The Moral and Theological Aspect of Intellectual Development

Abstract

Due to the rapid development of secularization and the decline of universally accepted values, the issue of personal identity arises. Being oneself is not a matter of the society or the state, but a personal choice. A drawback of the modern personality is the acquired weakness and fear of humiliation when expressing one’s own position in society. A person is usually influenced by the crowd. This means doing what others consider to be right, fashionable, funny, etc. At the same time the personality loses all the good habits and virtues imparted  by the education and family. This primarily occurs when a person moves from a cultural environment to a secularizing one (the one that has lost its values). The loss of values leads to the loss of one's own purpose and the meaning of existence. How can a person be oneself? Can this habit lead a person to success? How can one find their true identity?

There is also the threat of a substitution of concepts – this is "moralizing atheism," if it can be called that. The anthropological position in society, which propagates the worldview that one can be a model of goodness and truth without God. This philosophical concept is also referred to as "new atheism."

Thus, in this article, we will explore the scientific-theological aspect of the habit of "learning," as well as the impact of reading on the development of the personality. It should be noted that the study of teaching methods and their implementation is primarily the domain of pedagogy. However, theology also plays an important role in this matter, as the first universities in Europe were established by the Catholic Church and the works of famous church teachers and the doctrine of the Church in general demonstrate unanimity on this issue.