Hallmarks of a Chesterton Academy Education: Focus on Truth, Goodness, and Beauty (#2 of 6)
By Peter Ohotnicky, Headmaster
This is the second article in a series of six which will describe the Hallmarks of a Chesterton Academy Education.
“Classical education can be described as the cultivation of wisdom and virtue through meditation on the good, the true, and the beautiful. Our classical curriculum combines a broad, liberal arts education with a strong emphasis on the development of Christian virtues and an appreciation of beauty. It is our hope that our students will be able to proclaim the truth, goodness, and beauty of the Catholic faith as they encounter an increasingly dark and skeptical world that is so desperately in need of Jesus Christ.” (The Chesterton Schools Network Course Catalog)
An education at Chesterton Academy, following the pattern of the Ancients and fulfilled by the Catholic Church through the centuries, essentially seeks to evangelize the student through Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. The student, drawn by these manifestations of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ—the “living icon” of the union between God and man—grows in wisdom and virtue as he or she participates in the community of faith and learning. While Chesterton Academy does pass along knowledge (what of learning) and skills (how of learning), the classically educated student is also developing moral and intellectual literacy (why of learning) by cultivating a love for Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. The student sees the “whole truth of things” which brings peace and joy.
Icon of Christ the Teacher
“While Chesterton Academy does pass along knowledge (what of learning) and skills (how of learning), the classically educated student is also developing moral and intellectual literacy (why of learning) by cultivating a love for Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. ”
Without this deeper “why” of learning, education becomes reduced to the pragmatic (college and career readiness) or perhaps even an indoctrination into a non-Christian ideology such materialism (all reality can be reduced to matter and chemical-physical processes, so life has no meaning) or a modern form of idolatry (finding life’s meaning in wealth, power, pleasure, or fame). Even a public education, in trying to be neutral on the deeper “why” questions, inherently communicates to the student that such questions are unimportant, or tells the student to find his or her own answers. G.K. Chesterton says, “Now secular education means that everybody shall make a point of looking down at the pavement, lest by some fatal chance somebody should look up at the lamp.” The truth of human beings is that we are actually a creatures which are wonderfully made, tragically fallen, yet gloriously redeemed in Jesus Christ.
The wisdom of the Church has known the proper message for centuries: teach knowledge and skills with a focus on Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. This type of formation created the saints and scholars who lived fulfilling and meaningful lives, building the Catholic intellectual tradition. This tradition is the source of our theology, but also the greatest art & architecture, music, science, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and ethics as well. As our Lord says: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” (Matthew 6:33)
The Ancient Greeks in the writings of Plato and Aristotle clearly understood that the world, the cosmos, was filled with divine meaning and purpose. The project of education was to help the student discover this meaning, and conform his life to it. These ancient philosophers understood that there was something “unbalanced” in human nature, but gaining wisdom and forming affections through contemplation of truth, goodness, and beauty, were a means to restore harmony within the soul and between the individual person, his community, and the greater cosmos.
The Incarnation of Christ, the Logos, added a new richness to this understanding. Christians inherited the notion of man’s dignity as an image of God, along with his fall from grace and need for redemption. Christ proclaims he is the way, the Truth, and the Life (John 4:16); the Christian scriptures teach that through Christ all things were made and are held together (Col 1:15-17). He has arrived in the flesh to bring this new life of redemption. God Himself, through the Second Person of the Trinity, made man in the person of Jesus Christ, is the Truth, the Good, and the Beautiful which becomes manifest in all things. So Christianity brought a fulfillment of the Greek notion of the meaning and purpose in the created world, along with the means to participate in this Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, especially through the teachings and sacramental life of the Church.
In a classical education, the transcendentals of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty allow the learners to transcend, or go beyond, the mere material or pragmatic aspect of the subject matter, and enter a contemplation of the divine and see the manifestion of God in all areas of the curriculum. The soul’s desire for Truth is satisfied through the study of Faith and Reason; it’s desire for Goodness is met through the Church’s moral and ethical teachings and the pursuit of virtue, which follow logically from the nature of man and the nature of God; the soul’s desire for Beauty is fulfilled by the experiencing harmony, symmetry, and completeness in each class. Although we recognize the fallen reality of the cosmos, the echoes of its the divine origins are still manifest in areas like wonder of science, the sublimity of sacred music, the structure of mathematics, the marvel of human language seen in the study of Latin, and the magnificence of great literature and poetry.
“The Church exists in order to communicate precisely this: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in person.”