In our secular age, there exists a plurality of options for how to think about complex questions. Take the question of what it means to be human, for example. For the biologist, to be human is to possess the DNA of the species Homo sapien. In contrast, for the eastern mystic, to be human is to exist fundamentally as a spiritual entity on a pathway to a higher, non-physical reality. For the secularist, to be human is to express one’s self to others with authenticity. And for the social activist, to be human is to participate in society’s collective march forward toward an age of equity and justice.
As Christian educators, it is important for us to reflect on these difficult questions from a theological and biblical perspective. In this case, what we think about humans will dictate to a large extent how we educate them. One of the advantages of the Christian intellectual tradition is that it offers a portrait of what it means to be human that is amenable with many of the insights of various perspectives. In fact, rightly understood, Christianity functions as the foundational framework in which these insights make the most sense when they are true. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” In this case, Christianity equips us to view humans as Homo sapiens, spiritual beings, individual selves, and members of society seeking justice, even if they are not reducible to just one of these definitions.
In this blog, I want to share some ideas for how teachers can educate their students with a Christian worldview in a secular age. Part of what it means to live in a secular age is that our students our growing up within a marketplace of competing worldviews, rather than on a service line with a single product. If our students are going to think Christianly, then, they must not only be taught Christian ideas. They must learn how to carefully scrutinize ideas from differing worldviews with the aim to discern the truth. The starting point for this task, I want to suggest in this blog, is possessing a robust doctrine of revelation.
Grounded in God’s Self-Revelation
The foundation for all of theology is the doctrine of revelation. This is the idea that our knowledge of God is possible only because God first revealed himself to us. Without revelation, there is no theology. In the modern era, people tried to relocate the source of theology from God’s self-revelation to other places. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), for example, grounded theology in morality. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) pointed to an inner sense of absolute dependence. These approaches, as well as other attempts in history and psychology, led only to anthropocentric substitutes for a robust God-centered approach. For theology to avoid being reduced to anthropology, the discipline must be grounded in God’s self-revelation.
Theologians typically divide revelation into two types: general and special. The source of general revelation is the natural world and the source of special revelation is holy scripture. In the case of general revelation, as humans reflect on the sheer majesty and order of creation, they cannot help themselves but intuit there is a numinous force behind it all. John Calvin (1509-1564) famously called this intuition the sensus divinitatis, that is, the “sense of the divine.” He writes,
There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity. This we take to be beyond controversy. To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has planted in all men a certain understanding of divine majesty.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), ed. John McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, Book I, Chapter 3, Section 1
Calvin believed that God hard-wired into human beings an awareness of the supernatural, a reality beyond what lies immanently before us. Admittedly, those of us living in the 21st century might question Calvin’s assumption that all humans possess this awareness of God. After all, with self-professed atheists alive among us, it seems that the modern era has undergone some form of immanentization, “the process by which meaning, significance, and fullness are sought within an enclosed, self-sufficient, naturalistic universe without any reference to transcendence” (James K.A. Smith, How (Not) to be Secular (Eerdmans, 2014), p. 141). In other words, it seems that an enclosure has been erected, making it possible for some people to lack, or minimally suppress, any natural awareness of God’s existence.
Whether our world today is fully buffered from an awareness of transcendence or not, as Christian parents and educators, there are practical ways we can proactively cultivate the sensus divinitatis in our students. We can shape their religious imaginations through telling them Bible stories and have them respond with narration. We can integrate their minds, hearts, and souls with beauty through worshipping in song together in community. And we can teach them to pray with reverence and sincerity by setting a strong example of habitual prayer in the home and at school.
The Grace Common to All
In the reformed tradition, general revelation about God connects to an even broader concept: common grace. This is the idea that although humanity is fallen, God did not abandon us completely. If he did, the goodness we see around us would not even be possible. Instead, in response to the Fall, God bestowed upon the world a grace that would prevent it from going off the tracks completely and immediately. This grace is common to all peoples, cultures, and civilizations. It is the reason goodness, justice, truth, or beauty is possible in a post-Eden world in the first place.
It is precisely the doctrine of common grace which permits Christian, classical educators to mine non-Christian sources for objective truth. According to this doctrine, it is possible for people groups outside of God’s chosen people to encounter real knowledge, that is, truth, about the world. Rather than shun this understanding, Christians should view it as a gracious gift of God.
In On Christian Teaching, Augustine of Hippo (354-430) uses the analogy of Israel plundering the gold of the Egyptians during their exodus to illustrate how Christians can plunder the truth discovered by non-Christian thinkers. Augustine writes,
Similarly all the branches of pagan learning contain not only false and superstitious fantasies…but also studies for liberated minds which are more appropriate to the service of the truth, and some very useful moral instruction, as well as the various truths about monotheism to be found in their writers.
On Christian Teaching (Oxford, 1999), trans. R.P.H. Green, Book II, Ch. 40
Here Augustine reassures us that we are not “secularizing” the faith when we grow in understanding through non-Christian sources. This insight is particularly applicable today with the vast array of emerging disciplines, ranging from positive psychology to neuroscience, but also with more traditional disciplines like biology or history. Rather than viewing these sources with suspicion, we should train our students to analyze them with a biblical worldview, mining for truth that comports to God’s Word.
As our students navigate the complexities of the modern world, complete with its array of religious and secular options, we need to provide them with the skills they need to carefully “plunder the gold and silver.” The most promising way to do so is through training in the liberal arts, the tools of learning. It is not enough to teach them the factual information they need for an upcoming test. Nor is it enough to replace intellectual skills with practical ones. Don’t get me wrong–students need to learn how to make a personal budget and conduct their lives with financial prudence. But if our students are going to be Christians in a secular world, what they truly need is to be equipped intellectually to navigate an age of contested belief.
Belief Leading to Understanding
There is much more that could be said on this topic, but let me close with this. It is common in the academy today to assume that a naturalistic starting point is a neutral one. That is, scholars should assume in their studies that the natural world is all there is and they should therefore conduct their research in light of this guiding principle. But what I want to suggest is that if Christianity is true, then religious belief cannot so easily be set aside. The doctrine of revelation, coupled with the concept of common grace, does not permit us this option. Rather, when men and women come to believe in God’s existence and the gospel of Jesus Christ, their intellectual framework itself goes through a conversion. A naturalistic premise is as dogmatic as a religious one is in our secular age. As parents and educators, then, we must unapologetically raise our students in the spirit of Augustine: “I believe in order to understand.” May our students believe, and through this belief, truly understand the world around them.
Note: For those interested in a deeper dive into religious epistemology and the idea that religious belief can be justified apart from evidential inference, I would direct you to Knowledge and Christian Belief (Eerdmans, 2015) by Alvin Plantinga.