Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:51:32.538Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Creating the Human: Theological Foundations for a Christian Humanistic Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

Donald L. Gelpi S.J.*
Affiliation:
Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley

Abstract

This article explores the contribution which a strictly normative theology of conversion might make to an understanding of Christian humanistic education. The first part of the article argues for the need for an ongoing, multidisciplinary discussion of the nature of the human in order to clarify the goals of humanistic education. Part two argues that the four secular forms of conversion—affective, intellectual, personal moral, and socio-political—set important goals for a balanced, humanistic education. Part three argues that the transvaluation of the secular forms of education effected by Christian conversion defines fundamental aims of Christian humanistic education.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Meland, Bernard Eugene, Higher Education and the Human Consciousness (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1953).Google Scholar

2 For a stimulating discussion of issues raised by Ex corde ecclesiae, see O'Donovan, Leo J. S.J., and Langan, John P. S.J., eds., Catholic Universities in Church and Society: A Dialogue on Ex corde Ecclesiae (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

3 Jaeger, Werner, Paideia: The Ideas of Greek Culture, trans. Highet, Gilbert, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1939, vol. 1, xxivxxix.Google Scholar See also Marrou, H. I., A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. Lamb, George (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956).Google Scholar

4 See Tracy, David, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, and Hope (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987).Google Scholar

5 See Starkloff, Carl F. S.J., “Beyond the Melting Pot: An Essay in Cultural Transcendence” in Gelpi, Donald L. S.J., ed., Beyond Individualism: Toward a Retrieval of Moral Discourse in America (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 157–87.Google Scholar

6 Maritain, Jacques, Integral Humanism: Temporal and Spiritual Problems of a New Christendom, trans. Evans, Joseph W. (New York: Scribner's, 1968), 1628.Google Scholar

7 Royce, Josiah, The Problem of Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1913).Google Scholar

8 See Gelpi, Donald L. S.J., The Turn to Experience in Contemporary Theology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1994).Google Scholar

9 See Dewey, John, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (New York: Holt, Reinhart, & Winston, 1938), 159–68.Google Scholar

10 For an account of a more traditional Catholic theology of conversion, see Häring, Bernard, The Law of Christ, 3 vols. (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1961), vol. 1, 387481.Google Scholar

11 See Lonergan, Bernard, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), 238–44.Google Scholar

12 By “psychic conversion” Doran means the extension of intellectual conversion into the unconscious workings of the mind. See Doran, Robert S.J., Subject and Psyche: Ricoeur, Jung, and the Search for Foundations (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1977)Google Scholar, and Doran, Robert S.J., Psychic Conversion and Theological Foundations: Toward a Reorientation of the Human Sciences (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981).Google Scholar Doran's thought moves, moreover, within the parameters of Lonergan's epistemology. The idea of “affective conversion” that I have developed rests, by contrast, on a criticism of Lonergan's epistemology and describes an event that takes place largely within the realm of intuitive perceptions of the real.

13 See Gelpi, Donald L. S.J., Grace as Transmuted Experience and Social Process: And Other Essays in North American Theology (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), 6795Google Scholar, and Gelpi, Donald L. S.J., Committed Worship: A Sacramental Theology for Converting Christians, 2 vols. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1994), vol. 1, 3181.Google Scholar

14 Lonergan, , Method, 237.Google ScholarPubMed

15 For an insightful summary of the social dynamics of religious conversion, see Rambo, Lewis R., Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

16 Niebuhr, H. Richard, The Responsible Self (New York: Harper & Row, 1963).Google Scholar

17 See Gelpi, , Grace as Transmuted Experience, 97139.Google Scholar

18 Lonergan, , Method, 271–81.Google ScholarPubMed

19 See ibid., 281-88; and Gelpi, Donald L. S.J., Inculturating North American Theology: An Experiment in Foundational Method (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988), 44–46, 147–70.Google Scholar

20 Piaget, Jean, The Moral Development of the Child, trans. Gabain, Marjorie (New York: Free Press, 1965), 51–61, 111–94.Google Scholar

21 Here I find the work of William Damon helpful and suggestive (Damon, William, The Social World of the Child [San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1977]).Google Scholar

22 Menninger, Karl, Mayman, Martin, and Preuser, Paul, The Vital Balance: The Life Process in Mental Health and Illness (New York: Viking, 1963).Google Scholar

23 See Jung, C. G., Psychological Types, trans. Maynes, H. G. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974)Google Scholar, and Brownsword, Alan W., It Takes All Types (Fairfax, CA: Van Norman/Associates, 1987).Google Scholar

24 See Edinger, Edward F., Ego and Archetype (Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1973);Google ScholarRogers, Carl R., On Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961);Google Scholar and Franki, Victor, Man's Search for Meaning (New York: Washington Square, 1965).Google Scholar

25 I would endorse the overall approach to moral reasoning which William C. Spohn has been developing. See Spohn, William C., “Jesus and Ethics,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 49 (1994): 4057Google Scholar, and Spohn, William C., “Jesus and Ethics,” Theological Studies 56 (1995): 92107.Google Scholar

26 Lonergan, , Method, 238–40.Google ScholarPubMed

27 See Peirce, Charles Sanders, Collected Papers, ed. Hartshome, Charles and Weiss, Paul, 8 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19311958), vol. 5, 497536.Google Scholar

28 See Potter, Vincent S.J., Charles Peirce on Norms and Ideals (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1967).Google Scholar

29 Dewey, John, “My Pedagogic Creed,” The School Journal 54 (January 16, 1897): 7780.Google Scholar

30 Oppenheim, Frank M., Royce's Mature Philosophy of Religion (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987).Google Scholar

31 For a sensitive handling of the complexities of cross-cultural religious communication, see Standaert, Nicolas S.J., Inculturation: The Gospel and Cultures, trans. Bruggeman, Anton and Murray, Robert (Manila: St. Paul Publications, 1994).Google Scholar

32 See Bellah, Robert N., Madsen, Richard, Sullivan, William M., Swidler, Ann, and Tipton, Stephen M., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985), 221–35Google Scholar, and Fowler, James W., Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Life and the Quest for Meaning (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), 281–86.Google Scholar

33 See Flavell, John H., The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget (New York: Van Nostrand, 1963)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, and Furth, Hans G., Piaget and Knowledge: Theoretical and Practical Foundations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969).Google Scholar

34 See Fowler, Stages of Faith.

35 See Gelpi, Donald L. S.J., God Breathes: The Spirit in the World (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1988), 2645Google Scholar, and Gelpi, , Committed Worship, vol. 1, 56115.Google Scholar

36 See ibid. The educational theory of Ignacio Ellacuría has much to teach Christian educational institutions in the United States about institutional commitment to education of faith and justice. See Brackley, Dean S.J., “The Christian University and Liberation: The Challenge of the UCA” in Discovery (Washington, DC: Jesuit International Ministries, 1992).Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 116-55.

38 McDonnell, Kilian O.S.B., “The Holy Spirit and Christian Initiation” in McDonnell, Kilian O.S.B., ed., The Holy Spirit and Power: The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 6789Google Scholar, and McDonnell, Kilian O.S.B., The Charismatic Renewal and Ecumenism (New York: Paulist, 1978).Google Scholar

39 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa theologiae, I–II, q.68, a.1.Google Scholar