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Integral Humanism and the Integrity of Education1

Anthony A. AkinwalePresident and

Professor of Theology and Thomistic StudiesDominican Institute

Ibadan

AbstractAfter an attempt to articulate an integral humanism, the paper makes use of what isarticulated. to describe what constitutes authentic development. By way of twosubmissions, it proposes a notion of education of the whole human person, a holisticeducation that can lead to the complete and positive transformation of the humanperson

I would like to state ab initio the presupposition that drives thisintervention. The identification and explication of my keyconcepts will facilitate the concretization of my intention.

There are three key concepts in the intervention, and theseare humanism, education and development. Humanism here is thepromotion and protection of the human person, of all that renderspossible the actualization of his potentials in the fulfillmentof his aspirations in every dimension of human existence. Thefact that what is sought is the fulfillment of the human being inhis whole existence in what informs the usage of “integral” toqualify the humanism being proposed here.

The integrity of education will need to be safeguarded ifthis holistic fulfillment is to be attained, that is, if thehuman being is to have the slightest possibility of actualizinghis potentials and fulfilling his aspirations in every dimensionof human existence. The integrity of education is the protection

1 An earlier version of this paper was read at International Conferenceon Education organized by the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy,Washington, DC and the University of Lagos, April 19-22, 2010.

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and promotion of all the provinces of knowledge, as opposed to apolicy of education that promotes one of its provinces, to thedetriment of other provinces. The integrity of education isrespected when no sector of the universe of knowledge that auniversity is is excluded from the academia.

Authentic development is development of a polity in thedevelopment of the human beings who constitute its population.It is attained where human beings actualize their potentials andfulfill their aspirations, that is, where integral humanism isprotected and promoted, and where the protection and promotion ofintegral humanism inspires an education whose integrity isjealously guarded. In other words, respect and promote theintegrity of man and the integrity of education and what you haveis authentic development.

What has just been said informs the presupposition thatoccupies the driver’s seat in this journey of ideas that I hopethis lecture is. The thesis guiding my intervention is thatauthentic development requires an adequate philosophy of thenature and function of education, and an adequate philosophy ofeducation in turn requires an adequate philosophical account ofwhat it means to be human. It is my submission that our attemptsat development have so far ended in futility because of aninadequate philosophy of education, and our inadequate philosophyof education is itself rooted in the quicksand of inadequatephilosophical account of the human condition. In other words, weremain undeveloped because we have failed to understand humannature. As the dialogue in Plato’s Republic amply demonstrates,dialogue on the state of the human being and dialogue on thestate of the society are inter-related and inseparable. The twoshed light on each other.

In the history of the human family, development has almostalways been conceived exclusively in terms of economic indices.From the point of view of economic indices, development is the

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eradication, or at least substantial reduction, of materialpoverty. It takes place where there is maximization of pleasureand social benefits, where such maximization of pleasure andsocial benefits is itself a product of maximization of economicprofit, and where economic profit procures and is procured by themaximization of political power in military supremacy and ordiplomatic clout. Development, from the exclusively economicperspective, has always been seen as the maximization of powerfor the sake of maximization of profit, and the maximization ofprofit for the maximization of power. We are dealing here with aconception of development that flows from the fact that agendafor development has almost exclusively been left in the hands ofeconomists, politicians and military strategists. Merchants insearch of commodities alert and enter into alliance withpoliticians who deploy the military strength and strategy attheir disposal to invade and conquer peoples in whose lands suchcommodities are found. It is a dangerous deployment of theentire arsenal of concupiscible and irascible appetitesdisconnected from the authority of well-enlightened reason.

To be deduced from this logic of development is the factthat Nigeria prominently features on the list of undevelopedcountries because, as is the case with many a country of the two-third world, her indices of economic poverty are many and well-documented. The collapse and or absence of infrastructure, theastronomically rising number of talented and intelligent butunemployed citizens, ignorance and disease in a land inhabitedby citizens of unactualized potentials, to mention but these,would make Nigeria eminently qualified to be in the league ofundeveloped countries..

The gravity of poverty in our world makes it tempting forrich and poor nations, and for many an expert on the economy toassume, often without sufficient scrutiny of the assumption, thatthe economy holds the key to authentic development, and

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maximization of material prosperity is the alpha and omega ofhuman fulfillment. Development so conceived is the availabilityof more money, abundance and consumption of more and more goods,invention of machines and tools of increasing sophistication andefficiency, infrastructure of breath-taking beauty, etc. And,since the notion of development tends to influence, if notdetermine, philosophy of education, education is itself reducedto science and technology, the acquisition of techniques ofinvention of gadgets, and the skillful plotting of strategies formaking profit. But economic growth is only one aspect of humanexistence, one set of operations among others sets of operationsto be deployed for the attainment of the best way to live. Ourpersonal and collective fulfillment would be jeopardized if andwhen development is conceptually and practically reduced toeconomic growth.

In a consumerist society, unrestrained acquisitive instinctgives rise to an insatiable desire for material goods, and, in anattempt to satisfy this insatiable appetite, the human persondegenerates into a power addict who spends his time, talents andenergy scheming for greater personal power and perpetualmaximization of profit at the expense of other human persons.Pope Paul VI, in his landmark Encyclical Letter on theDevelopment of Peoples, Populorum Progressio, already counseledagainst this tendency when he proposed that authentic developmentbe seen as the orientation of the whole person to the Creator.2

“Just as the whole of creation is ordered toward the Creator, sotoo the rational creature should of his own accord direct hislife to God, the first truth and the highest good” (PopulorumProgressio, n. 16).

These preceding remarks inform the three moments in thisintervention. Taking my cue from the wisdom of Populorum

2 Paul VI, Populorum Progressio. Encyclical Letter on the Development ofPeoples (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, March 26, 1967).

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Progressio, according to which authentic development is centred onthe human person orientated to God, I shall, in the first moment,attempt to articulate what makes us human. In the second moment,I shall use this articulation of what makes us human to describewhat constitutes authentic development. And, in the thirdmoment, I shall, by way of two submissions, propose a notion ofeducation of the whole human person, a holistic education thatcan lead to the complete positive transformation of the humanperson.

Four Dimensions of Human Existence

Our humanity is to be recognized in four characteristics thatbelong to the human nature, traits that distinguish the humanperson from lower creatures. Each of these characteristicsrepresents a fundamental orientation in the human person, thatis, what the human person naturally desires and what the humanperson has the potential to attain. Taking my inspiration fromthe Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan, I shallidentify these traits as the yearning for truth, the yearning forgood, the yearning for God, and the yearning for love.

First, to be human is to search for and to be able to knowthe truth. The intellective faculty with which the Creator hasendowed human beings is made for the acquisition of truth. Asign of this is in the fact that even the one who tells lies doesnot like to be deceived by others.

Secondly, to be human is to yearn for and to attain thegood. The Creator has given every human being a will whosenatural movement is to whatever is perceived to be good. Thetruth and the good which human beings naturally desire and whichhuman beings are able to attain are beyond what is found intransient and finite realities. The restless human spirit has an

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infinite desire for the infinite. No sooner is one desiresatisfied than the human being desires more. The finite,oftentimes without acknowledging it, seeks fulfillment in theinfinite.

Thirdly, while theologians readily admit it and somephilosophers readily deny it, there is, in that desire for andopenness to the infinite in the human person, a natural desirefor God. In other words, at the root of the human quest for theinfinitely true and the infinitely good is a more profoundyearning, the yearning for Infinite Being, the yearning for God.The restlessness of the human spirit testifies to an infinitedesire for the infinite that is in man, and this infinite desirefor the infinite that animates man in turn bears testimony to adesire for God, whom Martin Buber refers to as the Divine Thou,encountered in the human Thou. A true encounter with the humanThou is the medium for a real encounter with the divine Thou.3

In the natural desire for friendship, in the natural desire tolove and be loved, is a desire for infinite love. The humandissatisfaction with all his love manifests a desire for Lovethat transcends all loves.

This natural desire for love and friendship is the fourthfundamental characteristic of our human nature. Therefore, uponreflection on what it is to be human, it becomes obvious thatthere are, to the human person, intellectual, moral, technicaland spiritual dimensions. How these four dimensions help toshape a notion of authentic development and a correspondingnotion of education is what I shall now try to explain.

3 “Every particular Thou is a glimpse through to the eternal Thou; bymeans of every particular Thou the primary word addresses the eternal Thou.Through the mediation of the Thou of all beings fulfillment, and non-fulfillment, of relations comes to them: the inborn Thou is realized in eachrelation and consummated in none. It is consummated only in the directrelation with the Thou that by its nature cannot become It [Martin Buber, I andThou (New York: Collier/Macmillan, 1958) 75].

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Authentic Development

Authentic development is actualization of the potentials andfulfillment of the desires of the human person in each of thefour dimensions I have identified. But I must issue a caveathere. We have infinite desires, but we only have finite means.Thus, in the intellectual dimension, the human person is animatedby an infinite desire to know the truth and has the potential toknow the truth. But his intellective faculty is finite andlimited. Nonetheless, intellectual development is thefulfillment of the human desire to know the truth in theactualization of the human potential to know the truth.

In the moral dimension, the human person is encountered as abeing who is animated by a desire for infinite goodness and whocan be an agent—albeit limited and finite agent—of goodness tohimself and others. Here, moral development is the fulfillmentof the natural desire for goodness in the actualization of thehuman capacity to do good.

In the technical dimension, the human person manifestshimself as a being who desires fulfillment in working and who canfind fulfillment in working. Here, technical development, orwhat we call today scientific and technological development isthe fulfillment of the human person in the actualization of hiscapacity for work. Again, while his desire is for the infinite,his capacity if limited, his work imperfect.

And in the spiritual dimension of human existence, the humanbeing shows himself as a being who—some might argue against this—desires God, and who is capable of knowing God, even though hisknowledge of God is imperfect. Here, spiritual development isthe fulfillment of the natural desire for God in theactualization of the human capacity to know and love God.

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Given these dimensions, it would amount to a monstrousmisconception of the human person if his fulfillment were simplyto be reduced to the good of the market in the achievement ofscience and technology. That is the illusion of fulfillment ineconomic progress. Authentic development includes but is notlimited to economic, scientific and technological development.To avoid the abyss of science without conscience, the developmentof the whole person must be seen as technical, moral,intellectual and spiritual.

Economic, scientific and technological development must befounded in the fulfillment of the natural yearning for the truth,that is, intellectual development; in the fulfillment of thenatural yearning for the good, that is, moral development; and inthe fulfillment of the natural yearning for God, that is, inspiritual development. The good is that which everyone desires.Authentic development is about the attainment, not just of thegood of the market, but the attainment of the good of the moralorder, the good of the intellectual order, and the good of thespiritual order. Anything short of this leads to the formationof fragmented individuals, schizophrenic victims of arresteddevelopment. And, since the good is that which everyone desires,it is the universal desire for the good that drives the quest fordevelopment. But the highest good is God. Therefore,development, understood theologically, is, in the final analysis,a desire for God. To use the economy as the ultimate index ofdevelopment is to ignore or deny the fact that human nature iscapax Dei. And the God that we are capable of knowing is met inour common life, in our inter-personal relationships when theyare marked with a constant orientation to rectitude. For asLonergan said:

There is still a further dimension to being human, and therewe emerge as persons, meet one another in a common concern

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for values, seek to abolish the organization of human livingon the basis of competing egoisms and to replace it by anorganization on the basis of man’s perceptiveness andintelligence, his reasonableness, and his responsibleexercise of freedom.4

This vision of authentic development is sustained by aphilosophical and theological anthropology, an understanding ofhuman nature inspired by divine revelation intelligentlyreceived, or rather, an account of human nature informed by faithand reason. This theological understanding of what it means to behuman is formed by the conviction contained in the Biblicalsaying that no human being lives on bread alone, but on everyword that comes from the mouth of God (Mt 4:4). Inseparable fromthis is the anthropological conviction that the human personcounts more than economic prosperity. In concrete terms, whatmakes us human is not just the fact that we desire and canprocure and possess in abundance what to eat and drink. Authentichuman existence is not just a matter of satisfaction. It is,ultimately, a matter of values.

When economic gains are prioritized over human dignity thatis when the world is ordered as if the human person existed forthe economy and for the state, and not the other way round.Communism treated the human person as if the state created thehuman person, as if he were a creature made by the state for thestate. For its part, heartless capitalism, driven by marketforces, operated as if the human person were nothing but acreature made by the market for the market, with his lifegoverned ineluctably by market forces. But the human being isneither a tool in the hands of the businessman or woman seekingto maximize profit, nor a tool in the hands of the politician whoseeks to maximize power, nor a tool in the hands of the hedonist

4 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972).

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who seeks to maximize pleasure. Integral humanism postulatesthat the dignity of the human person has primacy over politicsand the economy. Politics and the economy must be organized bythe human person and for the human person, not the other wayround, to avoid what personalist philosopher, Karol Wojtyla (JohnPaul II) describes as “la chosification de l’être humain” (thereification of the human being).

The search for authentic development highlights the need fora new humanism, that is, for a new understanding of what it is tobe human that respects and promotes the dignity of the humanperson by the fact that it tells the truth about the humanperson. And it tells the truth about the human person because itrespects, reflects and promotes the supernatural destiny of thesame human person. By virtue of this transcendental humanism,authentic development is the human response to the call to ahigher state of perfection, “a new fullness of life” which isbeyond the mere satisfaction of material wants and needs(Populorum Progressio, n. 16). Implicit in this theologicalanthropology is the understanding that the human person isgreater than what he produces, purchases, possesses, andconsumes. For a human being who is described solely in terms ofproduction, possession and consumption is nothing but a mobilebundle of sensations, a being whose life is exclusively dominatedby sensual desires and aversions of his own and of others.

Education and Authentic Development

The role of education in a nation, of universities and degree-awarding institutions in particular, can never be quantified.Education is the engine room of authentic development and theincubator for national integration. That university education inNigeria is going through turbulence is what Nigerians do not fail

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to admit. The solution includes but lies beyond the provision ofadequate infrastructure, and a curriculum that matches at thepace of national and global realities implemented by a competentprofessorial corps.

Authentic development is attained when education is inspiredby and leads to the respect and promotion of the values ofauthentic humanism. The role of education is to assist the humanperson to assume personal responsibility for authenticdevelopment by cultivating aptitudes and abilities alreadypresent in an embryonic stage in the human person at birth.Authentic education develops the human person along thedimensions I have outlined, bearing in mind that a society is anaggregate of persons, and a truly developed society is anaggregate of persons of fulfilled aspirations and actualizedpotentials in the four dimensions of human existence. Ifdevelopment of the whole person must be seen, not just aseconomic growth nourished by technological development, but alsoas intellectual, moral, and, even more fundamentally, spiritual,an education that seeks a complete and positive transformation ofthe human person must take these dimensions seriously.

In education so conceived, intellectual formation would benecessary but of itself insufficient; moral or characterformation would be necessary but of itself insufficient,technical formation would be necessary but of itselfinsufficient, and spiritual formation would be necessary but ofitself insufficient. The type of education I have in mind standson three legs: intellectual formation or formation of the mind,moral formation or formation of the character, technicalformation or formation of the hands. It is a tripodal notion ofeducation, and we must bear in mind here that whatever isdesigned to stand on three legs will be tripped over if any oneof the legs is broken. Furthermore, these three legs ofeducation must stand on the ground of spiritual formation. In

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other words, without spiritual formation, education has nofoundation. Agents of formal education assist the individual toactualize potentials for self-fulfillment the attainment of whichis integral to authentic development.

Nigeria’s education policy does not hide its bias fortechnological education. Its marginalization of humanities isnot latent but patent. It is seen in the admission ratio of60:40 in favour of science and technology, in the establishmentof more federal and state polytechnics across the length andbreadth of Nigeria. In the 1970s, it was presumed that Nigeriawould develop if technology advanced. But four decades later,neither technological advancement nor authentic development canbe attributed to Nigeria. The problem being highlighted here isnot the promotion of technological education but the presumptionthat technological education held the key to economic growth, andthat authentic development was equal to economic growth. It hasled to a marginalization of the humanities which is a violationof the integrity of education, of university education inparticular. For, as John Newman wrote, a university is auniverse of knowledge where no province of knowledge is subjectto restriction, isolation or marginalization.5 For him, toremove or marginalize religion and the humanities is to reduceeducation to the acquisition of techniques of production. It isto remove the dimension of meaning from human existence. Forwhile science without religion can dehumanize, and art withoutreligion can demoralize, it can, and must also be said thatreligion without science is superstitious, and without artimpersonal. Religion becomes sacralism, a toxic substance and apublic nuisance, when it is separated from the sphere of thetedious task of tidy thinking.

5 Read John Newman, The Idea of a University (Notre Dame, IN: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1960).

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The tragedy of undevelopment in Nigeria, our land ofenormous but unfulfilled potentials populated by men and women ofinnumerable and exquisite talents, is in fact the tragedy of amonstrous misconception of what it means to be human, of whatdevelopment is, and of what education is. It is the tragedy of adevelopmental anemia whose proximate cause is the violation ofthe integrity of education, and whose ultimate cause isanthropological impoverishment (pauperisation anthropologique), toborrow the words of late Cameroonian philosopher Englebert Mveng.Not knowing what it means to be human, which is what thehumanities teach us, we resort to the morality of the junglemanifest in a system of government that dishonours and disablesthe people it ought to enable in the first instance. Ours is aland of diversities—ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc. But wehardly dialogue because we are yet to take the humanity of othersseriously. We cannot take the humanity of others seriouslybecause, in the first instance, we have not taken our ownhumanity seriously. We cannot attain national integration when,in our multi-ethnic society, we do not take the humanitiesseriously. When we do not take our humanity seriously we resortto acts of incivility. In every department of common life, ourattitude of deceit, of command and control, our bullying andintimidating conduct, these make due process unattractive. Whyshould I queue if I can push my way through? Why should I waitfor traffic to clear before I enter the road? It is the attitudeand conduct found among the leaders and the led.

The marginalization of the humanities in our system ofeducation violates the integrity of education and has led tountold consequences for the human person and the society.History is the memory of a people. Without it, they are likecomputers without memory. When the teaching of history isconsidered less important in our schools that is when citizensare formed who neither can enter into the network of

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relationships that human existence is, nor act collaborativelyand responsibly in the task of working for the common good.Neglect of the study of literature breeds a generation of humanbeings who are violent and vulgar in their use of language. Theneglect of the arts has dulled our collective sense of beauty,and it is manifest in pervasive urban decay in Nigeria, thecontinuous deterioration of our cities into unplanned and over-populated junkyards. Beauty has deserted our cities because wehave banished her from our souls by marginalizing art. The spiritof Boko Haram is not just among us, it is also within us.

We do need more security. There is no doubt about that.But where there is no virtue there is no security. Technicaleducation must coexist with ethical education. But techniques donot teach virtue because they do not teach morality. Technologyteaches the student how to accomplish what is possible, not howto differentiate what is right from what is wrong. That is whateducation has become in Nigeria. That is the result of over-regulation of the education sector by government. Recentexperiences point to the sad fact that things have not changed.Government and its agencies still pretend to monopolize knowledgeon how schools are to be run.

Our policy makers have prioritized education in science andtechnology to the detriment of studies in humanities because weare in a hurry to meet up with the rest of the world when itcomes to technology. The problem, however, is that techniquewithout virtue is another name for science without conscience.It breeds individuals who can operate machines but who cannotrelate with others. Such is the consequence when what ought tobe a joint effort of all who are concerned becomes theprerogative of officials in a gigantic bureaucracy that stiflesinitiatives. Policies are meant to serve the people. The peopleare not to be subservient to policies. But that is the dream ofliving in a free country, not in an empire that masquerades

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itself as a federal republic. Nigeria de-emphasizes the study ofphilosophy, history, arts, theology, because she wants to catchup with leaders of the computer age and race. She ends upbreeding Yahoo boys and girls in the cyber world, cultists oncampuses, thugs in legislative and executive chambers ofgovernment, quack pastors in hallowed places of venerablereligions, terrorists in her cities.

In Nigeria, we are locked up in our homes, in our cities,because of fear of armed robbers. In fact, to protect ourselvesfrom robbers we live behind bars. We all are locked up in a landbedeviled by lifelong insecurity because our system of education—inspired by and at the service of a reductionist notion ofdevelopment—is more concerned with machines (science andtechnology) than with the human beings who are to be served bythe machines (humanities).

With these considerations, I affirm, by way of a firstsubmission, that: for the complete transformation of the humanperson, we need a philosophy of education that stands on threelegs—intellectual formation, character or moral formation andtechnical formation, and this tripod must be rooted in spiritualformation.

But there is a second submission I need to make. It borderson the need to give metaphysics its rightful place in ourphilosophy of education if the very ground on which educationought to stand would not undergo an erosion.

The denial of the spiritual dimension of the human person isthe erosion of the ground on which education ought to stand. Itmakes for an inadequate account of what it is to be human, thatis, an inadequate philosophical vision of human existence. Suchinadequate philosophical anthropology gives rise to an inadequatephilosophy of education. If we do not know what it is to behuman we cannot know what type of education befits the humanperson, and, an inadequate philosophy of education, even when

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devoutly implemented, cannot facilitate authentic development.Authentic development is centred on the human person. An adequateunderstanding of what it is to be human is a necessaryprerequisite for a philosophy that protects and promotes theintegrity of education capable of fostering authenticdevelopment.

The well-publicized advance, the many laudable achievementsand impressive inventions of science and technology have inspiredsome to marginalize metaphysics and any religion that lays anyclaim to the metaphysical. Yet, the African mindset has refusedto ignore the metaphysical, and even many African products ofwestern education continue to believe in the metaphysical. Ourenterprise in the field of education would be ill-served by anyattitude that dismisses or marginalizes religion. The Africanalways manages to find his or her way back to metaphysics. Thiscalls for a rethinking of what metaphysics is.

Bernard Lonergan would speak of metaphysics as “thedepartment of knowledge that underlies, penetrates, transforms,and unifies all other departments.”6 Metaphysics underlies allother departments of knowledge for two reasons. First, becauseits principles are “the detached and disinterested drive of thepure desire to know” that is in every human being. Secondly,because it manifests this drive of pure desire to know in “itsunfolding in the empirical, intellectual, and rationalconsciousness of the self-affirming subject”. It penetrates allother departments because the constitutive principles of otherdepartments are the same principles as metaphysics. Ittransforms all other departments because human consciousness ispolymorphic and because it corrects the bias of common sense from

6 Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. Collected Works ofBernard Lonergan, no. 3 Eds. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran (Toronto:Lonergan Research Institute of Regis College, 1992), 415.

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which even science is not insulated.7 Metaphysics unifies allother departments of knowledge because, whereas other departmentsaddress particular ranges of questions, metaphysics addresses thequestion at the origin of all questions, that is, the question ofbeing, which is the total question. It seeks the total answer by“transforming and putting together all other answers”. Thismakes metaphysics “the whole in knowledge but not the whole ofknowledge”.8

The human being has a pure desire to know which unfolds inthe empirical, intellectual, and rational self-consciousness ofthe self-affirming subject. An anti-metaphysical philosophy ofeducation, in its attendant affirmation of the empirical as solecriterion of knowledge, as paradigm of authentic cognition, is arestriction of this pure desire, an incarceration of the knowing

7 “Common sense is subject to a dramatic bias, an egotistic bias, agroup bias, and a general bias that disregards the complex theoretical issuesin which it becomes involved and their long-term consequences from which itblindly suffers. Scientists are not just scientists but also men of commonsense; they share its bias insofar as their specialty does not correct it; andinsofar as their specialty runs counter to the bias of common sense, they findthemselves divided and at a loss for a coherent view of the world.Metaphysics springs from the pure desire to know; it is free from therestrictions of particular viewpoints; it distinguishes positions fromcounterpositions in the whole of knowledge; it is a transforming principlethat urges positions to fuller developments and, by reversingcounterpositions, liberates discoveries from the shackles in which at firstthey were formulated” (Bernard Lonergan, Insight, 415).

That our pure and unrestricted desire to know does not translate intothe empiricist claim of pure objectivity is the argument of Jürgen Habermas inhis Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971). “The concept of‘interest’ is not meant to imply a naturalistic reduction of transcendental-logical properties to empirical ones. Indeed, it is meant to prevent just sucha reduction….Knowledge-constitutive interests can be defined exclusively as afunction of the objectively constituted problems of the preservation of lifethat have been solved by the cultural form of existence as such” (196).

8 “A whole is not without its parts, nor independent of them, noridentical with them. So it is that while the principle of metaphysics areprior to all other knowledge, still the attainment of metaphysics is thekeystone that rests upon the other parts and presses them together in theunity of the whole” (Bernard Lonergan, Insight, 416).

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subject within the prison walls of sensation. Contrary to thepropagated misconception and popularized practice of religion asthat which imprisons the mind, it is actually religion rightlyconceived and rightly practiced within the framework of a well-understood metaphysics that liberates us and allows us toactualize our transcendentality, that is, our infinite desire forthe infinite. The pure desire to know is the infinite opennessto the infinite in the human quest for what is true, for what isgood, for fullness of life in the experience of loving and beingloved.

Any talk of metaphysics no doubt raises the question of thepossibility of knowing what lies beyond the empiricallyobservable, beyond what activates the senses in human experience.Lonergan addresses this question by clarifying what metaphysicsis. And this clarification comes by way of introducing thenotion of proportionate being. By proportionate being he means“whatever is to be known by intelligent grasp and reasonableaffirmation”. Proportionate being is “whatever is to be known byhuman experience, intelligent grasp, and reasonable affirmation”.This prepares the way for him to speak of explicit metaphysics as“the conception, affirmation, and implementation of the integralheuristic structure of proportionate being”.9

According to Lonergan,

Prior to the understanding that issues in answers, there arethe questions that anticipate answers…..such anticipationmay be employed systematically in the determination ofanswers that as yet are unknown; for while the content offuture cognitional act is unknown, the generalcharacteristics of the act itself not only can be known butalso can supply a premise that leads to the act. Aheuristic notion, then, is the notion of an unknown, and it9 Bernard Lonergan, Insight, 416.

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is determined by anticipating the type of act through whichthe unknown would become known. A heuristic structure is anordered set of heuristic notions. Finally, an integralheuristic structure is the ordered set of all heuristicnotions.10

The issue then is not what empiricism denies, that is, thepossibility of knowing what lies beyond human experience, but howthe human person knows whatever is to be known by humanexperience, intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation. Thereis metaphysics because, in the pure desire to know found in everyhuman being, questions are raised; questions anticipate answersthat as yet are unknown; and an ordered set of notions of unknownconstitute a heuristic structure. Metaphysics is the integralheuristic structure of whatever is to be known by humanexperience, intelligent grasp, and reasonable affirmation. Now,if metaphysics so explained is vital to the process of knowing,it cannot be excluded from our notion of education.

But education today is seen as transference of or directionto knowledge, and knowledge is defined, using the paradigm ofmathematical sciences, as that which is quantitative andtangible. Consequently, there appears to be no place formetaphysics in such a picture, because metaphysics is seen to beunrelated to the quantitative and tangible. But this needs notbe so. For, in fact, as Lonergan explains, metaphysics andmathematics are not strange bedfellows. They are corollaries.

if metaphysics cannot reproduce the sensed as sensed, it canuphold sensible quality only by assigning some correspondingintelligibility. But mathematical science already offers acorresponding intelligibility, and though the materials ofmathematical intelligibility are quantitative or, more10 Bernard Lonergan, Insight, 417.

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accurately, ordinable, mathematical intelligibility is notitself quantitative.11

Metaphysics so conceived organizes knowledge by providing lawsthat guide the cognitional process.

The detached and disinterested desire to know and itsunfolding in inquiry and reflection not only constitute anotion of being but also impose a normative structure uponman’s cognitional acts.12

This brings me to my second and final submission in thispaper. It is this: instead of the suspicion of metaphysics thatcharacterizes philosophy of education in our time, safeguardingthe integrity of education for the sake of the whole person makesit attractive, if not imperative, to, at least, take metaphysicsseriously as that which imposes a structure on our cognitionalacts. This will ensure that our education stands on three legsand that the legs are firmly rooted in the transcendentality thatcharacterizes our humanity, that is, in our infinite openness tothe infinite.

Conclusion: Vision of the Proposed Dominican University Ibadan

This intervention may be described as a long introduction to thevision and inspiration of the proposed Dominican UniversityIbadan. I have already acknowledged my indebtedness to Paul VI’sPopulorum Progressio. But Populorum Progressio—this fact often goesunacknowledged—is itself indebted to a Dominican intellectualtradition, a tradition that goes all the way to Dominic de Guzman

11 Bernard Lonergan, Insight, 420.12 Bernard Lonergan, Insight, 420

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passing through its articulation in the works of ThomasAquinas.13 And there is a conceptual symphony between thistradition and a practical wisdom emanating from the traditionalway of life in Africa. Think of the African traditional cookingstove made of three stones, and think of the Dominican life ofprayer and study, and you have the vision of the DominicanUniversity Ibadan.

It is a vision of education standing on three feet. Thesethree are intellectual formation or formation for truth, moralformation or formation for the good, and technical formation orformation for good work. And the three feet stand on the groundof spiritual formation. These correspond to the Dominicantradition of uniting the quest for spiritual formation and thequest for intellectual formation, the union of the quest for Godin the quest for truth with the quest for truth in the quest forGod. It is a quest for God and a quest for good in the quest forpersonal self-realisation in communal self-realisation. Herethen is a concrete expression of the Dominican tradition ofprayer and study. It is the cultivation of spiritual andintellectual life which will express itself in a well-cultivatedmoral life placed at the service of the common good.

Dominic saw the decadence in the Europe of his time andfounded an Order with a mission to transform not only the Church,but also the society. The mission was to be carried out byfriars who would cultivate their spiritual life and theirintellectual life in community. He formed communities of friarswhose engagement with the Church and society would be constantlynourished by a desire for God and a desire for truth for the goodof the Church, the academia and the society. Corresponding to

13 It is a well-known fact that the principal redactor of thisencyclical was French Dominican Father J. Lebret. See his Dynamique concrete dudevloppement (Paris: Economie et Humanisme, Les Editions Ouvrieres, 1961).

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this double desire, he left his friars with a legacy of prayerand study.

After him came his disciple, Thomas Aquinas, whoseintellectual contribution and achievement especially in theUniversity of Paris is well-known. It is to the credit ofAquinas that he elaborated a philosophy and theology capable offorming the human person in his or her spiritual, intellectual,moral and technical dimensions. This is where the vision of theDominican University belongs. Recalling and considering PaulVI’s statement that development of peoples is another name forpeace, the Dominican University intends to form men and women ofactualised potentials and fulfilled aspirations. For, after allsaid and done, a developed polity is an aggregate of men andwomen of actualised potentials and fulfilled aspirations not inone but in all dimensions of human existence.

If all that has been said so far explains the vision, one ispermitted to ask: first, what justifies this vision? Secondly,does such a vision have any room for someone who does not belongto the religious tradition that inspires it? In other words, ina university so envisioned, for instance, will there be room forthose who have other religious convictions? Or, in furtherwords, must one be Catholic before he or she can be admitted andblossom as a member of the academic community of this University?

The second concern is perhaps greater than the first. InNigeria, religion is present in the public square. Nigerianslove religion. But they are also afraid of religion. Religion isseen as divisive, superstitious, and therefore to be consigned tothe closet. However, practical wisdom teaches us that whilereligion cannot be banished, it can and must be managed. Thatthis must be one of the goals of education in Nigeria is a pointI have insisted on in making a case for the spiritual dimensionof education. Religion can neither be ignored nor wished away.For while people may dispense with going to the Church or Mosque

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or the Synagogue or a Shrine, even those who would not frequentsuch places cannot and do not dispense with religion. Every humanbeing practices a religion in so far as every human being haswhat Paul Tillich calls an ultimate concern. To every humanbeing something is unconditionally sacred. It may be the God ofthe Judeo-Christian tradition, Allah in the religion of Islam.Or, as is the case in western societies, it may be civil rights,the Constitution, the flag etc. The problem is not religion butthe separation of religion from the noetic sphere, and itsconsignment to a sphere where religion and the good use of theintellect walk on either side of a street without exchangingglances. Reason dictates that I respect the religiousconvictions of my fellow citizen as that which is integral to hisor her dignity as long as such convictions are not inimical tothe common good. Reason also dictates that I practice myreligion without violating the rights of others. And in so faras a school is a place of rational inquiry and discourse, auniversity is a place of intelligent management of diversity ofall kinds—intellectual, ethnic, racial, gender. And one of thediversities to be managed is religious. What is being describedhere transcends tolerance of diversity. In today’s globalvillage, a school must be a place to learn to practice religionwithout descending into incivility. Reason obliges respect forfreedom and thus dictates that religious convictions must neitherbe used to repress nor be repressed.14

14 “The value of freedom, as an expression of the singularity of eachhuman person, is respected when every member of society is permitted tofulfill his personal vocation; to seek the truth and profess his religious,cultural and political ideas, to express his opinions, to choose his state oflife and, as far as possible, his line of work; to pursue initiatives of aneconomic, social or political nature. This must take place within a ‘strongjuridical framework, within limits imposed by the common good and publicorder, and, in every case, in a manner characterized by responsibility.

“On the other hand, freedom must also be expressed as the capacity torefuse what is morally negative, in whatever guise it may be presented, as thecapacity to distance oneself in view of the genuine good, within the context

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No one would deny that education in a Dominican universityis education in a Catholic environment. But studying in a faith-based environment does not compel one to share in the faith ofthose who established and administer the institution. Educationis not Catholic by the mere fact that it takes place within thefour walls of an institution named Catholic. Neither is theproduct Catholic simply because he or she has passed through aCatholic school. The product of such an education may neither bein full communion with the Catholic Church nor enter into fullcommunion with the Catholic Church. The idea of catholicity here,while not excluding that which is found in the catechism, has todo with wholeness (katholos). Catholic education does notnecessarily make its students “Catholic” in the sense ofreligious affiliation with the Catholic Church. Education iscatholic if and when it promotes integral humanism, that is, thedignity of the human person in his spiritual, intellectual, moraland technical dimensions. It takes such education to form menand women who will undertake the task of a common life lived inreconciliation, justice and peace.

The challenge of Catholic university education in the 21st

century is not just to form men and women who will be intelligentand cultural Catholics, men and women of Catholic intelligence.That challenge includes—and the very notion of catholicity makesthis imperative—respecting the religious liberty of peoples ofother faiths who study in our Catholic schools. Such are the menand women who will lead Nigeria, in her ethnic and religiousdiversity, from the insecurity of a state held together at gunpoint to the harmony of a veritable nation.

To the first concern, I shall respond by saying that thedevelopmental needs of the peoples of Africa will not be met

of the universal common good” [Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace,Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa,2004) 200/111]. Read also John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 17 and 42; and JohnXXIII, Pacem in Terris, 55.

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unless we formed men and women of spiritual, intellectual andmoral competence present and actively deploying their competencein every sphere of human endeavour in the search for common good.The development of Africa cannot be left in the hands oftechnocrats alone. For while technical competence is necessary,it is insufficient. Education today must include the acquisitionof technical competence at the same time as spiritual,intellectual and moral competence. The driver’s seat of Africa’svehicle for development must be occupied by those who desire thetruth, the good and efficiency.