Catholic Candle note: Below is part 2 of the article concerning the best type of education, which is a Catholic Liberal Education.  Do not confuse this education with many university programs called “liberal arts” but which are full of fluff, falsehood, and aimless so-called “enrichment” courses and “humanities”. 

A liberal education also does not refer to liberalism, nor is a true liberal education an indoctrination into that error of liberalism or political correctness.  In fact, a true Catholic Liberal Education is the best antidote to the errors of liberalism.

Previously, in part 1 of this article, we examined the problems we see in modern education. 

➢  Modern colleges do not improve the quality of their students’ minds and their thinking ability much or at all. 

➢  Most “education” is merely job training, fluff courses, and/or leftist indoctrination. 

➢  The students are taught to sound like someone in their field but they do little thinking and more memorizing. 

➢  Grade “inflation” and degree “inflation” is rampant.  Grades and academic degrees do not mean much anymore.

Part 1 of this article can be found here: The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education – Part 1: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/the-blessings-of-a-true-catholic-liberal-education/

Below is part 2 of this article. 

The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education

Part 2

By contrast to modern education, a real education should focus on perfecting our intellects – as God created us to do.  We should learn how to think carefully and critically.  A genuine education should improve our minds through learning universal truth, especially the highest truths.  Let us look more deeply into why we should do this.

What is Education?  Let us Consider the Human Soul and Its Perfection

Man has two immaterial powers (faculties) in his soul – the intellect (reason) and the rational appetite (the will).  The will desires and moves the man but is blind except with regard to what reason shows to it.  Thus, the intellect is higher than the will.

These two powers that man has in his soul do not reside in a bodily organ.  For example, they are not in his brain in particular.  By contrast, all other faculties of the soul reside in particular bodily organs.  So, for example, man has the power of sight but that power is an ability of the soul which is located in the eyes (and related specific bodily organs).

But the intellect is not in a bodily organ.  It would be impossible for the intellect to be in a bodily organ because the intellect contains universal (non-individual), immaterial concepts which cannot reside in a bodily organ.  For example, the intellect can understand abstractly (i.e., generally and universally) what a “part” is, without “picturing” a particular image of a part such as half of a red apple.

By contrast, the sense of sight and the other bodily senses can grasp only particular, sensible objects.  So, the sense of sight can apprehend a particular image (such as half of a red apple).  But the sense of sight cannot apprehend universally, i.e., more generally what it means for something to be a “half” or a “part”.

Such universal conception cannot reside in a body.  To take another example: a lump of modeling clay (which is a material object) is capable of receiving an image of various individual shapes in a manner which is similar to how the sense of sight is capable of receiving an individual image like the shape of a particular triangle.  But neither the clay nor a person’s sense of sight can receive the concept of “shape” in general, separate from particular shapes.

The intellect is not like that.  It can comprehend immaterial and abstract concepts.  The intellect can understand the concept of shape without needing to form a specific shape, such as an equilateral triangle.  This high immaterial power places us above the rest of material creation and makes us like God and the angels.

The intellect (unlike the bodily senses) can comprehend not only universals (such as what a “part” is, as abstracted from particular parts), but the intellect can also grasp spiritual realities which are immaterial such as justice, virtue, and happiness.

Summary of What We Have Just Seen About the Soul

So, we see that the intellect is the highest faculty (power) of the human soul.  This highest faculty (which is the one most God-like) is that one according to which God made us to live.  In other words:

In every aspect of our lives, God made us to
live according to reason.

Although God wants us to perfect all of the faculties and talents that He gave to us, He most especially wants us to perfect what is highest in ourselves.

(As we shall see in a later part of this article, the human life which is spent living according to our highest power is the happy life for man, both naturally and supernaturally.)

Truth is the Perfection of this Highest Faculty of the Soul

As we saw above, the intellect is our highest faculty and God created us to especially perfect it.  We do this by acquiring universal, unchangeable truth.  For as St. Thomas teaches, quoting Aristotle:

“The true is the good of the intellect, and the false is its evil”, as stated in [Aristotle’s] Ethics, bk.6, ch.2.[1]

In other words, it is truth which makes our intellect good and which makes a man good to the extent that he has perfected his highest faculty.

There are innumerable such universal, eternal truths.  To take two simple examples:

➢  The whole is greater than its own part; and

 

➢  4 + 4 = 8.

Both of those statements are always true.

The truths of our Holy Catholic Faith are unchangeable truths which especially perfect our intellects because these truths concern the highest matters, viz., God and the things of God.  Two examples of this are:

➢  God is entirely immaterial and has no body; and

➢  God has only one simple unchanging Act and He Himself is this very Act. In other words, God is entirely immaterial (i.e., without a body) and His very Self is His one Act of Understanding and Love.

Both of those statements are always true.

Errors Concerning Universal Truths are the Evil of the Intellect.

But just as truth is the good of the intellect, likewise, (as St. Thomas and Aristotle  teach above), the false (i.e., error) is the evil of the intellect.  Thus, to hold an error about a particular, universal truth results in a great evil residing in our intellect, our highest faculty.  To take two examples of such error:

1.    A line is an infinite set of points (as many modern math books falsely assert); and

2.    There is a type of number called an “irrational number” (as falsely asserted and described in many modern math books).

Both of these statements are always false.

Just as the highest universal, eternal truths (about God and the things of God) perfect our intellects to the greatest extent, similarly the errors about such highest truths are the greatest evils for our intellect.  To take two examples:

1.    All “religions” lead to God (as Pope Leo XIV and other ecumenists claimed); and

2.    All truth changes and “evolves” (as the modernists claim).

Both of these statements are always false.

Summary Concerning Universal Truth and Error

So, the truth about God (and the things of God) are the most desirable perfections of our intellect and no effort is too great to obtain and to increase our knowledge of such truths.  The chief joy of the blessed in heaven is to know God (in their intellects).  Similarly, here on earth, it is a great joy to marvel at a particular great truth that we have just learned, recognizing that it is “worth more than kingdoms”.

Correspondingly, the errors about those things related to God are most greatly undesirable and no efforts are too great to avoid such errors.  We should understand that nothing can sufficiently compensate for the great evil of holding error on such issues.

Singular Contingent Facts Do Not Perfect Our Minds.

Further, whereas eternal, unchangeable truth perfects our intellect, by contrast singular, contingent facts do not perfect it.  For example, a universal truth is “Dogs are mammals.”  By contrast, an instance of a contingent singular truth is “This dog, Rex, barks very loudly at passing cars.”

Again, individual, changeable facts (truths) do not perfect our intellects.  Here is one way St. Thomas teaches this truth:

It does not pertain to the intellect’s perfection to know the truth of contingent, singular facts in themselves.[2]

 

There are countless examples of such singular facts.  Here are two examples:

1.    Knowing the names of every street in our city.  (We can see how the street names are singular facts but also that the city can change the names of streets); and

2.    Knowing which sports teams are in the championship game this year.

So, in summary:

❖  Universal truth matters greatly.  We must strive to live the life of truth and to perfect our intellect.  We must consider such truth to be of very great importance.

❖  We must understand the importance of avoiding errors concerning matters of universal truth and to strive greatly to avoid errors on these issues. 

❖  The knowledge of singular, changeable facts does not matter at all and we should not clutter our minds with them unless we have a practical need to take note of them, e.g., remembering the route we need to take in order to arrive at places that we should travel (such as the grocery store or the hardware store).

As we see (above) the importance of perfecting the intellect, we could naturally ask who should perfect his intellect?  In part 3 of this article, we will examine the answer to that question.

To be continued …