Hallmarks of a Chesterton Academy Education: An Incarnational Environment (#1 of 6)
By Peter Ohotnicky, Headmaster
This is the first article in a series of six which will describe the Hallmarks of a Chesterton Academy Education.
“The central truth of the Incarnation is the central truth of the Chesterton Academy education. From history and theology to math and science, the Incarnation is the central mystery we explore across the entire curriculum. It is our prayer and desire that each student would personally experience the Incarnation; that Christ would grow and mature within the heart of each student.” (The Chesterton Schools Network Course Catalog)
Many can perhaps see how the Incarnation should be studied in theology class, and perhaps history, but is the Incarnation really relevant to science, math, philosophy, or Latin? Yes indeed! This is difficult for the modern mind to understand, since most of us have been raised to see academic subjects as unrelated—stovepipes of knowledge to be superficially learned for the sake of a test and a grade, but otherwise not necessary to influence our thoughts and understanding of the cosmos. G. K. Chesterton says, “Everything has been sundered from everything else, and everything has grown cold.” Thus is the modern experience of education: cold, hard subjects—especially science and math, while subjects which truly influence how we think of the world, like theology and philosophy, are irrelevant.
The ancients knew better. They sensed there was a divine ordering to all of creation: the heavenly bodies, the seasons, the structure of music, the grammatical forms of human language, and the logic of geometry—all these things were infused with meaning and purpose. The word the Greeks used for this divine order was “Logos,” sometimes translated as “Word” but perhaps better rendered in English as “Reason.” We find the echoes of this idea of Logos in every “ology” we study: Biology, Geology, Theology, Anthropology, etc. Also, the idea of Logos speaks to our ability as human beings to learn and understand these areas of study. This is something we take for granted but is clearly a result of philosophical assumptions: first, that creation comes from and is held in existence by a good and loving God who gives it order and stability, and second, the ability of the human intellect in being able to “know” about this creation.
St. John the Evangelist was speaking directly about this Logos when he started his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1-3) Thus the Divine Reason is the source of everything that has ever come to be! But John makes an even more audacious claim: “And the Word [Logos] became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory.” (John 1:14) So the Divine Reason not only exists, but has even taken on human form in the person of Jesus Christ. As Christopher Baglow says in his book Faith, Science, and Reason: “All things flow, not from a divine What, but a divine Who—the Son, the Image of the Father who is one with and equal to the Father, brings the universe about as an expression of God’s goodness.” (p. 52) We see also why St. Pope John Paul II started his very first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, with the words: “The Redeemer of Man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history.”
This understanding of who the Second Person of the Divine Trinity is, His role in creation, and His Incarnation therefore must be central to Catholic education; and everything must be studied in the unifying aspect of this truth. Of course it is relevant to theology class, but history at Chesterton Academy also revolves around the Incarnation and how it has impacted humanity through the centuries. Philosophy, the love of wisdom, brings the heart and mind into union with the One who is Divine Wisdom. Math and Science are further manifestations and experiences of the Divine Reason, while Literature, Drama, Art, and Music should all be properly seen as human efforts to encounter, know, and ultimately “incarnate” our love of the Divine in our own lives. As G. K. Chesterton says: “The difference between the poet and the mathematician is that the poet tries to get his head into the heavens while the mathematician tries to get the heavens into his head.” Even Latin, as an inflected language, has an emphasis on grammar which clearly shows the divine wonder of human language. Indeed, the anti-Christian philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche noted, “I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.”
This is the central aspect of a classical education at Chesterton Academy: an integrated understanding of knowledge, where both faith and reason are put back together, “like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth,” as St. Pope John Paul II says in Fides et Ratio.