Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Educating for Moral Formation: The Primacy of Metaphysical Realism

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Teacher Education

  • 207 Accesses

Introduction

One of the tasks of the Christian educator is formation in the moral life, including the capacity to make an informed and faithful response to the ethical challenges of our day. Questions surrounding the sanctity of life, of justice, of sexual morality, and of our relationship to the environment (to name just a few) require a reasoned response that emerges from the truth of our being: of who we are flowing from the creative will of God. Accordingly, a primary and essential element of moral formation is an education in metaphysical realism – the capacity to see truth in being that remains constant before the changing tide of opinion and emotion.

Genealogy of the Abandonment of Truth

From the perspective of a reason enlightened by faith, the ontology of the truth of being is grounded in God’s nature as spirit and intellect, who created all things by thinking them. All things are grasped by God’s knowing. All being stands in relation to His knowing mind and is oriented toward...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Crawford, D. S. (2008). Natural law and the body: Between deductivism and parallelism. Communio, 35, 327–353.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guardini, R. (2001). The end of the modern world. Wilmington: ISI Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pieper, J. (1989). The truth of all things: An inquiry into the anthropology of the High Middle Ages. In Living the truth (pp. 9–105). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ratzinger, J. (2004). Introduction to Christianity. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ratzinger, J. (2011). Belief in creation and the theory of evolution. In M. J. Miller (Ed.), Dogma and preaching: Applying Christian doctrine to daily life (pp. 131–142). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Catholic Theological College, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Paschal M. Corby

Authors
  1. Paschal M. Corby
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paschal M. Corby .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. WMIER, The University of Waikato WMIER, Hamilton, Waikato, New Zealand

    Michael A. Peters

Section Editor information

  1. School of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Janis (John) Ozolins

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Corby, P.M. (2019). Educating for Moral Formation: The Primacy of Metaphysical Realism. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Teacher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_140-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_140-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-1179-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-1179-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation