By Daniel Tyler Chua
56YP MA Humanities
In the various discourses going on within today’s UA&P community, sometimes recourse is made to the fundamental principles of the University and the enduring value of its liberal arts curriculum. When a person, for instance, engages in behavior we believe to be reprehensible, we often say that “so-and-so did not pay attention to his CAS subjects.” But what does it actually mean to uphold UA&P’s principles?
When we first entered the University, we professed the University Credo, which consisted of a long list of propositions that illustrated UA&P’s world vision. Just as the Apostles Creed (or the Nicene Creed) virtually contains all that the Church believes, the University Credo virtually contains all that UA&P stands for.
Hence, in order for us to discover the full meaning of UA&P’s principles, we must look toward the Credo. In what I hope to be a series of articles, I will provide a few points of consideration with respect to each point of the Credo. But in this essay, we will focus on the first: “We believe that education is a lifelong process, and its focal point is and should always be the individual person.”1
Education, by definition, is the process by which a person imparts skills, knowledge, and values into another person. It comes from the Latin edocere, which means to inform or instruct. So, in the broad sense, to educate means to inform another person. To inform, on the other hand, primarily means to shape, to add form to something. The colloquial use of the term information to refer to the absorption of data comes from the classical notion that the object of understanding (the intelligible) is what informs the intellect. The intellect takes upon the form of the thing it comprehends.2
But information in this sense is only a part of the full meaning of the term, which we will expound upon in the next article. Information can also refer to the information of one’s moral character, one’s physical character, so on and so forth. Hence, to educate means to inform the person, both considered in his manifold aspects and as a whole, living being. “Education is recognised as the process by which the human person develops the true form of his being as man. The result of this process is known as culture.”3
Now, education consists of many influences: family, peers, schools, churches, and other institutions which serve to shape and form man’s character. We have become so used to viewing education primarily in terms of the educational system (i.e., DepEd, CHED) that we have forgotten how broad the scope of education truly is. To reduce our understanding of education to schools alone constitutes a significant impoverishment. As the saying goes, “You are who you surround yourself with.” And above all, God is our ultimate educator: Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge; for I have believed thy commandments (Ps 119,66). The God-Man, Jesus Christ, is also called “teacher” in the Gospels: You call me Master, and Lord; and you say well, for so I am (Jo 13,13–14).
For this reason, education can truly be said to be a lifelong process. To begin with, we are not called to be alone (Gen 2,18). We will always be drawn toward sharing life with others, and this entails engaging in a constant process of learning, both being shaped by culture and shaping it in return.4 Furthermore, God is someone who is directly and personally involved in our lives. Through the events and circumstances of our lives and the infusion of supernatural grace He teaches us important lessons on how to live a more human life and, ultimately, to be saved and reach eternal beatitude. We cannot escape education, just as we cannot escape life itself. To live is to learn, and to learn is to live.
For this reason, the focal point of education must always be the individual person. “Man who, in the visible world, is the only ontic subject of culture, is also its only object and its term.”5 Even when human communities can be said to act as one, “the man-person remains the manifest subject of the acting and being . . . The term ‘community,’ like ‘society’ or ‘social group,’ indicates an order derived from the first one [the personal].”6 And in the words of Pius XII: “Only man, the human person, and not society in any form is endowed with reason and a morally free will.”7
Now, what is the human person? According to Saint Boethius’ definition, the person is the “individual substance of a rational nature.”8 On account of his individuality, the human person is unrepeatable: I can be no one but myself, and no one else can be me.9 This also brings in man’s capacity to relate to God, Truth itself: for man, indeed, is made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1,27).10 But when we speak of personhood in relation to the Blessed Trinity, as Saint Thomas Aquinas does, we also see that person indicates relation.11 From this we derive another truth: “The human person is the event or being of relativity.”12
Hence, when we speak of education being centered around the individual person, we mean that we are dealing with an individual, relational, and rational substance. We are dealing with a unique reality that also enjoys a special relationship with God and other human persons, by which he develops a sense of his own subjectivity and uniqueness.13 To lose sight of this personal dimension is to reduce people to a mass, to points of data which can be treated according to uniform metrics and standards. Unfortunately, this is already the case for many.
But why should education deal with the formation of the human person as the human person? It is precisely because of the object of education, which is to form man in culture. And what is the purpose of culture? It is to bring man to the fulfilment of his being, for it is “that through which man as man, becomes more man, ‘is’ more, has more access to ‘being’.”14 And ultimately, it exists to bring man, throughout the course of his life, into contact with the good, the true, and the beautiful—ultimately, the mystery of God himself.15
Ultimately, only man as man can share in the life of God, in fraternity with the God-Man Jesus Christ who is the Word made flesh (Jo 1,14). Only man can properly be said to become happy. And the happiness of man, as we will demonstrate in a future article, demands that he be informed in every aspect of his personality so that he may further realize his calling toward the transcendent.
UA&P Student Handbook 2025–2026, 12.
St. Thomas, Summa theologiae Ia, q. 14, a. 2; St. Thomas,
St. John Paul II, To the Participants at the National Conference of Culture on India, March 10, 1986.
St. John Paul II, Dialogue between Cultures for a Civilization of Love and Peace, December 8, 2000, 5.
St. John Paul II, Address to UNESCO, June 2, 1980.
Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, translated by Andrzej Potocki (D. Reidel, 1979), 277.
Pius XII, Divini redemptoris, 29.
St. Boethius, De persona et naturis duabus, ch. 3.
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 356–361.
St. Thomas, Summa theologiae Ia, q. 29, a. 4.
Joseph Ratzinger, “Retrieving the Tradition: Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology,” Communio 17 (1990): 440.
See Roger Scruton, On Human Nature (Princeton University Press, 2017), ch. 1, ch. 2.
St. John Paul II, Address to UNESCO.
St. John Paul II, Centesimus annus, 24, 50; St. John Paul II, Fides et ratio, 70.