Introduction: Transcending Academic Orthodoxies

Abstract

Garcia challenges the secular understanding of academic freedom, claiming it is incomplete. He insists on the right of scholars to “listen” for the divine voice in the discourse of creation, to pursue the theological dimension of all fields of study, and to explore the connections between knowledge in scholarly disciplines and theological insight. By “theological insight” he does not mean pronouncements by religious authorities, adherence to dogmas, or literal interpretations of religious texts; instead, he means a subtle awareness that there is a surplus of knowledge and meaning to reality that transcends what can be known through ordinary disciplinary methods of inquiry—that findings in many fields of study hint at connections to a greater whole, and that these connections should be pursued.

This presentation is a modified version of the author’s essay in the September 2014 issue of The Journal of Academic Freedom. Some of the material draws on the author’s book Academic Freedom and the Telos of the Catholic University (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).