Catholic Liberal Arts Research Paper

A Catholic liberal arts education is an education in the liberal arts, philosophy, and theology that takes wisdom/contemplation to be the end and so regards the liberal arts as a preparation for philosophy and theology. Moreover, it sees the wisdom/contemplation attained by theology as being higher than that of philosophy and, therefore, takes philosophy itself to be ordered to theology. The study of theology improves on our knowledge of God and illuminates the path to perfect happiness. Therefore, the continuity between each subject makes not only the goal necessary but also each step required to reach it. Therefore, the subjects found in a Catholic liberal arts education are taught in a way that utilizes their true purpose
The liberal arts, are “liberal” because someone who studies them must be free enough so that he is not consumed with his material well-being, such as the servile arts. However, one cannot discredit their value for the servile arts, especially the most basic ones, allow humanity to survive. In addition, the servile arts aid in providing the freedom necessary to study liberal arts whose purpose is to perfect our higher capacities to be better beings. The liberal arts consists of the trivium and quadrivium, which provide one with the fundamental tools to study philosophy, “the art of arts and the discipline of disciplines.” Philosophy, Greek for “love of wisdom”, seeks the fundamental causes and principles of things. The trivium strengthen one’s ability to think and express correctly whereas, the principles of mathematics found in the qaudrivium helps one to think abstractly. Thinking abstractly is imperative to philosophy because it deals with universal causes and principles, which is always in some form a movement of abstraction. The liberal arts also helps one to understand the divisions of philosophy: natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. Natural philosophy seeks to know the nature and cause of things that populate the physical world and moral philosophy studies human action and its relationship to goal of human action, happiness. Metaphysics, also known as “theology” by Aquinas, concerns itself with the ultimate causes and principles of things. Theology illuminates the philosophical findings of fundamental causes and principles of the universe to discover their ultimate cause, God. Thus, all the disciplines of philosophy are ordered to theology. It “shows us the path to salvation”, the beatific vision which is the perfect supernatural knowledge of God and perfect