“Our thesis is simple, though perhaps controversial: the seven liberal arts were never meant to stand on their own as the entire curriculum, for they are designed particularly for cultivating intellectual virtue. Since human beings are more than just intellect, however, the curriculum must develop more than just intellectual virtue. Creatures formed in God's image must be cultivated in body and soul— mind, will, and affections. As we will seek to show, the Christian classical educational tradition embodies just the kind of holistic and fully integrated curriculum that a thoroughly Christian understanding of human nature demands. It does so, however, only when the seven liberal arts are taken as part of a larger model consisting of what we here term piety, gymnastic, music, liberal arts, philosophy, and theology. This full-orbed education aims at cultivating fully integrated human beings, whose bodies, hearts, and minds are formed respectively by gymnastic, music, and the liberal arts; whose relationships with God, neighbor, and community are marked by piety; whose knowledge of the world, man, and God fit harmoniously within a distinctly Christian philosophy; and whose lives are informed and governed by a theology forged from the revelation of God in Christ Jesus as it has been handed down through the Church in historic Christianity. This model presents a truly integrated Christian classical education where the intellectual tools of the seven liberal arts are formed within the context of a Christian life and moral imagination that is governed by a thoroughly Christian philosophy and theology. We propose it as a faithful summary of the Christian classical educational tradition and a compelling model for schools in the Christian classical renewal.”

Kevin Clark & Ravi Jain’s The Liberal Arts Tradition, pp. 2-3