Andrew Sorokowski's column

“Holy Wisdom”, the Universe, and the University

03.10.2016, 17:32
Every true university should offer a coherent, holistic conception of truth.

"If someone thinks that this wisdom is the capacity of the human being to be wise, great, successful, modern and knowing, he is mistaken. For if we worship all these things, you and I would worship idols. And so we state, we emphasize, that this church is the Church of the Holy Wisdom of God...”

Thus spoke Patriarch Sviatoslav on September 11, 2016 at the consecration of the Church of Holy Wisdom in the new academic complex of the Ukrainian Catholic University on Kozel’nyts’ka Street, L’viv. The siting of this church at the center of the complex, surrounded by a residential hall, classrooms, offices, auditorium and cafeteria, as well as the new library, is symbolic. It reminds us of what lies at the center of a true university. Thus, while the patriarchs’s words pertained to the idea of holy wisdom, they also relate to the purpose of a university as a place where the focus is on true wisdom, and not on the mere accumulation of knowledge and skills.

Not everyone shares this ideal. I recently read a blog by a Ukrainian student in which he argued that one of the chief uses of a university education was to make contacts that would help in building a career. To him, the university was an institution that prepared one for success in business or a profession.

Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre would disagree. In his recent book  “God, Philosophy, Universities” (2009, 2011), he discusses John Henry Newman’s renowned lectures on the purpose of a university (published in 1852). MacIntyre argues that “The aim of a university education is not to fit students for this or that particular profession or career…” (p. 147) The words of Patriarch Sviatoslav quoted above echo this view. MacIntyre continues, stating that a university education aims to transform the students’ minds, “so that the student becomes a different kind of individual, one able to engage fruitfully in conversation and debate, one who has a capacity for exercising judgment, for bringing insights and arguments from a variety of disciplines to bear on particular complex issues.” (p. 147)

In most Western countries, the idea still prevails that those who seek simply to learn how to make a living should enter a trade or vocational school. Those inclined towards a higher education, however, should first attain a liberal arts background, which teaches them to think. This is usually provided in secondary school (in Europe) or on the undergraduate level (in the U.S.). Only then does the student proceed to professional school in law, medicine, engineering, and so on. For many years, U.S. colleges required students to take courses with titles like “Great Books,” “Western Civilization,” “World Civilization,” or  “Humanities.” They thus followed the medieval tradition by which basic humanistic knowledge provided the foundation for philosophy and then theology, or for professions like medicine and law.  

In his book, Alasdair MacIntyre discusses the evolution of university education. He points out that the system of study devised by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century provided a logical order for the study of  various subjects, so that the student could grow in understanding. This order reflected an understanding of the universe itself: “We are able to understand what the university should be, only if we understand what the universe is.”  (p. 95) Just as the universe has a particular order, subordinate to God, so the various sciences are arranged in a hierarchy, with theology at the top. Philosophy serves to bind the various disciplines together and relate them to theology.

In modern times, says MacIntyre, this sense of unity has been lost. This is even true of the most famous and “best” universities. For example, the contemporary American university, whether professedly Catholic or not, does not attempt to integrate the various disciplines into a cohesive whole in which all the parts are related to each other, just as it does not concern itself with a vision of a comprehensible, integrated universe. Philosophy has been neglected, reserved only for specialists. Theology has been expelled or marginalized. Hence, these universities cannot offer an integrated curriculum, and thus cannot provide the student with a coherent vision of reality. (MacIntyre pp. 16-17)

Even the most illustrious contemporary research university is fragmented in its curriculum because it is fragmented in its world view. It is what the late University of California president and chancellor Clark Kerr termed a “multiversity.” MacIntyre points out that while Newman and Aquinas believed that a university curriculum should reflect a coherent vision of the universe, the conception of today’s research university “suggests strongly that there is no such thing as the universe.” Consequently, the “university” is largely “a place in which certain questions go unasked or rather, if they are asked, it is only by individuals and in settings such that as few as possible hear them being asked.” (p. 174)

In my own experience as an undergraduate at the University of California, I did indeed find that “certain questions” – the great questions about the universe, good and evil, the meaning of life, and such – were asked only incidentally. For example, in my physics class the  professor raised the question of the existence of God. He was skeptical -- though he did allow a couple of Evangelical students to declare their faith before the class. There was, however, no discussion of the rational arguments for the Catholic world view: I only encountered those many years after completing my university studies.

The founding of Catholic universities has addressed this problem only in part. Catholic universities taught a Catholic world view, but for the most part only to convinced Catholics. Today, however, most Catholic universities only have a “Catholic identity” or a “Catholic tradition.” The world view that they present is in most cases the same secular world view put forward in other universities, lacking any coherent conception of truth.

Moreover, the notion of a “Catholic” university is misleading. It suggests that there is a special Catholic kind of knowledge, and even of truth. But MacIntyre’s point – and Newman’s – is that every university should offer a coherent, holistic conception of truth. It is the secular university that, having lost such a conception, has strayed from the path of true university education. It is the Catholic university – properly understood – that offers a genuinely “universal” university education.

Macintyre is aware, of course, that this is a minority opinion, just as the Catholic world view is in opposition to the Zeitgeist. He writes that today, therefore, Catholics need to engage in dialogue and debate on philosophical issues both among themselves and with an outside world where other, sometimes antithetical, philosophies prevail. This can best be done in a university which has structures and goals very different from the contemporary research university. But most prestigious Catholic universities mimic the great secular research universities, which lack such structures and goals. (p. 179) A true Catholic university should not try to imitate Harvard or Yale – universities that were founded for the training of Protestant ministers, but abandoned their Christian identity long ago. Rather, it should promote the kind of philosophical understanding that all too many graduates of Harvard and Yale utterly lack.

Thus, Patriarch Sviatoslav’s words at the consecration of the Ukrainian Catholic University’s new  church apply not only to the theological idea of “holy wisdom,” but to the true purpose of a university – not only a Catholic university, but any University in the proper sense of the word.

Andrew Sorokowski

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