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    The Teacher
    The Teacher
    The Teacher
    Ebook100 pages1 hour

    The Teacher

    By Thomas Aquinas

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    A good teacher will make the difference between learning by discovery and learning by instruction as narrow as possible. In other words he will assist his students in their learning so that their experience will seem to them a discovery. Some great teachers really have this gift. Their classes are so good that you‘re constantly finding out new things and getting excited about them. The challenge and the enthusiasm of learning are kept alive by the evident love that these men have for their subject. The teachers cannot but communicate to their students who come out of the classroom with a desire to learn more.
    The St. Thomas teacher’s role is that of a physician ministering to a man brought down by an infection. In many such cases, if the patient went unattended, his body would mobilize its restorative forces and eventually heal itself. The art of the teacher is like that of this internist, since all the teacher can hope to do is to strengthen the student’s resources and facilitate their exercise. The import of the analogy is clear enough whether it is medically accurate or not. Whenever true learning occurs, its principal cause is the learner himself. In St. Thomas’s terminology the teacher is called a secondary and instrumental cause ―helpful but not indispensable. He cannot transfer his own knowledge to the student but only help him achieve similar learning for himself.
    We see that we are far removed from the modern conception of teaching where the teacher exclusively relies on artificial means (workbooks and other devices) and slowly loses sight of his true function: to stimulate the living mind of the student, to guide the development of his intellect. The emphasis on "measuring" education with grades obtained through tests is partly a result of this false philosophy. Knowledge according to St. Thomas is a quality of the living mind and not a quantity of memorized information
    It is the teacher’s job to provide the student with a good understanding of the first principles of matters. He will also help the student to sharpen his skill in solving problems by explaining to him the basic process when the pupil has a difficulty, he will give him examples, comparisons, schemas etc….which will be so many "pointers" leading the pupil to grasp this or that particular truth. When you are in front of a wall too high for you to leap, you may need the assistance of someone to point out a ladder which you had not seen. The teacher’s art consists in employing language so skillfully that his student will go beyond the words to the realities they signify.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKKIEN Publ. Int.
    Release dateAug 16, 2013
    ISBN9788898473090
    The Teacher
    Author

    Thomas Aquinas

    Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. An immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, he is also known within the latter as the Doctor Angelicus, the Doctor Communis, and the Doctor Universalis.

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      Book preview

      The Teacher - Thomas Aquinas

      The Teacher

      Thomas Aquinas

      published in: 2013

      isbn:978-88-98473-09-0

      Digital Edition powered by BackTypo

      by Simplicissimus Book Farm

      The Teacher

      Table of contents

      Colophon

      The Teacher (english version)

      De Magistro (original text)

      Catecheses on St Thomas Aquinas by Pope Benedict XVI

      The Teacher (english version)

      Translated from the definitive Leonine text By Robert W. Mulligan S.J 1952

      ARTICLE I

      CAN A MAN OR ONLY GOD TEACH AND BE CALLED TEACHER?

      Difficulties:

      It seems that only God teaches and should be called a teacher, for 1. In St. Matthew (23:8) we read: One is your master; and just before that: Be not you called Rabbi. On this passage the Gloss comments: Lest you give divine honor to men, or usurp for your selves what belongs to God. Therefore, it seems that only God is a teacher, or teaches.

      2.  If a man teaches, he does so only through certain signs. For, even if one seems to teach by means of things, as, when asked what waking is, he walks, this is not sufficient to teach the one who asks, unless some sign be added, as Augustine proves. He does this by showing that there are many factors involved in the same action; hence, one will not know to what factor the demonstration was due, whether to the substance of the action or to some accident of it. Furthermore, one cannot come to a knowledge of things through a sign, for the knowledge of things is more excellent than the knowledge of signs, since the knowledge of signs is directed to knowledge of things as a means to an end. But the effect is not more excellent than its cause. Therefore, no one can impart knowledge of anything to another, and so cannot teach him.

      3.  If signs of certain things are proposed to someone by a man, the one to whom they are proposed either knows the things which the signs represent or he does not. If he knows the things, he is not taught them. But if he does not know them, he cannot know the meanings of the signs, since he does not know the things. For a man who does not know what a stone is cannot know what the word stone means. But if he does not know the meaning of the terms, he cannot learn any thing through the signs. Therefore, if a man does nothing else to teach than propose signs, it seems that one man cannot be taught by an other.

      4.  To teach is nothing else than to cause knowledge in another in some way. But our understanding is the subject of knowledge. Now, sensible signs, by which alone, it would seem, man can be taught, do not reach the intellective part, but affect the senses Only. Therefore, man cannot be taught by a man.

      5.  If the knowledge is caused by one person in another, the learner either had it already or he did not. If he did not have it already and it was caused in him by another, then one man creates knowledge in another, which is impossible. However, if he had it already, it was present either in complete actuality, and thus it cannot be caused, for what already exists does not come into being, or it was present seminally (secundum rationes seminales). But such seminal principles can not be actualized by any created power, but are implanted in nature by God alone, as Augustine says. So, it remains true that one man can in no way teach another.

      6.  Knowledge is an accident. But an accident does not change the subject in which it inheres. Therefore, since teaching seems to be nothing else but the transfer of knowledge from teacher to pupil, one cannot teach another.

      7.  The Gloss, on Romans (10: 17), Faith then cometh by hearing, says: Although God teaches man interiorly, the preacher proclaims it exteriorly. But knowledge is caused interiorly in the mind, not exteriorly in the senses. Therefore, man is taught only by God, not by another man.

      8.  Augustine says: God alone, who teaches truth on earth, holds the teacher’s chair in heaven, but to this chair another man has the relation which a farmer has to a tree. But the farmer does not make the tree; he cultivates it. And by the same token no man can be said to teach knowledge, but only prepare the mind for it.

      9.  If man is a real teacher, he must teach the truth. But whoever teaches the truth enlightens the mind, for truth is the light of the mind. If, therefore, man does teach, he enlightens the mind. But this is false, for in the Gospel according to St. John (1:9) we see that it is God who enlightened every man that cometh into this world. There fore, one man cannot really teach another.

      10.  If one man teaches another, he must make a potential knower into an actual knower. Therefore, his knowledge must be raised from potency to act. But what is raised from potency to actuality must be changed. Therefore, knowledge or wisdom will be changed. How ever, this is contrary to Augustine, who says: In coming to a man, wisdom is not itself changed, but changes the man.

      11.  Knowledge is nothing else but the representation of things in the soul, since knowledge is called the assimilation of the knower to the thing known. But one man cannot imprint the likeness of things in the soul of another. For, thus, he would work interiorly in that man, which God alone can do. Therefore, one man cannot teach another.

      12.  Boethius says that teaching does no more than stimulate the mind to know. But he who stimulates the understanding to know does not make it know, just as one who incites someone to see will the eyes of the body does not make him see. Therefore, one man does not make another know. And so it cannot properly be said that he teaches him.

      13.  There is no scientific knowledge without certitude. Otherwise, it is not scientific knowledge but opinion or belief, as Augustine says. But one man cannot produce certitude in another by means of the sensible signs which he proposes. For that which is in the sense faculty is less direct than that which is in the understanding, while certainty is always effected by the more direct. Therefore, one man cannot teach another.

      14.  The intelligible light and a species are all that are needed for knowledge. But neither of these can be caused in one man by an other. For it would be necessary for a man to create something, since it seems that simple forms like these can be produced only by creation. Therefore, one man cannot cause knowledge in another and, so, cannot teach.

      15.  As Augustine says, nothing except God alone can give the mind of man its form. But knowledge is a form of the mind. Therefore, only God can cause knowledge in the soul.

      16.  Just as guilt is in the mind, so is ignorance. But only God cleanses the mind of guilt, according to Isaias (43:25): I am he that blots out thy iniquities for my own sake. Therefore, God alone cleanses the mind of ignorance. And, so, only God teaches.

      17.  Since science is certain knowledge, one receives science from him whose words give him certainty. However, hearing a man speak does not give anyone certainty. Otherwise, anything that

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