Thomas Aquinas: Integrating Faith and Reason in the Catholic School

Abstract

The Second Vatican Council, social upheaval, and quickly changing cultural norms were a part of the fabric of life in the 1960s. Values and beliefs held firmly for generations were called into question. Faith, once solid, appeared to some Catholics to turn fluid and doubtful. Though now well over seven centuries old, the work of Thomas Aquinas can itself be understood and appreciated as a response to the demands of philosophical challenges that threatened tto make things fall apart. By his fitting together of faith and reason, Aquinas' intellectual approach can serve as a inspiration for educators, especially those at the high school level. I n the 1960s, Catholic high school teachers in the United States impressed upon their students the importance of literature and science as well as the Catholic faith. There was not thought to be any contradiction between faith and the best that literature and science had to teach. There was a sense of there being something very Catholic about this ultimate lack of opposition between religious and secular knowledge. Students were taught a kind of rev-erence for literature and for science. The message was broadcast distinctly that Catholics were to respect intellectuals and to avoid the narrow-minded-ness of some other types of Christians. The 1960s also brought on, however, a widespread confusion concerning how religious teaching and secular knowledge fit together. On an existential level, no matter what teachers were trying to tell them, students had to make a choice between the Baltimore Catechism on the one hand and the modern world on the other. The magnetism of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll exerted a strong attraction to youth in those days to which Catholics were not immune. For many, being an intellectual and being a Catholic no longer seemed to fit together. The main concern of St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) was to explore how everything fit together. Laying out how things fit together is the job of the systematic theologian. A common, traditional way to explain Aquinas' role in theology has been to contrast him with Augustine. Augustine (354-430) was a great thinker and writer, but he was not systematic. Augustine's