The Parable of the Liberal Education

Walter Hansen

An Invitation to Question

Let us look at a great painting by Caravaggio, The Incredulity of St. Thomas, as a visual parable of a Christian approach to liberal arts education—one that applies particularly to dedicated communities of learning, but also far beyond. This painting, done in 1602, is characteristically gripping realism, showing a scene that is shocking in so many ways.

The Finger

The first thing you see is the probing, poking finger of Thomas, who missed the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples and told his fellows, “Unless I . . . place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” A week later Jesus stands again with his disciples and he says, Come here, Thomas. “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.”

I see that probing, poking finger as a kind of symbol of the search, the quest of a liberal arts education. One of the best definitions I’ve heard of liberal arts is that it encourages thoughtfulness. The first meaning of that word is the intellectual skill of applying careful thought to the perplexities and challenges of human experience. A liberal arts education encourages us to ask probing questions.

Think of that probing finger as your microscope in the laboratory; as your question investigating the psyche, the soul; as your shovel digging in history. What the educational experience at its best is about is some older people who have been poking and probing for a long time bringing alongside some younger people and saying, “Here’s a question to ask; here’s something to look at; here’s the way to search.”

Liberal arts is not so much amassing a great mountain of knowledge; it’s learning how to climb. It was not really at the beginning of my college time that I began my liberal arts education. It was a year and a half into it that suddenly I woke up. I wasn’t totally asleep until then, only semi-somnolent. But then, in an introduction to philosophy class, Dr. Arthur Holmes poked and probed and questioned. He chased me down the corridors of my mind and my heart. We read the Apology of Socrates: What is an examined life? Why is an unexamined life not worth living? I wrote papers—sophomoric papers to be sure, superficial papers—but their great value was that in the margins of those papers were written Dr Holmes’ searching, probing questions. He really woke me up and set me free to search and explore.

That’s what a liberal arts education is about. The root meaning of “liberal” is “to liberate”—to set free from the darkness of pride and prejudice, misconceptions, preconceptions. You are free to ask and search and probe. Look at that probing finger. Jesus invites you. Jesus says, come here, probe, question, search.

A Focused Community

Then you see right behind Thomas two other disciples—so close there’s no space at all—are they embracing Thomas? I don’t see any space at all between the two disciples, nor between them and Thomas. They’re all completely united in this search. This is the original community.

The other meaning of thoughtfulness is to be considerate, kind, tending to the needs of others. The purpose of a liberal arts education in a residential community is not only the development of intellectual skills, but also the formation of the character quality of being considerate, respecting and loving other people, especially those who disagree with us.

Caravaggio could have painted the scene with the disciples on the other side of Jesus, opposed to Thomas, pointing judgmentally at Thomas. “Over there is the doubter; he doesn’t believe like we do; we told him the truth, but he stubbornly refused to accept it. So we’ve separated from him and excluded him from our circle.” But Caravaggio did not paint the scene that way. This community embraced the one who questioned and the one who probed. In fact, they are part of the search—look at them: they’re searching with Thomas.

The central focus of the disciples and of the painting is the Lord Jesus himself. Look at his hand on the arm of Thomas. If you look really close at the probing finger of Thomas, and then look at the thumb of Thomas, you’ll see dirt caked under his thumbnail. This is not a clean hand, this is not a clean person—this is a dirty person. Look at his robe; it’s old and torn.

Caravaggio was criticized severely in his day for his gritty realism. He didn’t paint the saints as idealized heavenly figures. He took people off the street and made them his models. Here is a man off the street, an ordinary person, and he’s poking his dirty hand into Jesus. I think Caravaggio, a deeply troubled, tormented man, sees himself in Thomas.

Jesus places his hand on the arm of Thomas and gently, firmly guides that dirty hand into himself. As you look closely at the eyes of the other two disciples, you see that they are looking with utter amazement at the hand of Jesus guiding the hand of Thomas. The hand of the risen Lord guides the search.

Jesus as Guide

That’s what Christian liberal arts is all about. Jesus is both the goal and the guide of this search. He takes that probing hand and guides it straight home. Even when the search is probing the wounds of humanity and the wounds of the earth, ultimately the search is probing the wounds of Jesus who was wounded for all our transgressions. All these probes and all these questions ultimately come to the goal of Jesus.

But the human search for truth by itself does not find its goal. You see that with his other hand Jesus opens his robe; Jesus unveils himself and reveals himself. The human search is illuminated by divine revelation. As we look, we feel that in the moment that Jesus pulls back his robe, in that very motion of pulling back his robe, the light comes on. And you see that light on the faces of the disciples, the light that comes from this revelation that takes place by the mercy and grace of our Lord. He reveals himself: he’s the wounded, risen Lord. And that’s what Christian liberal arts is all about: encouraging in the community those most perplexing and disturbing questions, but also believing that ultimately wisdom comes from the Lord by divine revelation.

What the painting doesn’t immediately give to us is the next instant. And the next instant is the most amazing proclamation by Thomas: “My Lord, my God!” His proclamation can only be understood in the Hebrew context of the ultimate creed of the Hebrew people: Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

As the finger of Thomas probes the wounds of the risen Jesus, he exclaims, my Lord, my God! Jesus is my Lord and my God! Thomas, who asks the most disturbing questions, becomes one of most daring witnesses: He witnesses across what is now Iraq and Iran and into India and all the way across India to Madras. The Mar Thoma Church in India claims on good tradition that it was founded by the witness of Thomas. According to tradition, Thomas was martyred near Madras. His tomb is venerated today. The probing questions of Thomas led him to Jesus and then to his global mission.

Another thing that the painting doesn’t immediately give to us, but begs from us, is our involvement. The painting brings the subjects of the painting up so close to us that there is really no space between us and them. We’re right there with them. We are part of that community. We are part of that search—and we also have that mission. 

G. Walter Hansen M.Div., Th.D., is associate professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, and Director of the Global Research Institute, which provides fellowships for scholars from the Two-Thirds World. Hansen is also an author and a Trustee at Westmont College. He and his wife, Darlene, live in Santa Barbara. This essay is adapted from a 2006 address at a Community Celebration Chapel at Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts.

Features, Arts and Culture, Meaning and Calling, Society, Thu 10 May 2007