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The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
WOF 521: The Philosophical Habit (9 of 12)
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Welcome back to the Word on fire show. I'm Dr. Matthew Petrusyk, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you as always, for joining us. Friends, in honor of St. John Henry Newman's recently being named a Doctor of the Church, we're bringing you Bishop Barron's entire Word on Fire Institute lecture series on John Henry Newman. In these final weeks, we'll wrap up our series on one of Bishop Barron's spiritual and intellectual heroes. As always, enjoy.
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So, with this lecture, I'm going to finish my consideration of Newman's idea of a university. You know, I think the two points that we've made so far are the key ones, namely, theology belongs in the circle, indeed at the center of the circle of university disciplines, and that the purpose of the university education is to. To cultivate the liberal mind. Right. Seeking knowledge for its own sake. In this final lecture, I'll look at some of the other observations Newman makes in the rest of this series, including the final one about the relation between the liberal mind and religion and the life of grace, if you want. And that's really where the thing comes to its full expression. In the next discourse, he looks at the relationship between the philosophical habit and we've been describing that and the contents of the mind or the data of the mind. He'll say, look, memory is maybe the key feature in the cultivation of the liberal mind. The mind has to bring in data you're studying, whatever topic it is, you have to know a number of things. However, the philosophical habit, the health of the mind, is not reducible to data. You know, it's interesting. I'm sure you've met people like this who know a lot of things. They can tell you all kinds of things about whatever, about physics or chemistry or about history or about their travels, but they don't really get any of it. They have the data, they remember all sorts of things, but they don't see patterns, they don't see the logos, the meaning that unites these various bits of data. Newman thinks you can't reduce the philosophical mind to the contents of the mind. It has to do with patterns. I like this. He says philosophy requires a great deal of reading or wide range of information, but is never reducible to what the memory has taken in. It's a patterning insight into things. That's what he's interested in. He gives a couple of examples here. He said, imagine a European who travels for the first time to a tropical country and takes in all of the Novelty of it. I remember my very first trip to India and my first trip to the Philippines. Places very different from my own experience. You know, going to Europe for me is not all that different from my American background, but going to places like Calcutta and Manila, you take in a whole different set of data and experiences. Or Newman says, imagine a amateur astronomer looking through a really high powered telescope for the first time and taking in this wide range of data about stars and galaxies and planets, etc. Or he says, think of a devout Christian believer who for the first time begins studying the religions of the world, Hinduism and Buddhism and Shintoism, and takes in all this novelty and detail. Those are all examples, he says, of the expansion of mind, but not necessarily the cultivation of the philosophical habit. That's seeing the patterns, that's seeing the meaning of things. It's not just the assimilation of data or the passive reception of information, but it's an energetic and formative power, digesting, arranging, categorizing the wild rush of information that comes into the mind. There's Newman's nice summary of it. You know, Thomas Aquinas said that wisdom sapientia in his Latin is the view from the hilltop. I've always liked that. You know, as you're crawling around on the ground and you're taking in what's in front of you, that's one way of knowing. But you get up on a hilltop and you see the whole countryside, you see how everything fits together. Or to update that image a bit, I often have the experience when I'm. I'm taking off in an airplane and I always like looking out the window and take off because as you get up to that height, you look back at the city that you're leaving and oh, there's the river. Oh, that's where the waterfront is. And oh, that's where that mountain range comes in and you get the overview. That's the philosophical habit. See, a lot of people spend their lives kind of crawling around on the ground and they're pretty adept at it. They know how to make their way. But the philosopher or the person with the liberal frame of mind has climbed to the mountaintop, the hilltop, and sees the organizing patterns. Now, here's a nice Newman esque summary too. He says, the person in possession of this philosophic habit of mind, quote, cannot be partial, cannot be exclusive, cannot be impetuous, cannot be at a loss, cannot but be patient, collected and majestically calm, because it discerns the end in every beginning, the origin in every end, the law in every Interruption, the limit in each delay, because it ever knows where it stands and how its path lies from one point to another. Nice, isn't it? And that's the hilltop view, isn't it? That's seeing how everything fits together. And it gives you a kind of equanimity of spirit. It gives you kind of calmness of spirit. That's a symptom of the health of the mind. Okay, discourse number seven. Newman looks at the philosophical habit in relation to professional skill. So we've seen now, and he's insistent upon it. Liberal education is properly useless. It's free from. So we've been very clear about that. But he also argues, paradoxically, it has a usefulness once it's been properly cultivated. Now, he begins by looking at John Locke, a philosopher, by the way, that Newman both loved and balked at. He loved the kind of British empirical philosophical tradition. But he also balks at Locke, and we'll see it now in spades when he looks at the. And we look at the grammar of assent. But Locke had opined that the heads of our children should not be stuffed with a deal of trash. And what he meant here was not what we probably mean by it. He meant all this in his mind. Foo foo that the universities trade in. How come we're stuffing our kids minds full of the verse of Virgil and the poetry of Homer and classical languages long dead. I mean, what's the point of stuffing their heads with all that business? Why shouldn't we teach them some practical skills at the university? Well, this is Locke now, a long time ago. We certainly hear that a great deal today. Well, Newman says no, you don't begin with that. But in point of fact, Mr. Locke, a useless education proves to be in the end, actually rather use less. Here's a quote. If a liberal education be good, it must necessarily be useful too. Now, what does he mean? Well, the comparison again with the health of the body. A healthy body is good in itself. I'm enjoying good health. Yeah, that's just a value in itself. But a healthy body is also going to be. Here's Newman again. It gives one greater strength, energy, agility, graceful carriage and action. That's all right. A healthy body is able to do all kinds of good things. It's able to be useful in all sorts of ways.
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In the same way, he argues, a healthy mind, a philosophical mind, the mind that sees from the hilltop is good in itself. We enjoy a healthy mind, but that healthy mind is also going to be useful in all sorts of ways. A person with A philosophical habit of mind, Newman argues, will be able to take up the responsibilities of a lawyer or a doctor or a statesman or a man of affairs. We'd say a businessperson today probably listen with a grace and an ease that would escape someone with an undeveloped mind. And I think this is dead right. You know, someone who has studied philosophy often makes a very good lawyer. That's why many professors in law schools like students who have majored in philosophy. It's a pretty useless preparation for a very useful enterprise. Or a philosophical habit of mind can make someone a very effective physician, a very effective, as Newman implies here, a man of business. The very orderliness and perceptiveness, intuitiveness of the philosophical mind is actually of useful value. Okay, now, with this last discourse, I'm going to bring this analysis to a close. And in some ways it's the most intriguing of all of the discourses, because Newman now looks at the relation between knowledge, the purpose of a university, the philosophical habit, and religion, properly speaking. And see, by religion here, I think he means the life of grace, that which will conduce towards salvation. So religion. Think of the sacraments, think of the Eucharist, think of the Mass, think of the lives of the saints, think of, think of all that is meant to draw us into intimacy with God. Is a liberal education good or bad for religion? That's the question he asked now at the end. Now, see, mind you, the purpose of a university is not salvation. So he's not confusing university and seminary. Let's say, however, is there a relationship between the proper end of a university, the philosophical mind, and salvation? That's his last consideration here. His basic answer is yes and no. In some ways it is helpful to salvation. In other ways it's problematic. That's his honest answer. Now, let's look first at the benefits. The first great benefit that the philosophical habit bestows on the religious person is that philosophy tends to lift a person out of an obsession with sensuality. Now, he doesn't mean sexuality here. He means with the world of ordinary sense, experience. Listen now, to Newman, it expels the excitements of sense by the introduction of those of the intellectual. In so doing, it leads one halfway to heaven. Now, it's very interesting here. It's very interesting. Go back to someone like Blaise Pascal. He's echoed by Kierkegaard. Later, Pascal talks about the different levels of the self. There's the body, there's the mind, there's the heart. Right? What does Pascal mean? Well, the body, that means that dimension of me that is in immediate contact with the world that seeks food and drink and sex and intimacy. And it's the sensual demands of the body that's a very important part of life. However, at a key stage in our development, Pascal says, we move. We don't leave it behind, but we move to a higher dimension, that of the mind. And we realize there are goods or values, there are joys of the mind that transcend those of the sensual world of eating and drinking and sex, et cetera. You know that famous story about. Is it Archimedes? And he's confronted by Alexander the Great, you know, who's conquered the city. And he comes to this great academic and he says, you know, what can I do for you? And he had been drawing geometrical figures in the sand. And the philosopher said, you can get out of my light. He's like, look, man, you got nothing to offer me. I've gone beyond. What obsesses you, your obsession with power and with the sensual goods of the world. But I moved to the level of the mind, you know, Or Thomas Aquinas as he comes upon the city of Paris with some of his Dominican colleagues. And one of them said, oh, what wouldn't you give if you could have this whole city? And Thomas said, oh, I'd be so much happier with Chrysostom's commentary on Matthew, like, here's someone who's transcended the simple level of the body, and he was intrigued by the goods of the mind. Well, if you want to stay with Pascal, beyond the level of the mind, he calls it the heart. Remember when Pascal says, the heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing about. Beyond the level of the mind is that dimension of us that is in contact with God, right? The spiritual dimension of life. And some people have come to that stage where they can look back even at the achievements of the mind and say, well, that's nothing compared to now, to what I'm in touch with. Body, mind, heart, we might say soul. What's Newman's point here? Do you see how a liberal education, the philosophical habit of mind, has indeed lifted us up out of a pure obsession with the sensual goods of the world? By introducing us to Cicero and to Plato and to Aristotle and to the high philosophical contemplation of the patterns of things, it's drawn us into a higher world. Listen again to Newman leading us halfway to heaven. You see, we've gone from body to mind, which is the preserve of the university, because now we're halfway to heart or soul or contact with God. It's a really interesting idea, I think, how it can cultivate a higher form of. Of perception and sensibility. It's a bit like Thomas Aquinas referring to philosophy as a monoductio in his Latin, which means leading by the hand. You take a child and you lead him by the hand to teach him how to walk. So philosophy kind of draws us up out of a mere preoccupation with the sensual world. Here's a second benefit of a liberal education for religion. Newman says liberal education so refines and elevates the mind that it comes to feel a repugnance and disgust for the enormities of evil, which are often or ordinarily reached at length by those who are not careful to set themselves against what is vicious and criminal. Now, that's very kind of arcane 19th century prose, but let's look at it again. The refined philosophical mind, Newman argues, begins to feel a certain repugnance for moral enormities. You know, things that a less cultivated person might not appreciate as morally problematic. The philosophical person has so reached a point of refinement that he or she begins to see those things as morally problematic. They reach a level that's not reached by those who are not careful to set themselves against what is vicious and criminal. A certain refinement of soul takes place. Now, is this always true? No. Obviously there are some really smart, philosophically cultivated people who are wicked, and Newman knows that. So there's no guarantee that if I have a very refined education, I'm going to be a morally upright person. But he thinks it can move you in that direction anyway. I think there's something right about that. Okay, those are some advantages of a liberal education when it comes to religion. How about a disadvantage? And this is very interesting and it provides a bridge to our next set of lectures. Newman says, here's the principal problem is a philosophical approach to things can lead us sometimes to reduce a properly spiritual reality to the natural level. Now, here's his famous example, conscience. And we'll say more about it next time. But conscience is a really key idea for Newman. Conscience, in fact, is a link to God. It's a hearing of the voice of God he's convinced. But the philosophically refined person might confuse conscience for, like, an artistic sensibility, like a psychological state of mind. He can naturalize this properly supernatural instinct. The example he gives is Julian the Apostate, you know, the famous Roman emperor who had abandoned Christianity and went back, back to paganism. Newman feels that Julian the Apostate had A fine moral sense in the sort of pagan context. But he had reduced conscience to that natural level and so didn't feel on his deathbed that he was in need of conversion, didn't feel the need to confess his sins. It was a flattening out of the supernatural. And this, he thinks, is a danger of the philosophical education for religious people. And I think there's something really right about that. You can see it sometimes in very sophisticated circles of people say, oh, we know religion, that's grand, but they sort of articulate it in very naturalistic terms. Let me close with this. Newman says the purpose of the university to cultivate the philosophical habit is the production of what he calls the gentleman. A university is meant to produce a gentleman. Now, who's a gentleman? He defines him as someone who never willingly inflicts pain. I'll go on. A gentleman is like an easy chair or a good fire which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue. If he be an unbeliever, he'll be too profound and large minded to ridicule religion. He's too wise to be a dogmatist or a fanatic in his infidelity. He's a friend of religious toleration. And that not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling which is the attendant upon civilization. Again, maybe somewhat overwrought prose of Newman, but see, the point he's making is the well educated gentleman, the philosopher, balanced, sane, tolerant, like an easy chair, like a nice fire, makes everybody comfortable around him. But here's his Saints tend not to be like that. Look at the saints. Are they like easy chairs? Most saints I know, they're a little strange and they're a little uncomfortable. They're a little out there, you know, because saints are witnessing too something which transcends the natural, transcends the philosophical, goes beyond the sort of refined natural mind. The danger, therefore. See, and Newman is very insightful here. The danger is the gentleman is not the saint, and the saint should not be reduced to the gentleman. Nothing wrong with being a gentleman as long as you see it as a limited moral and intellectual attainment. Sanctity is something else. There's a pretty balanced guy. Now, looking at this issue of university education, singing its praises. I mean, nobody sings the praises of the liberal education more than Newman, but also at the same time acutely aware of. Of its limitations and how the supernatural transcends the natural.
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Matthew Petrusyk here again. Thanks so much for joining us on the Word on Fire show. As always, if you'd like to learn more about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer to Christ and become a better evangelist with and for others, visit institute.wordpressfire.org, that's institute.WordPress.org we'll see you next time. And God bless and protect you.