Pursuing Truth, Goodness & Beauty

Connie and I, united in a scholarly pursuit, made our way to Newman Theological College this past June to “seek the things that are above.” Its annual Fides et Ratio seminar is just the forum for such goals and for the people who hold them. As expected, we enjoyed a week of mass, Great Books, and discussion in the presence of company that humbles me, in a place of prayerful repose and beauty.

The fulfillment of my expectations is, I hope, embodied in my classes this year.

At the Schola, we purport to embody the transcendentals – truth, goodness, beauty – as things that intrinsically help us to know our Creator. And yet we live in a world that treats beauty like a luxury. If you should happen by Room 2, you’ll witness my retort to that post-modern presumption.

Chief among the lessons I hope to convey is a posture of intellectual humility. I stand in receipt of the academics who discussed books with me this summer. It’s my goal to convey a sense of indebtedness to the minds who crafted the works we read and discuss in class. Curiosity and gratitude should be our initial stance towards them.

TS Eliot once happened upon a young man who claimed that “the dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.” The poet stopped, then retorted, “Precisely, and they are that which we know.”

-Ms. Giesbrecht