Beauty for Truth's Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education

Based in the riches of Christian worship and tradition, Beauty for Truth's Sake helps us put back together again faith and reason, truth and beauty, and the fragmented academic disciplines. Now with a new foreword by Ken Myers.

"[Caldecott] observes that 'we are living in an era shaped by philosophical battles that most of us are unaware ever took place.' Having spent most of my adult life trying to understand the genealogy of contemporary confusions, I wish I had known more about those battles when I was much younger. Many of our cultural institutions (and the shape they give to our lives) have been shaped by the outcome of those battles, formed by sympathies with the winning if mistaken side. And so many countercultural works of re-enchantment are now necessary. But what a marvelous necessity and what a marvelous and hopeful companion Stratford Caldecott can be for us in the way ahead."
--Ken Myers, producer and host, Mars Hill Audio Journal (from the foreword)

"A book that addresses the soul, mind, spirit, and will. It is an extended meditation on the sources of becoming more human that inevitably relate humanity to God. It is about education, spiritual maturing, and a lifetime vocation of learning. It is a wise book, an inspiring book, a beautiful book."
--Ralph McInerny†, University of Notre Dame

"This book offers three kinds of light: lucidity, illumination, and scintillation--the lucidity of participating in the divine simplicity, which substitutes profundity for mere complexity; illumination through the divine light of the Logos that shines as one in both creation and revelation; the scintillation of realizing that this truth can only be approached in love. Caldecott shows that all of our natural and social reality reflectively sparkles with a new anticipation, revealing to us how it might be transformed to better show forth the divine likeness."
--Catherine Pickstock, University of Cambridge and Emmanuel College

"A remarkable manifesto that restores mystery to its proper place in education. With mystery comes wonder, awe, reverence, beauty, and a sense of discovery that leads us to a deeper wisdom. Without these, science and mathematics are sterile, dull, and doomed, and the humanities are impossible. Caldecott has pronounced a blessing for our children and our children's children."
--Scott Hahn, Franciscan University of Steubenville

Based in the riches of Christian worship and tradition, this brief, eloquently written introduction to Christian thinking and worldview helps readers put back together again faith and reason, truth and beauty, and the fragmented academic disciplines. By reclaiming the classic liberal arts and viewing disciplines such as science and mathematics through a poetic lens, the author explains that unity is present within diversity. Now repackaged with a new foreword by Ken Myers, this book will continue to benefit parents, homeschoolers, lifelong learners, Christian students, and readers interested in the history of ideas.

Stratford Caldecott (MA, University of Oxford; 1954-2014) was the editor of Second Spring, directed the Centre for Faith and Culture in Oxford for the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, and served as a research fellow at St. Benet's Hall, Oxford. He has authored several books of theological reflection and cultural analysis.