A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic
Liberal Education
Next | Previous |
Contents
IV. FREEDOM AND CATHOLIC EDUCATION
The Christian Faith and the theological tradition of the
Church present a view of freedom which is altogether opposed
to the foregoing notions. Rather than supposing that men can
attain the truth by the exercise of freedom, they teach that
men become free by finding, or being found by, the truth and
abiding in it. For the Christian believes that Christ Himself
is the Truth, and believes Him when He says, "If you
make my words your home you will indeed be my disciples, you
will learn the truth and the truth will make you free."
(John 8, 31-32.) Indeed, Christian belief considers the attempt
to gain knowledge by the assertion of freedom as the original
cause of human enslavement, for it brought sin into the world,
which is at once the worst slavery and the cause of every
other slavery.
Divine Revelation therefore frees the faithful Christian
from those specious and yet absurd notions of freedom which,
because they are false and subvert the life of reason, deceitfully
enslave all who believe in them. In particular, it teaches
that self-rule is not the same as independence, but rather
that the assertion of complete independence destroys the capacity
for self-rule. For to say that a man governs himself is to
say that he has within him the principle which governs him.
But when a man seeks to achieve total independence by subjecting
every belief to criticism, and puts his intellectual life
outside of every principle given to him (either from his experience
which is formed by and thus dependent on nature, or from faith),
he loses by this act every possible source of rational direction,
and is in fact proposing the nothingness of total ignorance
as a principle. Thus, it happens that will and appetite, no
longer subordinate to reason, give life whatever definite
form it has, since reason, in the indeterminacy of the critical
attitude, can no longer direct itself or anything else. And
so the human mind, refusing to submit to any rule, becomes
subject to its natural inferiors.
This paradoxical self-enslavement is clearly taught by the
Christian tradition, in the history of our first parents,
whose disobedience to God was immediately followed by a loss
of self-control, and in the teaching of St. Paul, who speaks
at once of the fact of human bondage and of deliverance from
it by faith and obedience:
I can see that my body follows a different law that battles
against the law that my reason dictates. This is what makes
me a prisoner of that law of sin which lives inside my body.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body
doomed to death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ,
our Lord!
(Romans 7, 22-25)
The Christian tradition also teaches that true freedom does
not essentially consist in the removal of whatever stands
against and limits the human will, nor in the creative expressions
of that will, but rather in the inward re-birth and transformation
of ourselves by the grace of God.
Yes, even today, whenever Moses is read, the veil is over
their minds. It will not be removed until they turn to the
Lord. Now this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit
of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, with our unveiled
faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord,
all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the
image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord who
is Spirit.
(II Cor. 3, 15-18)
Though St. Paul is speaking here of supernatural freedom,
his doctrine serves to reform the notion of freedom in general.
Men do not become free by leaving behind or stepping outside
of all that they have received, but rather by receiving, keeping
what they receive, and growing into it. No doubt they leave
behind ignorance, falsehood and vice, but in so doing they
relinquish precisely that alone which enslaves them. Ignorance,
falsehood and vice consist in man's measuring all things from
his own authority alone, leaving him enslaved by error. "Everyone
who speaks from himself is a liar." Thus, no one becomes
a man by outgrowing childish things, but outgrows childish
things by growing into the things of a man. Only accidentally
is true freedom from; essentially it is the formation
of the inward man by the true principles of thought and action.
The Christian tradition, insisting on the primacy of revealed
truth, distinguishes it from the truth which is discoverable
by human reason. Because it maintains, however, that grace
presupposes and perfects nature, it has always defended the
natural power of human reason from its skeptical critics.
The fundamental competence of the human mind, even for discovering
profound truths, has always been upheld, in modern times by
the first Vatican Council, but also at the very beginning
by the apostle Paul:
The anger of God is being revealed from heaven against
all the impiety and depravity of men who keep truth imprisoned
in their wickedness. For what can be known about God is
perfectly plain to them since God himself has made it plain.
Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and
deity--however invisible--have been there for the mind to
see in the things he has made.
(Romans 1, 18-20)
Accordingly, to speak in summary, the Christian intelligence
is formed by an acceptance of certain fundamental distinctions
and a recognition of the order among the objects of thought:
some are of faith, others of reason; some certain, others
doubtful; some self-evident, others not; some demonstrable,
others not; some subject to criticism, others not. This awareness
of the distinction between the primary and the secondary in
human knowledge makes true freedom of inquiry possible, for
only the recognition of the difference between the unquestionable
foundations of criticism and doubtful matters subject to criticism
can give reasonable direction to inquiry. Or to speak generally,
to live in freedom is to live by the truth.
Next | Previous |
Contents |
