By Daniel Tyler Chua
56YP MA Humanities
Previously, in our exposition on UA&P’s Credo, we discussed how education is grounded in the human person as a lifelong, personal process. From this follows the second point in the Credo, which holds that “ the primary purpose of education is the integral formation of the human person, the fullest development of everything that is human in the individual.”1 But what exactly does it mean to fully develop “everything that is human in the individual”? And why is this the primary purpose of education?
To answer this question, we should return to the classical definition of man as the union of body and soul. This is also the most well-used explanation for whole-person education, as it recognizes the different dimensions that make up an individual. To form the body and soul means to take care of the physical as well as the spiritual, moral, and intellectual well-being of the whole person.
Returning to the definition of the human person discussed in the previous installment of this series, we understand the person as an individual, relational and rational substance. In this brief definition, we already encompass man’s body and soul.
To begin with, the principle of individuation is matter signed by quantity which, in the case of man, is his body.2 His corporality and materiality also encompass his ‘animal’ nature, even when these things belong properly to his soul as a whole.3 Furthermore, man’s rationality involves those elements of the soul which deal with the knowledge of truths. Finally, man’s relationality deals with his ability to tend himself toward goods and other persons, and in doing so, to determine himself.4
When it comes to the formation of the body, aspects such as sports, physical health, and nutrition naturally come into consideration. The ancient maxim Mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body) holds true for our University.
The formation of the spirit, however, brings forth greater complexity. The soul consists of multiple potential parts (powers of the soul), which are grouped into the vegetative powers, the sensitive powers, the appetitive powers, and the intellectual powers.5 Included in this consideration is also the faculty of free will.6 In fact, what is viewed as the formation of the body actually also belongs to the formation of the vegetative and, to some extent, the sensitive and locomotive powers of the soul.
Now, how is man developed in his powers? Through virtue, since “virtue denotes a certain perfection of a power.”7 Hence the development of the whole person means nothing other than the development of all his powers, i.e., all that is human in him, through virtue.
The question of developing all that is human in man brings us to ask: does this mean also developing his vices and sins, insofar as they belong to the human condition? Not at all. On the contrary, the development of all that is human in man entails the rejection of vice and sin, because evil is the privation of good, and is therefore contrary to perfection and development.8 Vice and sin however, entails privation.9 Therefore they are both contrary to perfection and development.
Hence, whole-person education must involve not only the development of man’s intellectual powers, but also of his appetitive powers and free will. Furthermore, given the presence of original sin, grace is needed which is perfective of the very essence of the soul.10 For this reason, the University also provides services directly related to the dispensing of sacramental grace and the growth in life in Christ.
Finally, insofar as man’s relationality is concerned, the University provides the opportunity for its students to learn how to relate to their fellow-students, faculty members, staff, so on and so forth. It also helps them develop, in a special way, the virtue of prudence, especially in political matters, by way of the University Student Government (USG). It is therefore not surprising that it considers the USG as “a laboratory for civic education where students who demonstrate an exemplary capacity for leadership and a willingness to serve their fellow students acquire actual experience in the exercise of civic responsibility.”11
Why is the development of the whole person so essential to the notion of education as integrally understood? This is because of the fact that there is an inherent connection among the virtues. The moral virtues especially enjoy this connection, under the guidance of prudence and the harmonizing action of charity.12 The intellectual virtues, on the other hand, are less connected due to the diversity of their objects; nevertheless, they all deal with universal causes and are also connected to the moral virtues by prudence, which is both an intellectual and moral virtue.13
For indeed, the intellect precedes the will: one cannot love what one does not know.14 For this reason, the pursuit of learning must be directed, ultimately, to love: And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing (1 Cor 13,12).
Ultimately, whole-person education entails helping students to become good people. It is very tempting, especially in the face of a world that seems no longer to believe in what we know to be true, to content ourselves with giving points of data to students. To a certain extent, this is the best that we can do given the fact that we cannot force the will.
But, at the very least, we should present the truths contained in the CAS curriculum as goods to be pursued. We must show them in the full force of their splendor, and help our students to come to the knowledge that these things, in and of themselves, are good things that directly contribute to our pursuit of a good and happy life.
I say in and of themselves, because more often than not students do seek to know these things as a means of obtaining happiness, but only insofar as they are things one “needs to do” in order to get a degree and a good job, which they view as necessary for the pursuit of happiness. But what students need to understand, and teachers need to make understandable, is that these things are goods in and of themselves that, when pursued, will make us good and happy people.
And indeed, UA&P exists in order to form good people and nothing less. We would fail as an institution if none of our students are ultimately able to “attain the sublime end for which he was created,” for “there can be no true education which is not wholly directed to man’s last end,”15 that is to say, his eternal beatitude and salvation. And because “God has revealed Himself to us in the Person of His Only Begotten Son, who alone is ‘the way, the truth and the life,’ there can be no ideally perfect education which is not Christian education.”16
UA&P Student Handbook 2025–2026, 12.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, De eucharistia, p. 83; St. Thomas, Summa theologiae IIIa, q. 77, a. 2.
St. Thomas, Summa theologiae Ia, q. 78, a. 2.
Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, trans. Andrezj Potocki (D. Reidel, 1979), 3–10; See also Peter Emmanuel Mara, “Understanding Man as a Subject and a Person,” Kritike 1, no. 1 (2007): 88.
S. Thomas, De anima, q. 13.
S. Thomas, Summa theologiae Ia, q. 83, a. 2.
St. Thomas, Summa theologiae Ia IIae, q. 55, a. 1.
Ibid., Ia, . 49, a. 3.
Ibid., Ia IIae, q. 85, a. 4; Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. Joe Sachs (Green Lion Press, 1999), 1055b.
St. Thomas, Summa theologiae Ia IIae, q. 110, a. 4.
UA&P Student Handbook 2025–2026, 98.
S. Thomas, Summa theologiae Ia IIae, q. 65, a. 1–a. 3.
Ibid., Ia IIae, q. 65, a. 1; ibid., IIa IIae, q. 47, a. 5; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1806.
St. Thomas, Summa theologiae Ia, q. 82, a. 3; ibid., Ia IIae, q. 27, a. 2; St. Augustine, De Trinitate X, 1,2.
Pius XI, Divini illius magistri, 7.
Ibid