SEMINAR 2

LETTER 9

Dear Students,

I prayed that during the Holy Week you rested from academic exercises and spent more time reflecting on
your calling, mission and the last things in life. The experience should have boosted your enthusiasm to
persevere in your study of law, especially in connection to the mission of God-fearing lawyers at present.
We know it is hard to realize the objective of the basic law program - to “produce graduates who are
professionally competent, practice-ready, active, self-directed and lifelong learners, responsible, highly
ethical, honorable, socially mindful and gender sensitive; willing leaders and servants; and, thinkers and
innovators in law. It is equally difficult to live by the key principles that guide the revision of the model law
curriculum under LEB Memorandum Order (LEBMO) No. 1 (2011).” We are aware that Legal Education is
supposed to:

1. Relate in an intimate way to the issue of access to justice.

2. Play a vital role in national development, particularly in training law students for democratic governance
and in empowering them to participate actively in national life.
3. Connect intimately with the promotion and administration of justice… Legal education should prepare law
students for leadership in, and service to, the society.
4. Be taught, whenever possible, in its deeper historical, developmental and philosophical context with
openness to a multidisciplinary approach, thus imbuing the law students with a sense of history,
responsibility and mission.
5. Enable the law student to acquire the necessary legal knowledge, skills, and attitudes and be of tangible
service to their local communities and the nation, at every level of legal studies, whether or not they qualify
for the practice of law.
6. Respond to the current challenges such as gender sensitivity, health and environmental issues, as well as to
the future needs of the Philippines and the world.
7. Focus on the holistic formation of law students, providing them with the foundational mindset, knowledge,
skills, and attitudes to enable them to engage in lifelong learning.

We are blessed. We have as companion in the journey an Augustine, who – with his teachings and
pedagogical principles - “walks and works with and along” each of us. Remember what he does:

1. Augustine certainly stimulates every step forward and every effort.

2. Invites us to hunger and thirst for the truth and for the ultimate good.
3. Incites in us a dissatisfaction with what we still are, helps us to achieve that which we have not yet
become.
4. Augustine encourages every person to stay faithful and to persevere to the end;
5. To taste the sweetness of piety;
6. To form the will in the beauty of virtue and in the freedom of love;
7. To have always as a guide (12) the God who never ceases to pursue his beloved creation, showing
the person what he or she should do and gently inspiring her/him. (OAR Const. 123)

This Letter 9 is an exhortation. May the Augustinian thoughts that I will share inspire you, all the
more, to persevere in your study. These exhortations, found in the OAR Plan of Formation, numbers
40 and, 42,) and originally addressed to religious in their pursuit of spiritual maturity, can also apply
to students who struggle to complete their study of law.

1
 The arduous work of continuous progress requires corresponding conditions. One
must enter upon the way of humility and travel it as a necessary path.1 It is necessary
to learn patience, due to the complexity and gradual nature of this long ascent, in
which the human person is committed to the harmonious exercise of all his faculties. 2
Self- awareness should be cultivated in order to correct one’s self without fail or to
approve of one’s self without presumption, according to the degrees of the ascent
which each one recognizes in himself.3 And one must always hope, for from hope the
song which inspires the pilgrim is born.4

Among the requisite conditions for this process, a constant and indefatigable desire,
a longing for progress, and a search for perfection are the most outstanding. The way
by which we advance is the way of desire and will; man’s capacity for perfection
corresponds to the scope of his desires.5

With and for you and all your loved ones, I pray: May these exhortations fuel your desire to
continue the journey to become fulfledged God-fearing lawyers! (Here is a reading that I hope
would incite you to become truly “studious” in the footsteps of Augustine. See pages 3-7).
In your study and reflection, continue to apply the 3R’s technique:

Read and reflect;

Record your discoveries;
Recall and recite what you have recorded to those who
need your help (cf. Exodus 17:14)

Please keep a record (journal) of your reflections because at the end of the Seminar, you will be
asked to present - in summary form - your discoveries and an evaluation of the exercises you
have applied to your person.

At the service of formation-education,

Fray Lauro Larlar 30 April 2022

1 “Exaltation pleases everybody, yet humility is the step… begin with the step, and you have gone up” (Sermo 96,3,3 PL 38, 586).
“An ascent cannot be useful to us unless first we are humbled and remember ourselves as having risen from an enclosed valley”
(En. In ps. 120, 1 PL 37, 1605).
2 And here the patience of the sheep is tested, in the likeness of God’s patience… The Lord requires only patience from us (Sermo

47, 5 6 PL 38,298; De pat. 7, 6 PL 40, 613 f.; En in ps. 119, 3 PL 37, 1599.
3 “Let each one… be so aware of himself that, if he needs correction he might grieve, and if he deserves approval he might rejoice.

If he should find himself to have strayed, let him get back to walking along the path; if he should find himself on the path, let him
walk and reach his goal. Let no one be proud off the path, and no one lazy on the path” (En in ps. 31, 11 1 PL 36 258).
4 En. In ps. 64, 3 PL 36, 774f.; Sermo 256, 3 PL 38, 1193.
5 “In seeking …happiness… you sigh; in seeking it, you desire it, and by desiring it you ascend to it” (En in ps. 122, 2 PL 37, 1631).

“The desire is the thirst of the soul. And how many desires there are in the hearts of men… All men burn with desire” (En. In ps.
62, 5 PL 36, 750 f)

2
Studiositas and Curiositas

While 'studiositas' is a strength of mind, the mind infected by the often-

misunderstood vice of 'curiositas' is in one way or another blinded to the truth of real
things.

“All men by nature desire to know” (Aristotle, Metaphysics).

“Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is
corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds”
(Ephesians 4:22-23).

************

These two Latin words, studiositas and curiositas, have a long and important history in the Christian
understanding of the life of the mind. Unfortunately, when they are transliterated into English by the
words “studiousness” and “curiosity,” they significantly change their meaning and we can lose much
of their significance. The tradition has understood studiositas as a quality belonging to a strong mind,
and curiositas as a vice of a weak one. Let’s see if we can unpack their meanings toward a better
understanding of this virtue and this vice as a way of sharpening and strengthening our minds.

The Virtues

According to long Christian usage, a virtue is a habitual quality of strength attaching to one of our
human faculties. Our most important faculties, those that represent the image of God in us, are our
minds and our wills. Intellectual virtues are strengths of mind, and moral virtues are strengths of will.
A given virtue is a kind of balance, a “golden mean” that holds our faculties steady and upright and
keeps them from tumbling into weakness, whether by diminishing or by exaggerating a given virtue. It
is therefore common when describing a virtue to note its excess and its defect. For example, the moral
virtue of courage is a habitual strength of the will that enables its possessor to be ready to suffer for a
good cause. Excess of this strength is foolhardiness; its defect is cowardice.

In Thomas Aquinas’s classic treatment of the virtues, the virtue of studiositas is discussed under the
broader category of temperance (Summa IIaa, 166-7). Temperance comes into play to strengthen and
balance our natural powers and desires. We have a natural appetite for food, but that appetite needs to
be properly tempered such that we eat sensible amounts of the right kinds of food. Otherwise what was
meant as something good can become harmful and destructive. The same principle holds true with our
natural appetite for sexual union. God created us with these appetites, and in themselves they are
beneficial to us. But as a result of humanity’s fallen nature they tend to become inflamed and to turn on
their possessors. Hence the need to cultivate virtues with God’s help that will master our natural
powers and guide them by what is reasonable and loving.

Studiositas

As Aristotle said a long time ago, we all have a natural desire to know. No one has to teach us this
desire. An infant comes out of the womb eagerly learning whatever it can. The mind is made by God
for truth and naturally rushes toward it. The ultimate goal of our minds is to perceive Truth Himself,
the ultimate truth, and in that possession to become fully happy. When we use our minds well, we are

3
giving glory to God and becoming more truly and fully human. But as with our physical desires, our
desire for knowledge needs to be rightly tempered. Our minds are our most God-like faculty, and in
keeping with the maxim that “the corruption of the best is the worst,” it follows that the corruption of
the mind leads to the most serious perversions of our human nature. Studiositas is the virtue that
maintains our intellects in proper balance such that we can firmly and confidently grasp the truth of
things.

This is where the English word “studiousness” fails as a description of this virtue. The need to be
studious mainly applies to full-time students, and refers to the practice of “hitting the books,” of being
conscientious in getting our assignments done. This is certainly an important habit for a student, but it
hardly touches the rich depths of the virtue of studiositas. The strength of mind cultivated by this virtue
goes far beyond student life. It is necessary for every one of us, all the time. Whatever our age,
occupation, or circumstances, our minds are constantly reaching out toward knowledge. If our desire
for gaining knowledge is not rightly ordered, we will tend to wander into distortions of the truth,
misunderstand the most important aspects of reality, and possibly lose our souls. Our intellectual
faculties need tempering even more than our physical ones, since they are stronger and more constantly
in use.
There have been times and places in the Church’s history when rousing the
intellect was the task at hand. But we live in an age of intense curiositas,
one in which we are constantly being led to feed our desire for knowledge in
ways that dull its capacities and darken its vision.

To understand the habit of studiositas it helps to look at what happens when our desire for knowledge
gets out of balance, whether by excess or defect. The two vices associated with this virtue of strength
of mind are negligence, its defect, and, in its Latin form, curiositas, its excess. Each is worth
examining, but the second is especially important to consider, since we are living in an age of
rampant curiositas.

Negligence

Negligence refers here to the tendency to avoid the mental work necessary to grasp knowledge. Many
of its expressions are obvious and hardly need detailing. Our desire for physical comfort can often
blunt the keenness of mind necessary to understand some aspect of reality, and we can be smitten by a
mental lethargy that prefers to “zone out” rather than to engage important truths. More momentously,
we often purposely avoid gaining knowledge of truths that will prove inconvenient or challenging to
us, and we can turn our minds away from whatever makes us uncomfortable. The most important
questions facing every human have to do with our destiny, our reason for being alive, our moral state,
questions that turn on God’s existence and our duties toward him. There are many people who have no
firm view on any of these questions, not because they have expended energy on them and have found
the results inconclusive, but because they have never shaken off their sleepiness of mind and roused
themselves to seriously consider them. They are content to leave such questions not only unanswered,
but anasked. This state of intellectual torpor is made perilously easy for us by the constant flood of
mindless electronic entertainment that constantly surrounds and entices us.

Curiositas

Negligence of mind, the blunting of our natural desire to know, is a common enough fault and we all
deal with it at times. But the appetite for knowledge is so strong in us that we face a far more

4
formidable temptation coming from the opposite direction. We mainly fail in the virtue
of studiositas by excess: we desire knowledge too greedily; we fall into the weakness of mind
called curiositas. One can see that the English word “curiosity” is misleading as a description of this
vice. Curiosity typically describes the natural human desire for knowledge. A lack of curiosity in this
sense would be as unhealthy to a human mind as a lack of appetite for food would be for a human
body. Curiositas on the other hand is always a corruption of the mind’s purpose, which is to grasp the
truth in its fulness. The mind infected by curiositas is in one way or another blinded to the truth of real
things.

At this point someone might make the objection: “Knowledge is in itself good, and the desire to know
is a God-given human faculty. How can we desire too much knowledge? Surely this is a case of the
more the better. Provided we are gaining real knowledge and not lies or falsehood, where’s the
problem?” The answer to this objection touches on the complex nature of reality, and on the
convoluted state of fallen humans. Knowledge is of itself good, and the desire to know is indeed a
God-given quality. But due to our damaged intellects there are many roads by which our untempered
desire for knowledge can lead us astray, and in pursuing knowledge wrongly we can paradoxically be
left with a weaker understanding of things. What follows are six expressions of curiositas, each of
which dims our vision of what is true and good.

1. Seeking knowledge of one aspect of reality while neglecting the wider picture.

Truth is an integrated whole, and a firm grasp of the truth demands that we understand the hierarchy of
truths and the way that various aspects of reality impinge upon each other. The habit
of studiositas keeps the whole of things in view when seeking knowledge of some part of the
whole. Curiositas can inflame and distract the mind by engrossing it in one facet of things to the
exclusion of all else. It is often said, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” The person who masters
only one aspect of things or who gains only a shallow understanding of something, often thinks that he
knows more than he does, and can blunder about causing serious damage. We live in an age of the
expert, and our whole educational system is skewed toward knowing a great deal about a very small
slice of reality. We are taught to become masters of technical detail to the exclusion of the most
important matters. The result of this kind of curiositas can be seriously troubling. The economist who
knows only how to manipulate stocks and whose machinations lead to economic failure and
widespread suffering; the biochemist who delves into the secrets of genetics but who knows nothing of
the ethical implications of the research; the computer engineer who devises clever but addictive games
and apps without considering their psychological and social results; the politician who is expert at
electioneering and public relations but who knows next to nothing about what is needed for a stable
social order; these and many other similar examples of curiositas constitute one of the plagues of our
time.

2. Avidly pursuing unimportant knowledge rather than knowledge that will allow us to
fulfill our obligations.

It is easy for our minds to become enchanted with the knowledge of something pleasurable or
interesting, like following sports, or practicing gardening, or learning a special skill, and to allow our
pursuit of it to overly dominate our minds. When that happens, knowledge of what should demand our
intelligent attention, like raising our children, performing our work well, or keeping abreast of our
finances, can be given short shrift. We can neglect our duties because of our rampant desire to know
everything about some trivial matter. Yet more significantly, there are many Christians who are highly
skilled in business, law, medicine, or technology, but who have a fifth grader’s understanding of the

5
mysteries of their faith. If they knew as little about their work as they did about their immortal souls
they would be laughed out of their jobs. Studiositas keeps the proper hierarchy of knowledge in view,
and apportions the right amount of time and energy to what is important and what is less important.

3. Seeking knowledge about things we have no right to know or trying to gain

knowledge by unlawful means.

We all know this form of curiositas. It is so rampant around us that it becomes difficult not to grow
dull to it. Curiositas is often an expression of pride. The fallen human mind resents the idea that there
is anything that is off-limits to know. It wants to assume the place that belongs only to God. God
created everything, he knows everything concerning his creation, and he has an intrinsic right to that
knowledge. He is the source of all knowledge. We, his creatures, are not the origin of knowledge and
we do not have the right to know everything. When it comes to dealing with our fellow humans, the
proper dignity of others demands that we place limits on our desire for knowledge. Yet the temptation
to the pride of curiositas is ever-present. We feed on the inner secrets of other people; we greedily
devour tidbits of intimate information that have nothing to do with us; we revel in watching the
emotional state of people in crisis. The bad habit of gossip is an indulgence in this kind of curiositas.
So is the blinding practice of looking at pornography. The majority of what passes for “news,” whether
on TV news stations, social media, or printed newspapers, falls under this kind of unlawful knowledge.
We love especially to hear of other peoples’ sins and failures, since it allows us to look down on them.
The virtue of studiositas applies a healthy asceticism to this overweening desire. Where personal
knowledge of others does not fall under our duty, as with parents, teachers, and pastors, or involves
giving aid to others, as with medical practitioners and counselors, the healthy and balanced mind will
turn away from this corrupting desire, knowing that it will enervate and sully the spirit and make it
difficult to see the reality of other immortal souls in their proper proportions.

4. Seeking knowledge in order to gain power over others.

The Englishman Francis Bacon famously wrote that “knowledge is power.” Some two hundred years
later, in line with Bacon’s thought, the philosopher Immanuel Kant coined what he claimed was the
motto for the whole of the Enlightenment: Sapere aude!: Dare to know! Don’t be afraid to seize upon
whatever knowledge will make humans more powerful. Bacon and Kant no doubt naively hoped that
such knowledge would be sought after and used mainly for the betterment of humanity. But the last
few hundred years have taught the lesson that knowledge can be eagerly sought for the worst of
reasons. We can pursue knowledge of weaponry that will allow us to kill people in ever greater
numbers; we can investigate human psychology and anatomy for the purposes of manipulation and
torture; we can develop information technology to dominate human behavior and amass personal
wealth. The virtue of studiositas quells the lust for this kind of knowledge by keeping in view the
ultimate goal of the gift of our minds, truth and goodness as found in God.

5. Seeking knowledge in order to take pride in our intelligence and show ourselves
superior to others.

Everyone is annoyed by the “know-it-all.” While we are usually grateful to find someone who can
inform us of important facts or who can give us wisdom when we genuinely need it, the person who is
constantly and egotistically spouting off becomes obnoxious. Yet we are all prone to this often subtle
kind of curiositas. We want to have the latest information on whatever is being discussed; we want to
be a member of the inner circle “in the know” concerning what is happening around us; in general we
want to be consulted and paid attention to. Surveys have shown that the quality people most desire,

6
even more than being thought physically attractive, is to be thought intelligent. Curiositas seizes upon
this desire and runs with it in the direction of self-promotion.

6. Seeking knowledge of created things for their own sake without viewing them in
relation to the source and center of all things, God.

This gets to the heart of the matter, and helps make clear why curiositas is always a diminishment of
true sight, even when the knowledge gained is genuine knowledge. Humans are not merely
informational units, organisms with wetware bodies housing the software of our brains. We are
immortal beings, enfleshed souls destined to share the life of God. Because God is both absolute truth
and absolute goodness, all human knowing has a moral aspect. If God, the center of all reality, is left
out of view or is given a distorted place in our picture of things, the whole vision of ourselves, others,
and the world becomes blurred, even if some of the details are accurately seen. God is light, the one in
whose presence we can see. Where there is no light, there can be no seeing. When our vision of truth is
corrupted by the absence of God, we lose our grip not only on truth, but also on goodness, and
unforeseen evils sprout up in the midst of our activity. The horrific experiments of the last century
witness to the human suffering that this kind of rampant curiositas can cause. Both Soviet communism
and Nazi fascism prided themselves on being scientific and enlightened. Yet for all their knowledge
they were miserable failures with a staggering human cost, because they insisted on leaving God,
reality himself, out of their humanly constructed plans.

God created us to know, to use our minds with all the energy and thoughtfulness we can bring to bear.
If we were living in an age of intellectual negligence, cultivating the virtue of studiositas would mainly
involve rousing ourselves and others to a proper appreciation of the powers and possibilities of the
mind. There have been times and places in the Church’s history when rousing the intellect was the task
at hand. But we live in an age of intense curiositas, one in which we are constantly being led to feed
our desire for knowledge in ways that dull its capacities and darken its vision. In order to redress the
virtuous balance, we will need to practice an asceticism of the intellect, training our minds to grasp the
heart of reality in its true proportions and restraining ourselves from reaching out toward knowledge
that will only distract and may ultimately destroy us. By keeping God in the center of things where he
belongs, the practice of studiositas will be a great help to us and to those around us as we seek the
clarity of true sight.

https://www.primematters.com/foundations/search-truth/studiositas-and-curiositas