by Mo Fung Woltering for Homiletic & Pastoral Review
The natural inclination to know rightly, and live nobly, is concept that was articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas, called connaturality.
Education in the Church takes many diverse forms: preaching, marriage preparation, catechizing our RCIA candidates and catechumens, various youth ministries and CCD, as well as any evangelical witness—on the street, at work, and especially within your homes. These are all types of education. In this essay, I shall reflect on the meaning of education in light of the human person. First, I want to discuss the Thomistic concept of connaturality. Second, I would like to present a concept that is very much at the heart of Pope John Paul II’s approach to education and knowledge and, finally, a few non-conventional ideas will be presented for you to consider for your work.
Connaturality
The human person longs to know. Unless this inclination is distorted through the cultivation of vicious habits, men and women, by their very nature, desire to know the truth of things. Such a natural inclination to know rightly, and live nobly, is an age-old concept that was most notably articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas, called connaturality. Aquinas argues that human judgment of things occurs, first, by the use of reason and, second, “on account of a certain connaturality with the matter about which one has to judge.” By “connatural,” St. Thomas means the type of knowledge that unites the knower with the thing known, thus transforming him by the knowledge received. So, writes Aquinas, those who wish to think in agreement with God, to see reality as God does, and to live this human life as Jesus Christ did, must be complete. This occurs “not only by learning, but also by suffering divine things (patiens diuina).” Such “suffering with God and connaturality (compassio et connaturalitas) with God is the result of charity, which unites us to God, according to 1 Cor 6:17: Anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (Summa Theologiae, II-II 45, a.2).
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