In response to arguments against the Catholic practice of taking vows of perpetual continence1, St. Thomas Aquinas offers several in particular that are relevant to a discussion of the purpose of college. This may seem like two disconnected topics, but, often times when we begin to reason rightly about one part of life, it becomes apparent where we are in error about other parts of life. In this short essay, I wish to familiarize readers with the noblest principles which ought to inspire a young man or woman to consider college, drawing from these arguments about continence in Aquinas.
The Arguments Against Vows of Chastity
There were those in Aquinas’ day2 who argued that since the union of man and woman is directed to the good of the whole human community (propagation of the species), and since the good of the community is more noble than the good of an individual (we learn this in Aristotle’s Ethics3), it is a more serious sin to abstain from an act which contributes to the common good than it is to abstain from an act which contributes to the good of the individual. Further, since all men receive in his members and disposition the ability and desire to procreate, to refrain from doing so would be contrary to divine ordinance. Next, if it were good that a man is continent, it is better that many men be continent, and best that all men be continent. Yet, this would mean the end of the human race, which is evil. Neither then is it good that one man be continent. Lastly, we read the command of God “to be fruitful and multiply4” and since this precept was never revoked but confirmed in Christ’s defense of the marriage bond5, it is unlawful to vow perpetual continence.
Several other like arguments are offered.
Aquinas Responds
In response to these mentioned, Aquinas offers the following:
First, when it comes to the needs of the individual (food, drink, etc), each need must be provided for. Each man must take food and drink. However, when it comes to the needs of the human community, it is not necessary nor possible that each individual member participate in providing the requisite needs. Since procreation is a need of the whole community, rather than a need of an individual, it is not necessary that each man procreate. Rather, some men, in refraining from procreation, are set aside to fulfill other duties, such as serving in the military or living the contemplative life.
Second, in God’s Providence, he has provided all things necessary for the whole species, yet it is not necessary for each individual man to employ each of the things given to men. Man has been given the art of building, and a body fit for war, but it is not necessary that each man build or become a soldier. Thus, though all men be given the ability to procreate, it is not necessary that each one do so.
From this the third argument is refuted, that though it is better for an individual man to refrain from acts necessary to the whole community in order to pursue more noble ends, it is not good that all men do so. The perfection of an animal requires both an eye and a foot; but the eye is more noble than the foot even though both are necessary for perfection. In the same way, the human community is perfected when some men abstain from lower pursuits in order to attend to contemplation. In this reference to a hierarchy of ends, Aquinas draws here from ideas that are thematic in Aristotle’s Ethics.
Lastly, in regards to the Old Testament command to be fruitful and multiply, from what has been said already, we can see that though it is good for the whole community that man procreates, it is not necessary that each man participate in such a life, especially when a better option is available to an individual, as in the contemplative life. For he who marries must be concerned about the things of his wife and the world, as St. Paul teaches6, but he who refrains from marriage is free to be concerned about higher things and how to please God. Such abstinence from marriage and procreation is not always appropriate, as when the human population is low, or when it was necessary to build up God’s people in the Old Covenant. Hence the Genesis command to Adam and Eve to multiply. But in the New Covenant, Aquinas argues, the people of God are generated spiritually, not carnally.
Aquinas successfully refutes the attacks on the practice of vowed continence. So, what does this have to do with college?
The Noblest Life Among Men
Of the three kinds of lives observed by Aristotle, the nutritive (animal), the political, and the contemplative, Aquinas references several times the most noble life, the contemplative life, as a reason for renouncing marriage. What is the nature and purpose of the contemplative life? Such a life seeks the higher ends of wisdom and understanding. In the Catholic tradition, the contemplative life and the fruits which it is capable of bearing was cultivated in the Religious Orders whereby a man or woman reasonably vow a life of continence. Wisdom comes through study and contemplative prayer which require time, silence, and a life free of carnal and monetary pursuits. It is simply a matter of practical reality that a life free from temporal concerns and devoted solely to spiritual and intellectual goods would be the most fruitful environment for the attainment of these goods.
It should not strike you as odd then that the first colleges of Christendom are founded among the cathedral schools to serve the Religious Orders and monastic communities of Medieval Europe. Oxford and Cambridge in England were founded for this very purpose in 1210 AD. The University of Paris likewise ten years earlier. Catholic colleges were founded as places for higher intellectual study by those whose lives were already vowed to contemplation. Their matriculation in college was conditioned by the pursuit of the higher ends.
The curriculum of these first Catholic colleges, as I have noted elsewhere, is the same curriculum that is offered by our Academy and College. It is comprised of the seven classical liberal arts, humanities, philosophy, and theology. The ancient and irreplaceable books which make up this curriculum, which are studied in our programs in their online format, were being gathered by these cathedrals and colleges into the first libraries to support this course of study. Men took up this course for noble purposes, to become the kind of wise men that the human society could not be perfected without: theologians, philosophers, lawyers and lawmakers, priests, musicians and scientists. Such wisdom was so important to the Medieval World that such “professional” men as we might think of them today, were men of prayer and contemplation. They were not pursuing careers and money making, but wisdom; and they were able to share that wisdom with the world.
The life of St. Thomas Aquinas whose works we have read from in this essay is an example. He attended the University of Paris, where he spent years as a Dominican friar, studying and quickly becoming a headmaster in Theology. His amazing outpouring of theological and philosophical treatises which become foundational for the Catholic intellectual tradition are the fruit of his contemplative life.
Recognizing the Principle
So, the principle which is at the foundation of the emergence of colleges is the commitment to the life of contemplation. This principle should guide our thoughts about college. This need not mean that everyone ought to enter vowed religious life. As Aquinas says, this would not be good for the whole community. But it does mean that each of us ought to take this possibility seriously and commit to pursuing a contemplative life according to our means and state in life. To be sure, there ought to be many more vocations to the Religious life than there are currently, but the first step is to cultivate a life of contemplation.
In our age, colleges have taken on a wide variety of purposes and ends. These added purposes and ends will constantly increase the costs of modern colleges. They include sports programs and stadiums, magnificent buildings and facilities, dormitories, cafeterias, extravagant and redundant libraries (even in the digital age, most libraries are full of the same books found anywhere else), social and dating opportunities, theaters, music halls, science labs, on and on; not to mention an enormous bureaucratic administrative and faculty system.
But none of these expensive additions which are layered above the primary reason for the birth of colleges in Catholicism is necessary for one who desires the life of contemplation and wisdom. One must consider the noblest ends first and whether one wishes to pursue them. The Classical Liberal Arts College provides the path towards this noble end for those who desire it. The reason is simple: the college curriculum is the curriculum of those first colleges and is financially sustainable absent all those added secondary, lower ends.
What Is the Goal?
When thinking about college, therefore, a student must discern what real ends he wishes to attain. If they are the highest goods of the human intellect, then there is no question that the Classical Liberal Arts College is for him, even if the sharing of the fruits of his study may include professional endeavors in the future. On the other hand, if his goals include lower ends and temporal pursuits, that is fine. He must choose his college accordingly.
As I have argued, we all have a responsibility to adopt a life of contemplation inasmuch as it is possible given our goals. But we must have clarity regarding the primary purpose of a Catholic college and recognize when this primary purpose has been subordinated to lower ends.
- Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles Book III, Chapter 136 ↩︎
- Ibid. He calls them “men of distorted judgment.” These arguments flourished again during the Reformation. ↩︎
- Aristotle, Ethics, Book I Chapter 2, Translation Thomas Taylor: “For though the good or an individual and a city is the same, yet to obtain and preserve the good of a city, appears to be something greater and more perfect. For we must be satisfied, indeed, if we can affect the good of an individual alone; but it is more beautiful and divine to affect the good of a nation and cities.” ↩︎
- Genesis, 1:28 ↩︎
- Matthew 19:6 “What God has joined together, no human being must separate.” (NABRE) ↩︎
- 1 Corinthians 7:33 ↩︎
