Faith Seeking Understanding

With the dulcet sounds of Thursday night’s serenade still echoing in their ears, students on California’s one-week High School Summer Program arose this morning to a stark realization: Today is Friday, and the program is almost over!

Determined to make the most of their remaining time, they traipsed excitedly to St. Augustine Hall for the last day of classes. At the morning session, the high schoolers demonstrated Euclidean propositions 16, 29, and 32 from Book One of the Elements, which deal with triangles, parallel lines, and the elegant proof that the angles in a triangle are equal to two right angles. Most math students know that a triangle’s angles add up to 180 degrees, but proving this truth apart from any conventional numerical measurement is incredibly satisfying.

Most of attendees have by now had the opportunity to present at least one geometrical proposition for their peers, and they seem to have benefitted greatly from the experience. “With most modern geometry, it’s a lot of individual work: You just do your own thing and turn it in,” reflects student Gabe B. “But here, when you present in front of your class, you try to understand things together and you get their feedback right away.”

Following the midday Mass in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel and lunch in St. Joseph Commons, the students returned to St. Augustine’s for their last Summer Program class. While perhaps somewhat heavyhearted because this would be their last go at discussing the Great Books among their sections, the students were excited by the import of their undertaking: considering proofs for the existence of God.

To that lofty end, the classes examined two texts: French naturalist J. Henri Fabre’s detailed account of the workings of bees and St. Thomas Aquinas’s fifth proof for the existence of God, the argument from design. Students discussed how, in Fabre’s portrayal of the social economy of bees, every part — from the insects’ antennae, to their stomachs, to their cells — has a purpose. The beauty and complexity of this order, the classes found, contradicted the pre-Socratics’ presumption of a meaningless universe, while lending support to St. Thomas’s argument that the presence of a design requires a designer.

In the process, the students also got a glimpse of the beauty and complexity of the College’s integrated academic program, specifically how the various disciplines that they have studied — Mathematics, Natural Science, Philosophy, and Theology — work together to help us better understand Truth Himself, the Triune God for Whom we are made to know, love, and serve. In a small way, they experienced the meaning of the College’s motto, coined by St. Anselm: Faith Seeking Understanding.

Not bad for a week’s work! The students will celebrate this achievement tonight with a banquet, music, and much more. Come back for all the details (and photos!) tomorrow morning, here on the Summer Blog.