Christian Humanism and Catholic Education in Norway
Catholic anthropology, understood in terms of Christian humanism, was the topic of a conference for Catholic educators which took place in Bergen, Norway on 25 April this year. The conference was organised in collaboration between the research group for Catholic Studies at NLA University College, led by Associate Professor Peder Solberg, and the education office of the Catholic Diocese of Oslo. It posed the question: ‘What is a human being?’
In the eleventh chapter of Reclaiming the Piazza III, Stephen McKinney writes that Catholic anthropology, the Catholic view of what it is to be a person, is the foundation of a Catholic understanding of education. In its opposition to secular and materialistic views of humanity, it is also foundational to understanding and maintaining the distinct identity of Catholic schools and other educational institutions. Therefore, it was an important topic for the conference to explore.
The Identity of the Catholic School
Anne-Rigmor Stock Evje, director of the diocesan education office, spoke to welcome the participants. She said that the conference was motivated by a desire to make the Church’s members and society at large aware of the resources to be found in our Catholic tradition, as well as to build networks that span different organisations, countries and continents. The conference topic was explored from various perspectives, all grounded in Catholic thought and with an emphasis on practice in Catholic schools.
Among the participants were priests, religious, catechists, teachers, school leaders, academics and others with a connection to Catholic education. There were also international guests from the European Committee for Catholic Education (CEEC), who held their general assembly in Bergen just after the conference. For this reason, most of the conference was in English, with simultaneous translation into French available via headphones.
The CEEC’s theme for 2024–2028, as decided at the general assembly, includes the identity of Catholic schools in Europe. In Norway, too, Catholic schools – of which there are currently only five – are keen to understand better their identity in the years to come. This development is not all that surprising, given the title and content of an instruction issued by the Congregation for Catholic Education in 2022: ‘The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue’.
For a Christian Humanism
Peder Solberg opened his talk with a quote from Dignitas Infinita, the then recently published declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on the dignity of the human person ‘beyond all circumstances’. It reads, in part: ‘Every human person possesses an infinite dignity, inalienably grounded in his or her very being, which prevails in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter.’ He pointed out that it was perhaps no coincidence that this document was released just before the conference, and that both deal with a topic that is very relevant in our time.
Although the Norwegian Education Act states that education in Norway shall be based on the values of a ‘Christian and humanistic heritage and tradition’ (§ 1-1), Solberg said that this concept is ambiguous and needs to be clarified in the face of new forms of humanism: secular humanism, transhumanism and posthumanism. The question is how these forms differ from a specifically Christian humanism. Solberg cited the philosopher Jacques Maritain as a representative of an ‘integral’ humanism: one which is based on Catholic beliefs, but which involves a defense of human beings in general.
Solberg also pointed to Saint Olaf’s Christian law of 1024, which had its 1000th anniversary this year, as an important step in the ‘humanisation’ of Norwegian society. This is the cultural backdrop to the Christian and humanistic heritage mentioned above, but for many people it is becoming an increasingly distant relic of the past. That is why the conference wanted to address such a fundamental question: How to define and defend the human being, in light of today’s challenges and for the common good of all?
The Robots Are Coming
Among several interesting talks at the conference, perhaps the most timely – in light of recent technological breakthroughs – was Professor Clemens Cavallin’s talk on artificial intelligence (AI). All forms of true humanism are built on ‘human exceptionalism’, the belief that human beings are unique in comparison with other living creatures. Cavallin remarked that for those with a materialistic view of humanity, it will be difficult to justify such exceptionalism when machines become as intelligent as we are. Could there soon be serious demands to recognise AIs as persons with rights?
AI is a human creation, and in this there is an analogy to human beings as created in God’s image. The relationship between creature and creator is also a theme of the classic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, which Cavallin asked ChatGPT to reflect on (with mixed results). He pointed to an underexplored connection between pedagogy and machine learning, and emphasised that moral education is an important topic in both fields of study. A lack of ‘alignment’ in values can be dangerous enough in the case of human students, but even more dangerous when dealing with superintelligent machines.
Finally, Cavallin pointed to the liturgical tradition of the Church as a source of inspiration for ‘embodied’ forms of education, with the sacraments as models. This is a resource that can make Christian humanists better equipped than secular humanists to meet the challenges of AI, he said. It also raises some difficult questions, however, such as whether it is prudent to admit AI into Mass as a way to cope with the lack of human resources. Not as a priest, but what about as an organist? These are questions which the Church may need to address in the near future.
Øyvind Johannes Vardenær Evenstad writes for the Catholic Diocese of Oslo, the Norwegian St. Olav magazine and other publications. He holds a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Oslo, and is a qualified teacher of Religious Education and English. A native of Tromsø, Norway, he now lives with his wife in Glasgow, Scotland.