Thomas Aquinas; Religious Realism and the Nature of a Teacher

Hello students,

Aristotle famously explains that a good student is a well-balanced student, and a good instructor places value on fostering a well-balanced student. As your instructor, I want to make sure that we as a class are well-balanced. In that light, allow me to place some of the notes on our discussion of Religious Realism below. As we approach our midterm examination next week, I want to make sure that we have concluded our discussion on Realism and Education. And next week, we will have to discuss Modern Realism (as this relates to your reading assignment). Please examine the notes below and we will quickly review them on Monday's class before we proceed into our discussion on Modern Realism and education.



Religious Realism

Thomas Aquinas is sometimes referred to as the "Angelic Doctor." Let's look at some of what has made Thomas Aquinas such an important figure in the field of education and how he represents what is called "Religious Realism." Aquinas was very much concerned with the question, "What is a teacher?" As a member of the religious order, the Dominican Friars, he was a devout Christian who believed that the source of all knowledge is God. He maintained that through faith is ultimately how one comes to truth and embodied the theological maxim, "I believe, so that I may understand. Aquinas argued that only God could be called "Teacher" in the ultimate sense, but if a person teaches it is accomplished only by and through symbols. One human mind cannot directly communicate with the mind of the other, but it can communicate indirectly. We talked in class about how a doctor doesn't heal a broken bone. Nature heals it from the inside. Doctors apply external treatments and inducements but does not really heal it. As with teaching, Aquinas argued only God can touch the inside--the soul--directly. All the teacher can do is attempt to motivate and direct the learner through signs, symbols, and techniques. A teacher can only point the learner to knowledge and understanding with signs and symbols. But Aquinas argued that leading students from ignorance to enlightenment is a way to sere humankind and is part of God's work.

However, what separated Aquinas from Augustine, and where he demonstrates his religious realism, is by arguing that, although yes, the major goal of education is the perfection of the human being and the reunion of the soul with God, in order to accomplish this, we must develop the capacity to reason and exercise intelligence. Human reality is not only spiritual or mental, but also physical and natural. For the human teacher, the path to the soul lies through physical senses and education must use this part to accomplish learning. And, like with Aristotle, this means progressing from a lower to a higher form.

Aquinas maintained that knowledge can be gained through sense data and it can lead one to God and disagreed with Augustine that we could know God only through faith. Aquinas believed that the proper education is one that fully recognizes both the material and the spiritual natures of the individual. For Aquinas, the primary agencies of education are the family and the church, while the state or the government are a distant third. The mother is the child's first teacher. Since a child is easily molded, it's the mother's role to set the child's moral tone. The church sets the ground for understanding God's law. Aristotle and Aquinas both agreed on a dualistic nature of reality, but like with Aristotle, Aquinas that there are material and spiritual sides of humankind or in Aristotelian terms, matter and form.