The heart of Jesuit education, Part II

By Father Robert J. Spitzer, S.J.
Gonzaga University President

In the last issue of GONZAGA, I introduced a series entitled "The Heart of Jesuit Education." In that issue I noted that "heart," in the spiritual sense, refers not only to emotions or affections, but also to "soul" or "spirit" in the sense of a real consciousness of, desire for, and drive toward the unconditional, perfect, and unrestricted in Truth, Love, Goodness, Beauty, and Being (what the Neoplatonists termed "the transcendentals").

Plato believed that some of these manifestations of transcendental consciousness were so evident and so inexplicable through material or algorithmically finite structures that their very presence could ground proofs for the immateriality and immortality of the human soul. If human beings really do possess such transcendental desires, then they would be the most pervasive, enduring, and deep aspects of the human psyche, and therefore, they would have to be central to the heart (and soul) of Jesuit education. I will devote this article to a discussion of one of these transcendentals (truth itself) and reserve upcoming articles for the other four.

The discussion of our first transcendental (the consciousness of and desire for unconditional and perfect truth) might best be framed within the famous Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan's idea of "the pure unrestricted desire to know."

A clue about this remarkable human capacity may be gleaned from children who persistently query, "Why is that?" One gives an answer, and they ask the further question, "Well, why is that?" This seems to go on indefinitely until an adult brings it to an end. This seemingly endless process of querying reveals that children (indeed, all human beings) recognize the inadequacy of partially intelligible answers, and that true satisfaction will only occur when complete intelligibility has been achieved.

Many contemporary philosophers (such as Bernard Lonergan, Karl Rahner, and Emerich Coreth) have concluded that human beings are able to go beyond the limits of knowledge because they have a notional awareness of more perfect intelligibility than that which they currently grasp (Lonergan terms this "the notion of being"). Though we cannot conceptualize complete intelligibility, our sense (notion) of it causes us to recognize the inadequacy of any conditioned or partially intelligible answer. As this notion shows the inadequacy of conditioned and partially intelligible answers (by pointing beyond them), it incites a desire within us to ask a further question.

If this notion of perfect intelligibility did not exist, then human beings would have no sense of intelligibility beyond what they currently understand. And if they had no sense of intelligibility beyond what they currently understand, they would never see the limits of their current understanding (because a limit cannot be grasped without already being beyond it). And if they never saw the limits of their current understanding, they would never ask a question. The apple would have dropped on Newton's head, and he would have simply picked it up and eaten it.

A particularly poignant proof of this was given in the domain of mathematics by Kurt Geode in 1931, and was revised by John R. Lucas in 1961 and by the eminent physicist Roger Penrose in 1989. In brief, Geode showed that there will always be unprovable propositions within any set of axiomatic statements in arithmetic. Human beings are able not only to show that such consistent, unprovable statements exist, but also to prove that they are consistent by making recourse to axioms beyond those used to generate these statements. This ability goes beyond the power of computers (which depend on programs constituted by a particular set of axioms). This seems to suggest that human intellection is beyond both formal axioms and programming.

Since human beings can indefinitely prove propositions which are not provable through the axioms from which they were derived, it would seem that human intelligence is indefinitely beyond any axiomatic or program-induced intellection. This "indefinite beyondness" remarkably resembles Lonergan's "notion of being" (i.e., the notion of "perfect intelligibility").

The fact that human beings have an indefinite desire to know (which includes a desire to know the Unrestricted) points to a source of the desire which is not restricted in its intelligibility. Without this unrestricted source, the conditioned and restricted nature of knowledge would not manifest itself indefinitely until one reaches a completely intelligible answer. For this reason, Lonergan and other philosophers have associated the "notion of being" with the notional presence of complete (unrestricted) intelligibility within human consciousness. These philosophers refer to this complete, unrestricted intelligibility as "God."

Thus, contemporary philosophy and mathematics helps to verify the unconditioned and unrestricted depths of the human soul, which can only be fulfilled by unconditioned and unrestricted Truth itself (God). As Augustine noted in Book I of the Confessions: "For Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."

If you are enticed to go further by the mystery of your own being, but were thoroughly confused by the explanation given above, you may want to pursue a course in metaphysics, epistemology, Bernard Lonergan, or Saint Thomas Aquinas at a Jesuit university near you. At least I will have made one point clearly: the pursuit of Truth itself lies at the heart and soul of Jesuit education.

Editor's Note: If you would like additional information, you may want to consult Fr. Spitzer's books "Healing the Culture: A Commonsense Philosophy of Happiness, Freedom, and the Life Issues" (Ignatius Press); "The Spirit of Leadership: Optimizing Creativity and Change in Organizations" (Pacific Institute Publishing); and an upcoming book, "New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy" (to be announced later this year), available on Amazon.com.