truths about divine things which of themselves are not beyond human reason can, even in this present condition of the human race be known by all with facility, firm certainty and with no admixture of error. Nevertheless, it is not for this reason that Revelation is said to be absolutely necessary, but because God in His infinite goodness has ordained man for a supernatural end, to participation, in the divine goods which altogether surpass the understanding of the human mind, scene” eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9) Dei Filius Vatican IThese two sciences each have a particular effect on our knowledge of things. Which is why there marriage is so important. In the first place Sacred theology investigates God not simply as the first cause and final end of the universe, but rather as He is in Himself. The Father has revealed Himself in Christ. He has made manifest the inner life of the Trinity and opened a narrow path for man to enter into the temple of his body. To know him intimately and to rest in Him. This knowledge of God is impossible through natural theology. The use of reason alone could never penetrate the inner trinitarian life of God, much less discover his supernatural interventions in the world which lead men to salvation. Philosophy or natural theology investigates God only as he can be known by reason as the first cause of the universe. This was the type of knowledge about God that Aristotle had. A metaphysical awareness. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy which is known as the science of being and investigates the properties and first causes of being. It cannot however, have God as it’s direct object, because it does not employ the light faith, simply the light of natural reason and God naturally remains unseen to the mind apart from grace. Thus he can only be known as the first cause and final end of being. In natural philosophy, Aristotle assigns metaphysics the last place in the pedagogical order. Because it is most difficult. Since the mind attains to the unseen on the basis of what is seen, and since God is understood as the first cause of Creatures, it is necessary to study the creature in order to ascend to the creator. Both Aristotle and St. Thomas believed that metaphysics was a study. for the mature man..over the age of 50. On the other hand in the order of supernatural revelation God is first known. For the first thing that God reveals is Himself. He speaks to Moses from the burning bush, he meets Moses face to face in the tent of meeting. He takes on flesh and becomes man, revealing the Father and His love to humanity. It follows then that there are two orders of knowledge. Natural and supernatural. But only the second order of knowledge is a participation in the divine life itself. As a result, of that participation, the inner life of God, as he is in Himself, can be known, in a manner previously impossible. Vatican I reaffirms this twofold order of knowledge clearly proposed by St. Thomas when it says:“The perpetual and common belief of the Catholic Church as held and holds also this: there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only in its’ source but also in its object: in its source, because in the one we know by natural reason, in the other by divine faith; in its object because apart from what natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God.” Dei FiliusIn the sermon on the mount, Christ the King taught very clearly knowledge of a higher order. He waxed divine about man's the necessity for man's interior purity of heart in union with the divine life and his eternal end. Christ called men to strive for that holiness that can only be achieved through and acceptance of the reality of things and the ordering the human life to union with His body, blood, soul, and divinity. Philosophy-the science of the pursuit of wisdom and theology-the science of God, therefore, compliment each other. God who is wisdom is the pursuit par excellance of philosophy. For this reason, philosophy has always been referred to as the handmaiden of theology. Jesus recognized that, which is why he spoke both in terms of the natural virtue in the sermon on the mount, "you have heard it said" and supernatural virtue, "but, I say to you." He exemplified their complementarity.Therefore, every single thing that we teach ought to be taught in the context of the reality of the universe. In other words, there is one unifying principle, that underlies math, grammar, and rhetoric. That principle is the reality and existence of One God who is truth, charity, wisdom, order, and knowledge. An education that does not consider the higher truths and their unity is an education that is compartmentalized. It fails to properly form the human mind in the proper order and foundation of all things. If a teacher however, great his authority tends to reduce the divine revelation to the material things of the world, asserting that they can be manipulated because high things are simply "ideals to strive for," he has failed as a teacher to recognize the twofold order of knowledge and the promise of God to elevate the human soul to participate in His inner life through our assent to divine revelation. One might wonder if that particular teacher actually believes the divinely revealed things of God. C.S. Lewis says that teachers must guard against teaching our own convenience seeking sentiments as if they were a part of the truth. All of which is ordered to the purification of mind, will, and heart in the truth. The teacher who reduces the truth to banal sentimentality is the equivalent of a propagandist and he should be repudiated for he is the the cause of the destruction of culture which brings about the destruction of souls. “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when  he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft heart.” C.S. Lewis abolition of manPray the Rosary Daily!Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have Mercy On Us!Be Holy, Not Worldly!

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