I recently gave a short talk at my school’s curriculum night on the practical value of a classical education. In many ways, it was a recapitulation of the blog article I wrote a few weeks ago. I identified two popular ways of thinking about education today–both geared toward practical aims–and then argued that classical education is actually more practical than both of them.
In today’s blog, I will make a different argument in support of classical education. Rather than arguing for its practical benefits, I will make the case for something even more important: it is an education in truth. Why send your children to a classical school? Because they will be taught to seek and contemplate what is objectively true. They will gain knowledge of the real world, whether it is practical or not, because one of the surest antidotes to the cacophony of confusion today is to realign ourselves with something as old as the universe itself: the Truth.
A Culture of Dissent
Our dissenting culture is surprised, at best, and angered, at worst, by this talk of objective truth. Skeptics retort, “Given everything we know about all the different religions and cultures in the world, how can you be so arrogant to believe that any one religion or morality is true and not merely useful, culturally constructed fiction?”.1 As Christian educators, it is our responsibility to respond to this question, not with timid capitulation, but with confident assurance.
If the project of modernism was overly optimistic about human reason’s ability to access truth, postmodernism has fallen off the other side of the horse. Objective truth, we are told, if it exists at all, is out of reach and, frankly not worth the hassle. Enough blood has been shed and wars fought over misplaced forms of righteousness crusading for “the truth.”
Amidst this milieu, students growing up in western countries today need to be reassured that truth exists and the pursuit is worth it. Christ himself declared to be the the way, truth, and the life. Our students need an injection of confidence that our Creator God wove into the very fabric of the universe a sense of order and proper function. The pursuit of wisdom, which is ultimately a journey toward truth, can be understood as an education in how the universe works.
[Read more about the craft of teaching and orienting students toward truth by downloading my free eBook.]
Convenience Over Truth
Unfortunately, research is showing that even amongst Christians, we often choose convenience over truth if given the option. In a recent blog post, author Trevin Wax explores this idea as he interacts with current sociological research on Christian parenting. The research, conducted by Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk, suggests that many parents raise their children to be religious, not because it is true, but because it is useful. Their primary objective in religious instruction, whether they would admit it or not, is to help their children thrive socially and morally. The upshot is that parents and children inadvertently conceptualize of religion as yet an additional way to practice self-expression rather than a devout exercise in aligning oneself with what is true.
Trevin Wax offers a helpful insight for the problem of this way of thinking:
Not surprisingly, once religion is no longer connected to transcendent truths about the world and is judged primarily by its helpfulness, other priorities easily eclipse religious devotion. Sports, homework, preserving family peace and unity—these activities often take precedent when they come into conflict with religious adherence, even for religious parents in stricter traditions (28). Religion is a useful tool in the life you design for yourself. It can be discarded or relegated to a lower priority once it no longer fulfills or actually detracts from that purpose.
This is a disturbingly accurate observation of common life, especially in suburbia. When we exchange the truth of religion for its usefulness, it becomes yet another item on the menu for us to select or decline based on our present appetite. In order for our students to view their Christian faith and their education, in general, as something other than a menu item, they need to be taught the importance of truth. Their religion, their politics, their interactions with others, their hobbies–all of it stands in relation with truth.
The farther removed from truth we become, the more susceptible we become to falsehoods. As historian Felip Fernandez-Armesto puts it,
Once truth has been devoured, people swallow falsehoods whole. Without confidence in the concept of truth, listeners are disarmed against lies.
Our students need mentoring and training in order to resist the temptation to view the pursuit of knowledge as a mere exercise in utility. They must learn to the love truth and treasure it for all it is worth.
A Statue in the Name of Pluralism
While our contemporary culture may be unique in its dissent for objective truth, it is not the first culture to contest biblical truth. In a recent blog, I observed that in the Book of Daniel, Daniel and his friends received what we might call a Babylonian classical education. They were fed a rich diet of Babylonian literature, the very best mythological potluck the ancient world could offer at the time. The purpose was to enculturate and indoctrinate the young Jewish nobles into the Babylonian way of thinking and living.2
After resisting the lure to break with their Jewish dietary customs, a few chapters later, the young Jewish men were put to the test again. The king erected a statue in the city for all inhabitants to worship. Interestingly, the biblical text does not give the name or description of the statue. While in the ancient world, it very well could have been a depiction of the king or of a god, the text does not specify. In fact, it does not have to. The point the author seeks to make for his Jewish audience is that the Babylonian statue stands in opposition to everything monotheistic Jews stood for: the sovereignty of Yahweh, the exclusivity of God’s people, and the truth of Torah. It was a statue in honor of the supremacy of the transnational and transreligious Babylonian empire over and against the kingdoms, cultures, and religions it had conquered.
For the purposes of this blog article, we can say that the statue becomes a test in truth. The edict did not require Daniel and his friends to abandon their faith wholesale or to recant a core doctrine. Rather, the edict was an exercise in pluralism. They were permitted to keep “their truth” so long as they yielded to the truth of Babylon. 2,500 years before the religious pluralism we experience today, we can see that God’s people were already being tested to stand up for the truth.
Three Types of Theories About Truth
With all this talk of truth and its importance, it is paramount to take time to consider what we mean by the term. While I will ultimately endorse what is known as the classical correspondence theory of truth, considering alternative theories will strengthen our own understanding.
Philosophers typically differentiate between three types of theories about truth.3 The first type of theory is metaphysical. These theories hold that truth is a property of a proposition. Propositions are rendered true or false depending on their relationship with facts about the world. Truth, in this sense, is the relationship between a proposition and the way the world works, that is, whether it corresponds with reality. On this account, the proposition “the tree is a maple” is true if and only if the tree is, in fact, a maple.
There are also epistemic theories about truth. Like metaphysical theories, these theories conceive of truth as a property of a proposition, but the focus differs. Instead of focusing on a proposition’s relationship with reality, epistemic theories focus on a proposition’s warranted assertability. That is, a proposition is true on the basis of one’s reasons, or justification, for believing it to be true. On this account, the proposition “it will rain tomorrow” is true if only true if one has it on good evidence that it will rain tomorrow.
Finally, there are deflationary theories about truth. These theories deny that truth is a property of propositions at all. Instead, these theories hold that assertions about truth are either redundant or mere affirmations of a proposition’s usefulness. Thus, truth is determined by what we want to achieve with the proposition. On this account, the proposition “gravity is an invisible force that pulls objects toward each other” is true insofar as it is useful in say, predicting the behavior of the motion of objects with mass.
Correspondence Theory vs. Relativism
While the length of this blog article prevents me from a full philosophical evaluation of the three theories, I will put forward what I believe to be the theory that is most compatible with a Christian worldview: the correspondence theory of truth. This theory is of the metaphysical type, that is, it offers a definition of truth as a property of a proposition. It holds that a proposition bears the property of truth insofar as it corresponds to reality. To put it differently, a proposition is true if, what it asserts to be the case, is the case.
In contrast to the correspondence theory, a common way to think about truth today is that it is relative. That is, a proposition’s truth value is not assigned by its correspondence with reality, but by whether it is believed for the right reasons. In contemporary culture, “the right reasons” most typically promote the free expression of the individual self. This way of thinking about truth is what allows people to make claims like “my truth,” “your truth,” and “what is true for you may not be true for me.”
Needless to say, a Christian worldview leaves no room for a relative view about truth. Either God created the world or He didn’t. Either Christ is Lord or He isn’t. And less significantly, either I am correct that it is Friday evening or I am not. The litmus test for determining the truth value of a proposition is not how sincerely I believe it, but whether my belief corresponds with the reality God created.
A Compass Pointing Truthward
This past week I led an extended discussion with high school students on the question “Why do bad things happen to good people?”. We contemplated the question for almost two hours, debating various points and embarking on too many tangents we foolishly believed would aid the discussion in some miraculous way.
At one point in the discussion, students began to debate whether the eventual answer would only be a matter of perspective. If secularists believe one thing, and Christians another, can we really say that one perspective is right and the other is wrong? While older generations may grimace at this question, I must report that these are the questions Gen Z young men and women are really dealing with. They are bombarded with messages from popular culture that seek to deconstruct the idea that there is objective truth. They are encouraged to embrace the idea of differing and equally valid perspectives.
While respecting varying perspectives is important for charitable dialogue, we must remember that truth does exist. There is a right answer and presumably many wrong ones. We need to encourage students that truth is out there and that it is knowable. My humble conclusion: students need guidance in thinking about truth and I hope this blog article can serve a first step for educators to begin this important work.
Endnotes
- Garrett J. DeWeese and J.P. Moreland. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005. 9.
- Tremper Longman III and Raymond B. Dillard. “Daniel” in An Introduction to the Old Testament. 2nd Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006.
- DeWeese and Moreland. Pp. 58-62.