A former St. Thomas University professor will be on campus today to talk about how to balance religion and liberal arts study, a controversial subject at STU, a traditionally Catholic university.
Presented by the UNB/STU Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Eli Diamond will speak at the Ted Daigle Auditorium in Edmund Casey Hall from 7-9 p.m.
Diamond, who now teaches Ancient Greek philosophy and Greek at Dalhousie University, worked about three years ago at STU, teaching medieval philosophy classes.
While here, he experienced classrooms with a combination of devoted-Catholic and convinced-atheist students.
“Needing to make the class worthwhile and compelling to both perspectives, I thought about this question a lot, because I was teaching always explicitly theological topics,” said Diamond.
He said every department at a liberal arts university such as STU has its own assumptions and methods about things, but the one thing each department has in common is a separation from religious faith.
In his talk tonight, Diamond wants to ask how a religious person should relate to these studies which seem to have no reference to God or revealed truth and how students’ faith should be brought into their studies.
“I got the sense when I was [at STU] that there is certainly a real lively diversity of views on this. There are some faculty and students who are more attracted to St. Thomas because of its Catholic character and are committed to promoting that side of identity.
“And then there are people who are working [at STU] just because it’s a great liberal arts institution and don’t have any particular attachment to the Catholic side of it.”
According to Diamond, STU’s Catholic character has not only influenced his approach to the talk, but also his choice of sources.
“I just don’t want to think about the Canadian, 21st-century university. I am going back in thinking [about] the way in which the relation between religion and academic study have been related in some points of history.”
He wants to talk about the reflections of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor.
Taylor, a Catholic, worked on non-theological philosophical topics his whole life. Towards the end of his career, Diamond said, Taylor started talking about the ways in which his Catholic faith has informed all his philosophical activity.
“He says, ‘I never could have said any of this explicitly during my career, because philosophy is a discipline that requires non-religious arguments. This is how I formulated all my intellectual work and it’s not that I wasn’t thinking about this in relation to my religious beliefs,’” said Diamond.
Diamond will also talk about the book The Idea of University by Bishop Newman.
“It is a wonderful book which is just full of very important things to say upon all these topics.
“I would like to talk a bit about the structure of the medieval university and the relationship between faculty of the arts and the faculty of theology.”
When balancing Catholic tradition with liberal arts study, Diamond said Catholic tradition is deeply supported by the careful study of the humanities and liberal arts more generally.
Active religious organizations and discussions out of class help students connect their religion and study, he said. He would love if his talk would raise questions about the debate that might be going on on campus.
“Someone who cares about [religious] beliefs and about what they are learning is going to be making links between the truths that they believe and the truths that they are learning in class.”
