Lecture 5
Catholic Anthropology and Catholic Education

At the core of Catholicism lies the incarnation through which the Divine in the person of Christ took on human nature and thereby opened itself to the contingency and vulnerability of the human condition. This gives a unique perspective on the question of what it is to be human. At the same time, in answering this it is necessary to keep in sight the fact that we are also natural beings and this calls for an account which sees us as rooted in the world but oriented towards eternity. The effort to understand this calls for philosophical as well as religious thinking as it is exemplified in the continuingly relevant work of such great Catholic thinkers as Augustine and Aquinas. With some understanding of human nature the question arises of how to assist in its proper unfolding through the lives of individuals and communities and this brings us to the issue of education – not just to an account of Catholic education but to a Catholic understanding of education more generally.