On Contingency

      It may give my online friends an idea of how crazy the past couple of weeks has been, when I say that I only have time to blog because I'm sick and took the day off from work. I spent the whole day today in bed, and I still feel like I have an anvil on my chest. I find it so difficult to breathe, every intake of breath is agony.

     But being this weak serves as a reminder to me, not only of our common frailty but also of our mortality (pardon me if I seem morbid, but I spent a couple of hours reading Maya by Jostein Gaardner while in my sick bed, and am left in this particular state of mind).

      And I couldn't help but ponder on "the human condition," which serves as the source of a great deal of existential angst to philosophers, past and present. It surely caused me a certain amount of confusion for several years in the past, though I myself was not fully aware of it.

      This was the topic of our M.A. class yesterday evening, one of the two classes I'm taking this semester, which may turn out to be my most favorite class EVER. :) We're taking it under Father O'Donnell, a Jesuit who's also a World War II veteran. The class is called FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION but it entails a good deal of philosophy and history, with a bit of theology thrown in (because the Ateneo is a Catholic university, after all).

      And yesterday evening we were discussing the philosophical bases for a Catholic/Christian Philosophy of Education. Now, I've taken Philo courses in my undergrad years in UP, but being walked through the arguments for God's existence with a kindly Jesuit taking me by the hand, so to speak, was an altogether novel experience. :) It is the polar opposite of my Philo class in UP, where I was fed philosophical tracts which proved detrimental to my spiritual growth and only served to inflame my intellectual pride... without the benefit of any form of mentoring. Guess which class I prefer :p

      To summarize, there are five main arguments by which we could, through reason (and not through faith), argue for the existence of God. But all the other four can be summed up in one: the argument from contingency.

      We are contingent beings, because our existence is dependent on someone else. And that person is God, the Eternal Truth, the First Cause, the Prime Mover, ad infinitum.

      "What's all this got to do with education?" you may wonder. Well, if we hold that education entails preparing a student for life, then we must first establish what is the purpose of life, which in turn necessitates our knowing where we come from, and knowing to what purpose were we created for.

      St. Augustine, whom I've grown very fond of as a result of being assigned to report on him in class, summed it all up very nicely:

      "You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless til they find peace in Thee."

      Wonderful, wonderful man! There is a lot to learn from this Father of the Church.

      St. Augustine spoke against the classical liberal arts education he received, proclaiming its shortcomings in his Confessions thus:

      "Regard, O Lord... how carefully the sons of men observe the proprieties as to letters and syllables received from former speakers, and how they neglect everlasting covenants of eternal salvation which they have received from You...

      ... What was all this but smoke and wind? Your praises, Lord... set forth in Your scriptures, would have held up my heart's young vine, so that it would not have been snatched away by empty trifles, the filthy prey of flying creatures."

      I did not have time to insert the quote above during my brief report on Augustine's contribution to education (We only had eight minutes!!! And when your time is up, Father O' Donnell's ancient key chain will buzz and a giant hook will remove you forcibly from the podium). But I must say... Augustine had it down pat when he declared that the first thing that must go is pride. He spoke from experience when he said that the morally empty education that he received was imbued with the spirit of intellectual pride, and he advocated a philosophy of education which unified the Roman/Greek emphasis of FORM with the Hebrew Scripture-based emphasis on moral CONTENT.

      It is so wonderful to be discussing about the important things in life, in the classroom! Especially with such an inspiring teacher, a veritable saint. I can't praise Father O' Donnell enough. He is wise and learned, to be sure... but more importantly, he is a man who is at peace, resting in the self-knowledge that comes about from knowing Him intimately and from walking in His light. He inspires his students to follow in his footsteps.

      I mull over these thoughts as I sit before the computer, grateful for the fact that I am alive... to think, to feel, to love. Though in pain, I acknowledge that it is by His grace that I am able to breathe at all, and I pray that he makes me well enough to continue teaching tomorrow.