Santo Tomás de Aquino, Arquitecto de la vida universitaria. El profesional ideal en la paideia tomista.

Abstract

Precisely, the new issue of this collection presents us with "Thomas Aquinas, architect of university life. Abelardo Lobato, O.P. Interesting and entertaining article that, little by little, takes us by the hand in the understanding of the role played by the university, understood as the appropriate place for the development of man's humanity. Nothing human can be alien to the university, beginning with the concern for providing an integral formation to that very special being that is man, endowed with rational capacity and free will. The author offers in broad strokes a sketch of the ideal teacher in this conception of the Christian "paideia", presenting him as that great mediator and promoter of the human being, considered as a singular being, always perfectible, itinerant towards his fullness, a pilgrim in search of the absolute. The teacher, the professor, is the person called to awaken in his students that transcendent dimension. "The teacher succeeds in promoting the fullness of the student in two ways: with doctrine, by which he shows him where truth, goodness and beauty are, and thereby gives him light for his inner self. But this, of itself, is insufficient ... To incline people to existential reality, the most effective way, which does not exclude but integrates doctrine, is example. One is moved to act by what one sees in another. Words persuade, examples drag. "Magis movent exempla quam verbo: verbo movent, exempla trahunt", says Father Lobato. In truth, one has many teachers, but not many masters. The "Thomistic paideia" is presented, not only because the Christian humanistic thought of Thomas Aquinas gives meaning to the Mission of the USTA, but also because its integrating power cannot generate exclusion of any humanizing experience. This "paideia" affirms as a starting point, not the "homo homini lupus" ("Man as a human being"), but the "paideia" as a humanizing experience. lupus" ("Man is a wolf to man") of social Darwinism, but the necessary "homo homini naturaliteramicus" ("Man is naturally a friend to man") of St. Thomas, which demands the search for planetary human unity.