Class Speaker: “Pursuing the Truth and God”

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“A Lifelong Mission of Pursuing the Truth and Pursuing God”

 

by Anthony Santine (CA’25)
Senior Address
Commencement 2025
Thomas Aquinas College, California

 

Good morning. It is a tremendous honor to have the privilege of speaking on behalf of my class today. And so it seems only right that, on behalf of the Class of 2025, I should begin by attempting, however insufficiently, to express our gratitude to all of those who sacrificed to make our four years here possible. To the Board of Governors and our donors; to our president, Dr. O’Reilly; our dean and associate dean, Dr. Letteney and Dr. Baer, our assistant dean, Dr. Cooper; to our beloved chaplains; to all the faculty and staff; and to all the family and friends of the graduates, especially the parents, we owe you an immeasurable debt of gratitude. Thank you also to our Commencement Speaker, Dr. McLean, and to Fr. Sebastian for the beautiful Baccalaureate Mass. I would be remiss if I did not place special emphasis on our tutors, who have most directly shaped our formation by guiding us both in the classroom and in general conversation. Your commitment to teaching and care for us students has been a constant inspiration. While the remainder of this address will be directed to my classmates, to begin any way other than with these acknowledgments would be a great injustice; for without all of you, there would be no Commencement today.

 

Now, to my classmates. First and foremost, congratulations on completing these four wonderful, challenging, rigorous, sometimes grueling, always uplifting, life-changing, and sacred years. It seems fitting that this speech should in some way encapsulate our experience here and speak to those elements of our education that will have the greatest long-lasting impact. This would be a daunting task for the best of speakers, for experiences of such personal importance often defy the confinements of words. And as I am far from the best of speakers, I am acutely aware that my efforts are doomed to fall well short of this goal.

I am reminded of the words of Dante: “How my weak words fall short of my conception, which is itself so far from what I saw that ‘weak’ is much too weak a word to use!” While giving a Commencement Address is perhaps not quite the same as attempting to describe the Empyrean Circle of Paradise, I can certainly relate to this sentiment. I hope that you will forgive my shortcomings as a speaker and understand that whatever I may leave unsaid is present in my intention.

We have spent four years in a place of retreat from the world to devote ourselves to a life of learning. Surrounded by the natural beauty of the mountains, we became students of the greatest minds of Western civilization. We learned profound and eternal truths in the realm of mathematics, sought to understand the awe-inspiring order of God’s creation in the natural sciences, and read works of literature that have impacted society for hundreds (and in some cases, thousands) of years. We investigated the principles and causes of nature, human action, and being itself. Most importantly, we read the divinely inspired words of Sacred Scripture and elevated our minds to ponder questions of God’s existence, nature, and operation.

“This education is aimed not just to give us the means to learn, but to enkindle in us a true love of learning.”

There is no disputing the inestimable value of the content we have learned, and if at any point in this address it sounds like I am devaluing this content, you may prepare the proverbial millstone. For to be given this glimpse into the minds and truths that have shaped our culture and lifted men’s souls for generations is already a gift that cannot be fully repaid. With that being said, I believe that the true benefit of this education goes beyond the “facts” or “things” that we learn, however sublime they may be.

I think this for two reasons. First, not everything we read is as edifying and beautiful as the works of St. Thomas. We read authors who say that compassion and charity are signs of sickness, that all of us have the right by nature to kill those weaker than ourselves, and that truth amounts to nothing more than our own perception. Furthermore, if the whole impact and benefit of our education were contained in the content we studied, it would seem that if, in 10 years (or perhaps even now), we find ourselves unable to rattle off Euclid’s definition of same ratio or explain the original synthetic unity of apperception, we would have to say, “Well, that time was wasted.” But I think we all recognize that there is something deeper and longer-lasting that has touched us here.

This education has taught us about ourselves. This is not just a cliché or narcissistic claim. Rather, I believe that it expresses, to some extent, one of the most fundamental aspects of our education.

I think there are a few important elements of this realization. One of those things which we learn about ourselves is that we cannot live intellectually compartmentalized lives. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from four years of studying philosophy, it’s that the philosophical principles we accept have necessary consequences. For example, we cannot hold a principle of absolute determinism and hope to have a system of morals that operates on free will. If we believe that man’s most fundamental drive is the will to power, Nietzsche is lurking just around the corner. If we, on a philosophical level, deny our ability to know God’s existence by reason and yet claim to subscribe to the teachings of the Church, we are living in denial.

On the other hand, if we accept principles that are well founded and guided by the light of faith, the consequences of these principles will necessarily serve to edify and enrich us, leading us to be well-rounded individuals. In other words, philosophy has a great personal importance, and the principles by which we choose to think and live (and we must choose some) will have necessary implications for our beliefs and actions in every field. This, if anything, should motivate us to continue in a life of reflection and learning.

The personal element of philosophy and the intellectual life in general raises another related point. This education aimed not just to give us the means to learn, but to enkindle in us a true love of learning. I think all of us have experienced the exhilaration of finally figuring out a math proposition, the joy of a conversation with friends after seminar, or the captivating beauty of learning about God’s nature just a short walk away from His true presence. And if men like Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas are to be believed, for us to gain a love of learning is to return to one of the most essential parts of our nature.

But no sooner do we develop this passion for learning than we discover that we cannot sufficiently act on this love without developing a profound intellectual humility. Perhaps no one exemplifies this as well as Socrates, whose greatest claim to wisdom was that he recognized his own ignorance.

“We cannot, having honestly contemplated our nature and our purpose, think it permissible to live an unexamined life.”

This is especially pertinent for us today, precisely because we have received such an excellent education. We will naturally be tempted into thinking that we have all the answers because we have been given a good foundation in the search of them. We may even become a little too comfortable thinking of ourselves as members of the “community of those who know,” without remembering the part about “to the degree of a bachelor of arts.” This would be a great disservice to the gift of this education. We would be like the men described in The Consolation of Philosophy, who snatched pieces of Lady Philosophy’s robe and went away thinking that they possessed her entirely. In other words, we would be left with knowledge devoid of wisdom. The only way for us to be spurred on in a tireless pursuit of the truth, and thus to act on the foundation laid by our education, is to recognize that we have yet to fully grasp it, and that our desire has not yet been fulfilled.

When we look into our own nature and see this unfulfilled desire for the truth, we cannot help but be directed to the Source of all truth, the only harbor of peace for our restless hearts. My friends, what greater gift could we ask of an education? This education has taught us to ponder our own nature, and one cannot understand a nature without seeing it in light of its end. To be human is to be rational, to be rational is to have a yearning for the truth, and to desire truth is to desire God. Even amidst all the pangs of parting and tearful goodbyes, we should be struck with an incredible gratitude for this priceless gift.

All of us will most likely have some regrets as we reflect on our four years, whether it be an experience we missed, a grade that could have been higher, or anything else that we may wish had been otherwise. But if we can truly say that we have been brought closer to God, what else can we hope for? We were blessed, for four years, with the privilege of living in a beautiful community centered on a common goal, where we formed deep friendships and read some of the most profound books ever written. And if any of us has watched the sun set behind the Chapel during a quiet evening and been moved to a greater love of God’s creation because of it, our joy and gratitude should far outweigh any lingering sense of regret.

With this gratitude comes a feeling of responsibility, for to whom much has been given, of him much will be expected. We cannot, having honestly contemplated our nature and our purpose, think it permissible to live an unexamined life. The memory of this place, this little haven in the mountains, and the memory of these four sacred years, with all of the lasting friendships and experiences that we gained, should serve as a reminder that, regardless of our station in life, we are human persons, charged with a lifelong mission of pursuing the truth and pursuing God.

I would like to close with a quote from Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, which is well suited for a time of gratitude and of parting, and which I’ve paraphrased slightly to fit the occasion. “My dear friends, we shall be parting soon. Soon we shall leave this place, perhaps for a very long time. Let us agree here that we shall never forget — first, what we have learned, and second, one another. And whatever may happen to us later in life, even if we do not meet for 20 years afterwards, let us always remember our lives here, which we came to love so much. And even though we may be involved with the most important affairs, achieve distinction or fall into misfortune — all the same, let us never forget how good we once felt here, all together, united by such good and kind feelings as made us, too, for our time as students, perhaps better than we actually are.”

May our patron, St. Thomas Aquinas, serve as our guide in living a life of reason enlightened by faith, and may we, through a constant pursuit of the truth, be led ever closer to the one true God. Thank you.

 

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