Parents who choose Capstone Classical Academy do so for many reasons. They desire academic excellence, clear moral teaching, a family-friendly school culture, critical thinking, and a recovery of the riches of the classical Christian tradition. Yet beneath all these worthy aims lies a deeper hope that sometimes comes our in the family admission interview but is often unspoken—that our children would love Christ and His Kingdom more than anything else in this world. This hope reaches beyond test scores, beyond college admissions, and even beyond the cultivation of intellectual virtue. It touches the very core of who our children are. For Scripture and the great Christian thinkers remind us that human beings are not primarily thinking creatures who sometimes desire, but desiring creatures who think in service of what they love.
As we wrap up our nearly five-month exploration of Capstone’s definition of classical Christian education with this essential aim of cultivating the desires of our students’ hearts for Christ and his Kingdom, let’s again review our definition of classical education:
“Classical education is the pursuit of wisdom through a cultivation of intellectual virtue and an encouragement of moral virtue by means of habits rooted in the historic scholastic practices of the Church and the West and by a rich and ordered course of study, grounded in the liberal arts; ascending through humane letters, mathematics, natural science, philosophy, and theology; and yielding informed self-rule and a well-ordered understanding of human nature, the cosmos, and God. It is aimed at the thoughts and desires of heart, soul, and mind (the whole person) for Christ and his Kingdom.”
St. Augustine, one of the writers and theologians of the Capstone curriculum, understood with unparalleled clarity the centrality of desire to human flourishing In his Confessions, he famously prays, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” Augustine does not begin with a theory of knowledge but with a diagnosis of desire. The human heart is always in motion, always pulled toward some vision of happiness. The question is never whether we will love, but what we will love.
For Augustine, sin is not merely a failure of reason but a disordering of love—amor curvus, love curved in on itself. Virtue, then, is not simply right behavior or correct belief, but rightly ordered affection: loving God supremely and all other things in proper relation to Him. Education, in this light, is never neutral. It is always forming the loves of the student, whether intentionally or not. The curriculum, practices, and habits of classical Christian education paint the good, true, and beautiful vision of happiness.
Another great Capstone curriculum mainstay, Thomas Aquinas, grounds Augustine’s insight in a robust account of human anthropology. While Aquinas affirms the nobility of human reason, he insists that the will or faculty of desire is moved by what appears to us as good. We act, Aquinas says, not simply because we know something, but because we want it.
Even our intellect does not operate in isolation. What we love shapes what we attend to, what we remember, and what we pursue. For Aquinas, education must therefore aim not only at informing the mind but at forming the will—training students to delight in what is truly good, beautiful, and true. Knowledge divorced from rightly ordered desire does not lead to wisdom; it merely equips the heart to chase lesser loves more efficiently. This is why we speak so much of the formational effect of words, habits, and traditions at Capstone.
This week’s third and final contributor from the Capstone curriculum is the great early American theological and philosopher, Jonathan Edwards, after whom Yale’s first residential college is surprisingly still named, echoes this same conviction in his insistence that “true religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.” Edwards did not oppose doctrine or intellectual rigor; indeed, he was one of the keenest theological minds in the American tradition. But he knew that orthodoxy without love produces neither holiness nor perseverance. For Edwards, the difference between genuine faith and mere external religion lies in what the heart finds sweet. Do we merely assent to the truth, or do we delight in it? Do our children see Christ as beautiful and desirable, or merely as correct?
The cultivation of holy affections—loves shaped by the glory of God—is therefore not an optional supplement to Christian education; it is its very heart. These and other great contributors to not just the classical tradition but to the greatness of Western Civilization and the Church itself, are not just obligatory contributors to our curriculum but have indeed influenced the leadership and faculty of Capstone Classical Academy and classical Christian schools across the world.
During our early years, most of the faculty and leaders at Capstone have read James K. A. Smith, who has helpfully translated these linguistically dated insights for a modern audience. In Desiring the Kingdom and You Are What You Love, Smith reminds us that human beings are shaped less by ideas than by practices—by the rhythms, rituals, and habits that aim our hearts toward a particular vision of the good life.
His practical influence can be seen at Capstone and other classical schools. Classrooms, like churches and homes, are liturgical spaces. They are not only places where information is transmitted but where desires are trained. What we repeatedly attend to, celebrate, and practice together quietly forms our loves. Education, then, is never merely about what students know, but about who they are becoming.
At Capstone Classical Academy, our aim is not simply to produce students who can parse Latin, solve complex equations, or analyze great texts—though we are committed to all of these. Our deeper aim is to partner with parents in the formation of students whose loves are rightly ordered: students who delight in truth, who recognize beauty, and who desire goodness because they have first come to love Christ.
This is why our curriculum is unapologetically Christ-centered. It is why we linger over great books rather than rush through information. It is why we attend carefully to practices—prayer, worship, attention, reverence—that shape the heart as much as the mind. We are not merely preparing students for a career; we are preparing them for a kingdom.
Parents, you are your children’s first and most enduring educators. The school cannot replace the formative power of the home, but it can come alongside it. When you choose a school like Capstone, you are making a statement about what you believe matters most—not only what your children should know, but what they should love.
The world is relentless in its efforts to capture the hearts of our children. It offers compelling but shallow visions of happiness and success. Against this tide, Christian education must do more than argue; it must enchant. It must present Christ not merely as useful or necessary, but as supremely lovely.
If our children leave us knowing many things but loving lesser things most, we have failed them. But if, by God’s grace, they leave us with hearts trained to desire Christ and His Kingdom above all, then whatever paths they walk, they will walk them well.
Until next time, keep on pursuing the good, the true, and the beautiful to the glory of God and the good of your neighbor!