On Christian Pedagogy. A Reflection in the Light of Jacques Maritain’s Views on Christian Philosophy

Abstract

Despite the fact that Christian pedagogy has considerable theoretical accomplishments which also find a practical application in education and upbringing, it is continually questioned whether the discipline meets the methodological criteria and requirements of pedagogical research. Not only do Christian pedagogues apply psychological, sociological and philosophical data, but they also reach for theological research results. This article makes an attempt to recognise a scientific status of Christian pedagogy from the perspective of Jacques Maritain’s views on Christian philosophy. In his research, Maritain reasons that practical philosophy – moral philosophy – is unable to provide an adequate description of the object of research without a reference to theological data. A moral value of a human act depends on whether the subject actually knows their ultimate life objective and goal and thus upon their attitude towards God. By analogy, it can be thus claimed that man’s moral development is first and foremost dependent from their religious development; and in order for pedagogy to provide a religions development description, it needs to be provided with the data acquired by theology. The article comprises four parts. A philosophical context of pedagogical research has been addressed in the first part; Maritain’s outlook on Christian philosophy has been presented in the second part; the third part is an attempt to find an answer to the question of what Christian pedagogy is and what criteria it ought to meet in order to belong to the domain of pedagogical studies; the forth part refers to excepts of Maritain’s pedagogical considerations related to moral upbringing as an example of Christian pedagogical reflection.