THE CONSORTIUM
A Journal of Classical Christian Education
THE CONSORTIUM
A Journal of Classical Christian Education
Promoting classical education and fostering human flourishing for generations to come.
Volume 3, Issue 1
The Consortium: A Journal of Classical Christian Education Volume 3, Issue 1.
Copyright © 2024 by Roman Roads Press
Published by Roman Roads Press in collaboration with Kepler Education and The Consortium of Classical Educators
Moscow, Idaho info@romanroadspress.com | romanroadspress.com
Editorial Advisory Board:
- Dr. Scott Postma, Editor in Chief
- Dr. Robert M. Woods, Senior Contributing Editor - Dr. Gregory Soderberg, Contributing Editor
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ISBN: 978-1-963505-09-2
Version 1.0.0 June 2024
The Fear of the Lord is the Path to Virtue by
Dr. Abigail Mirau
Book Review—Tracy Lee Simmons’ On Being Civilized: A Few Lines Among the Breakage by Dr.
Gregory Soderberg
121
THE CONSORTIUM
A Journal of Classical Christian Education
Introduction
The Good
by Dr. Scott Postma
The concept of “the good life” has been a central theme in history and philosophy, a prominent motif in art and literature, and in classical education, it is the teleological objective for learning. Indeed, in classical thought, the pursuit of the good life was the very purpose for civilization itself. Yet, several questions immediately strike the observant thinker: if the good life is the chief objective of education and the very purpose of civilization, what exactly is the good life? Who is it for? Indubitably, it could not possibly be for all classes of people who have lived during various times in history, such as slaves, the impoverished, or women. So, by what standard can we judge its realization? And, what is the method for achieving or discovering this good life? These have been, and continue to be, preeminent human questions.
The modifying attribute, “the good,” has likewise shaped ethical, metaphysical, and theological discourse for nearly three millennia. In both classical and medieval thought, the good constituted one of the three common and primary notions that made up the doctrine of the Transcendentals: the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.1 These Transcendentals
1 Thomas Aquinas articulated the Transcendentals as Being, Unity, Truth, and Goodness, Beauty being an attribute of Goodness. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.) and Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth (De Veritate) https://catholiclibrary. org/library/view?docId=/Medieval-EN/XCT.024.html&chunk.id=00000011.
“constituted together a synthetic vision of divine life in which all things rest and have their existence.” 2 Thus, few ideas in the history of thought have been treated which have excluded some consideration of the good.
Subsequently, questions about the good’s perceived opposite, evil, have naturally followed. What is evil? Does it have an ontological existence? If so, who is responsible for evil and how can it be eradicated? Are there gradations of evil, or is evil purely so, regardless of its various degrees of intensities and outcomes? As we can see, questions about the good and its opposite, evil, also touch every facet of human inquiry, every kind of scientific pursuit, and nearly all academic study. Mortimer J. Adler observes that the theory of good and evil crosses the boundaries of many sciences or subject matters. It occupies a place in metaphysics. It is of fundamental importance in all the moral sciences—ethics, economics, politics, jurisprudence. It appears in all the descriptive sciences of human behavior, such as psychology and sociology, though there it is of less importance and is differently treated. 3
It seems, in any case, that some perception of the good, and its perceived opposite, evil, is paramount to achieving any cogent understanding of man and his ability to flourish. Generally speaking, the good can be understood, in both its moral and nonmoral senses, as “that which has positive value.”4 And, in the case of humanity, the good is “that which
2 Jan A. Aertsen quoted in Stephen R. Turley, Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty (Camp Hill, PA: Classical Academic Press, 2014), 44.
3 Mortimer J. Adler, ed., The Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas, Second Edition, vol. 1, Great Books of the Western World (Chicago, IL: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990), 471.
4 C. Stephen Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 50–51.
Introduction is constitutive of, or conducive to, human flourishing.” 5 Since human nature is, overall, consistent in every epoch, works of history are often considered to be “a possession for all time;” 6 and, historians have largely attempted to explore the good by providing readers with examples of people and ideas from the historical record whose virtues can be emulated and vices should be eschewed. As Livy famously asserts,
the study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings: fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.7
Philosophers, too, have grappled with defining and understanding the elusive concept. Some have even rooted their entire philosophical inquiries on what constitutes the good. Plato, for example, views the Good as the supreme Form, the One from whom all being and value is derived. For Aristotle, a definition for and the knowledge of the good is more nebulous and does not admit as much precision as, say, mathematics. Nevertheless, for him, the cultivation of virtue is essential for living a good life. Eudaimonia —translated happiness or flourishing, and defined as the soul functioning in accordance with virtue—is the ultimate aim, achievable only through the pursuit of excellence (ἀρετή or aretḗ ) in a person’s character and conduct. Notwithstanding, utilitarians, like John Stuart Mill, evaluate the good on the basis of outcomes. The good is that which brings the greatest number of people the maximum amount of happiness and pleasure, and the few-
5 Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion, 50–51.
6 Thucydides, The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler (New York, NY: Free Press, 2008), 1:23.4.
7 Livy, The Early History of Rome (London, England: Penguin Books, 2002), 30.
est number of people the least amount of pain. Conversely, deontological ethics, championed by thinkers like Immanuel Kant with his categorical imperative, emphasize the intrinsic value of moral principles and the duty to act in accordance with those principles, regardless of the consequences. Hence, the good for Kant is doing that which is our duty to perform regardless of the amount of pain or pleasure it creates (e.g., it is never right to lie, even to the Gestapo if you were hiding Jews during WW2). And, so continues the myriad endless philosophical pursuits of the good.
Art and literature have also explored and wrestled with the idea of the good throughout the ages. Examples being too vast to enumerate here, a couple notables will need to suffice for our purposes. Within the medium of the visual arts, one might consider Caravaggio’s The Card Sharps, ca. 1596, which depicts two hustlers swindling a naive dupe in a game of cards. Caravaggio employed the uncommon element of humor in this painting as a sort of commentary on the mean streets of Rome in his day. Like many starving artists who have occupied the annals of history, Caravaggio moved to Rome when he was eighteen to try and make money as an artist. At that time, Rome was a debauched and violent city filled with gambling halls and brothels; and, Caravaggio quickly discovered that he could make money by painting common or profane scenes (as opposed to sacred scenes) depicting the lifestyles of the people he lived among. In the scene depicted in The Card Sharps, Russ Ramsey notes that “as one young man’s innocence is exploited, another’s is being corrupted as he learns the ways of the cheat. Both boys are losing something here.” 8 While Caravaggio’s painting does not depict the good in a straightforward, conventional manner, it does furnish the
8 Russ Ramsey, Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Reflective, 2022), 45.
viewer’s moral imagination with phantasms of popular vice, depicting both its overt and subtle consequences.
In the case of literature, perhaps one might consider a more popular classic work like Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Dante’s epic poem, through both its form and content, has supplied the Western imagination with a vision of the entire theological cosmos and fostered within its readers a desire for the ultimate good, The Beatific Vision. Leland Ryken wisely articulates the profound way in which art and literature have generally explored the good. He writes,
The human race longs for the good life and attempts to create it in real life. As an extension of that attempt, or as compensation when the attempt fails, the human imagination pictures the good life in literature and art. Most literature gives us an implied picture of an ideal. Sometimes it awakens in us an awareness: “This is better than real life.”
On other occasions literature portrays a world of disorder and bondage. But even here the effect is to make us realize: “There must be something better.” The history of literature is partly a record of the human race’s quest for the good life.9
Through art and literature, we have learned to manage our expectations about good and evil in this life, while simultaneously looking for, perhaps striving for, and even anticipating “something better” to come in the world to follow. Like C. S. Lewis concluded in Mere Christianity, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were
9 Leland Ryken et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 342.
never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”10
Like so many others who have attempted to identify the precise meaning or expression of the good, the Christian perspective also offers a unique, but even more profound, lens through which to view the nature of goodness and its implications for human life. To begin with, Christians have naturally identified the good with God, who is himself supremely and immutably good. Consider the Psalmist’s exultation concerning the nature of God: “For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”11 Look also at St. James’ declaration of God’s manifest character: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”12 The Christian knows that God is the ultimate standard of goodness; therefore his character serves as the paradigm for moral excellence. As Jesus told the disciples, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”13
Additionally, human beings are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), imbued with intrinsic dignity and moral agency. As such, for the Christian, the pursuit of the good entails approximating one's life to the will of God and participating in His redemptive purposes for the world: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”14
This way of being involves not only adhering to moral and ethical precepts, but also continually cultivating the
10 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 136–137
11 Paslm 100:5 (ESV).
12 James 1:17 (ESV).
13 Matthew 5:48 (ESV).
14 Michal 6:8 (ESV).
classical and Christian virtues, such as justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude, faith, hope, and charity. Some would add humility to the list, while others see humility as intrinsic to the seven virtues. However one chooses to delineate the virtues, Christians are called to emulate the character of God, especially as revealed in the person of Christ, and together with the body of Christ, the church (Ephesians 4:11–13, Philippians 2:5–8, Colossians 2:8–11). Considered from this paradigm, the pursuit of the good is intimately connected with the divine calling to love God and love one’s neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39).
Classical Christian Educators acknowledge that the Western perspective on the good, especially as it has been animated by the Incarnation, has had profound implications for human flourishing in the West (i.e., ethics, medicine, science, technology, politics, etc.). Subsequently, until the end of the nineteenth century, the pursuit of virtue and the promotion of human well-being became the central aims of Western education, guiding individuals towards a life of excellence and fulfillment through a proper pedagogy.
For these educators, a proper pedagogy was one that acknowledged a harmonious correlation between the Transcendentals and the human soul. As medieval thinkers like John of Salisbury and Thomas Aquinas articulated the matter, the notion of Being relates to the soul, whereas Truth relates to the intellect, and Goodness relates directly to the will (especially effective when compelled by Beauty). They advocated for a harmonized pedagogy as represented in the seven liberal arts on the grounds that the universe is intelligently created—and correlative to the human soul—properly ordered by a Triune God. To this point, John of Salisbury wrote, “The creative Trinity, the one true God, has so arranged the part of the universe that each requires the help of the others, and
they mutually compensate for their respective deficiencies, all things being members one of another.”15
The importance of employing a pedagogy that cultivates the soul in harmony with the divine order is so fundamental to their understanding of education, that John of Salisbury boldly asserted, “Whoever tries to ‘thrust asunder what God has joined together’ for the common good, should rightly be adjudged a public enemy.”16 In other words, any approach to education that did not recognize the Transcendentals as playing a mediating role in the cultivation of harmony in the human soul that accorded with the harmony of the cosmos and its Trinitarian Creator, was opposed to the good.
Assuredly, the concept of the good has served as a focal point of philosophical reflection and theological inquiry for most of human history. Its pursuit has invited us to explore the nature of morality, the nature of humanity, and the nature of the Divine. The essays in this volume seek to contribute further insights into the nature of goodness and its implications for human flourishing in the twenty-first century, especially in the context of Classical Christian Education. Largely, this issues’ contributing authors agree that the good life is synonymous with the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s summation of the chief end of man: to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Because of this supposition, the good life can truly be the aim of their students’ education. As we in the postmodern age continue to grapple with the complexities of our existence amidst the proliferation of technologies like A.I. and the increasing decadence of Western culture, may all of our pursuits of the good be guided by wisdom, humility, and a deep reverence for the Source of all goodness.
15 John and Daniel D. McGarry, The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury: A Twelfth-century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium (Philadelphia, PA: Paul Dry Books, 2009), 10.
16 John and McGarry, The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury, 11.
On behalf of the editorial board and the entire Consortium of Classical Educators, it is, once again, by God’s grace and for His glory, that I present to you Volume 3, Issue 1 of The Consortium: A Journal of Classical Christian Education .
Dr. Scott Postma
Editor in Chief
Summer 2024
Editorial Advisory Board
Dr. Scott Postma— Editor in Chief
Dr. Robert M. Woods— Senior Contributing Editor
Dr. Gregory Soderberg— Contributing Editor
A Good Teacher is Like a Good Farmer
by Veronica Boulden
Classical Christian educators value old books. Most of us know from personal experience how good they can be for us. Perhaps we have been reading an epic, blind to some assumption we hold, until a perfect line in the ancient poem cuts us to the quick and exposes a definite error in our minds and hearts. “It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one until you have read an old one in between,” C. S Lewis famously said. “We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our period.”1
Wendell Berry’s books are not old yet. In fact, Berry’s latest book of short stories about his fictional town of Port William, How It Went, is still on shelves with other new fiction at bookstores. Nevertheless, Berry’s books can safely be read one after another without much risk of reinforcing modern mistakes, since Berry’s books transport us to another time and place. We sense Berry’s books are the kind that are likely to become old, given enough time, and we value them for the good they do us right now, since they are serving to expose and correct some “characteristic mistakes of our period.” Berry’s stories illustrate different kinds of men who make different kinds of farmers. All his good farmers share
1 C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), 201–202.
common characteristics with one another. First of all, good farmers do not relate to one another solely on economic terms. They pay one another for certain jobs done, but most often, they work together on each other’s farms, because a friend or two has shown up in perfect time knowing there is a body of work that needs to be done at that place on that day. They help each other for the pleasure of the work and for the sake of being in one another’s company while they do it. “They were a membership… a mere gathering, not held together by power or organization like the army, but by kinship, friendship, history, memory, kindness, and affection- apt to be working together, in various combinations, according to need, and even, always, according to pleasure.” 2
This type of humane gathering stands in contrast to what passes for local community today. Kids and parents need the Little League to manage a ballgame. We can not take photos with friends at an event without being instructed about how to properly hashtag them. The potential for profit, the chance that some new friend might join our team, seems to be the only reason to justify inviting someone for coffee and pie some weeknight or treating someone to breakfast on a Saturday morning. We are being encouraged to exploit just about every part of our lives, even our circle of friends and what happens at our tables, for potential profit by sales. Given this modern version of community infected by the market, it is nearly impossible to imagine a group of people gathering for hours of work in companionship with no official organization and no possible potential pay-off for time invested. Thankfully though, there is one place in our lives that has not been sacrificed to the total marketplace. Many classical Christian educators still gather at church each weekend with other believers in local communities for worship and fellow-
2 Wendell Berry, A Place In Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2012), 193.
A Good Teacher is Like a Good Farmer
ship and even for work. We come together for transcendent reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with mundane financial pursuits; so, at least, one thing in a modern Christian’s life has been kept safe from financial exploitation. But another characteristic of the good farmers in Berry’s stories is likely to confound even modern Christians. Berry’s best farmers don’t even relate to the land they own on purely economic terms. Of course, his farmers want to grow as much as possible from their land each season, but Berry’s good farmers show restraint and limit the extent of their planting to what is good for the land. His good farmers try to find a way to grow what their specific family needs without taking too much from the soil. “Shape your life to the needs of your place. So far as you can, without hurting it, shape your place to your needs. Live from it and for it. Always try to make it better.”3 Instead of over-using their land for as much profit as possible, good farmers use all their wit and skill to balance the need of cultivating the land for fruitful production with the value of protecting and preserving the land.
Modern classical Christian educators, indeed, modern people, can benefit from this example of Berry’s best farmers. Classical Christian educational programs must have financial components, but the financial needs ought to remain secondary to the higher purposes for which the programs exist. Schools need to pay teachers, steward resources, and function morally and lawfully, but a classical Christian school is never only, or fundamentally, a business. A classical Christian school understands itself to be something other, set apart, even holy, more like a church than a store. This is because it is a place where two or more are gathered to seek Truth, the Holy Spirit is at work bringing light to minds and grace to hearts, and Christ is beheld in all the subjects He is Lord over. Transcendent moments happen. Students and teachers alike
3 Berry, A Place in Time, 223.
behold the Logos, worship, feel awe, give glory, and learn, certainly. The essential, transcendent, spiritual purposes for which a classical Christian school exists must be protected and given space to thrive apart from the growing marketable value of its distinctive education. If a school or program is not checking the need or desire for profit by all the other, higher values that Classical Christian educators understand exist, then that classical Christian program is no longer actually or essentially classical or Christian.
Given the image of Berry’s farmers working together for pleasure in friendship, modern classical Christians should take measures to ensure that their whole life does not become a marketplace, even a classical Christian marketplace. Let us preserve and protect significant parts of our lives, time, work, and ourselves so that we can offer those parts freely to other people in Christian service and in an authentic, classic, humane community.
Secondly, Berry’s good farmers all seem to accept the farm they have with its particularities as long as it can provide a living, and they go to work on it to make it as good as it can be. Moderns are encouraged to dream bigger dreams of bigger houses, and we do not stop striving for more once we have made a living. But Berry’s good farmers are not seen or heard longing for the better farm on the other side of the road where the grass is literally deeper and greener. His good farmers imagine their farms at their best. If a man cannot bring his farm to its best within his lifetime, he certainly makes it better than it was before he came to it. “They had taken what had been given them and what had been available in the time and place, and they had brought it to abundance and the luster of a new thing.”4
A good classical Christian teacher can be like a good farmer in this way. Classical Christian teachers do not usually
4 Berry, A Place in Time, 232.
A Good Teacher is Like a Good Farmer
get to hand-pick their students or their student’s parents, but good teachers receive the people who God brings to them with all their particularities, and good teachers go to work with the goal of equipping the students they have so they become more like the people God wants them to be. Of course, no student reaches perfection this side of eternity, and the largest part of the work in a student’s life is for God alone to determine and direct, but good classical Christian teachers certainly imagine what students might become when they are grown and at their full potential. We wrestle in prayer and work to those ends using all our wits and spirit to help and inspire students towards their highest callings. If a total classical Christian renewal comes, it will not happen as a result of mass-marketing a standardized, official classical Christian product. It will happen because local people are classical Christian people, and wherever they are, they effectively teach whatever people are around them.
Third, and last—as small as Berry’s town of Port William is, Berry’s good people make friends with good people right next door. The scale of their lives is unrecognizable, even incomprehensible, and almost absurd to a modern person. But this might be where Berry’s writing best exposes common assumptions and mistakes of our time. For instance, in his previous book of short stories, A Place in Time, Berry tells of Elton and Mary Penn, who start out their marriage on the poorest farm in their neighborhood. They struggle to survive, but there, of all places, the young couple is rich in community, making priceless friendships with the good people all around them. “The women opened their hearts and arms to Mary. They befriended her, mothered her, gave her freely of their companionship… ‘Everything I know,’ she would say later, ‘I learned from those women.’”5 Seven years later, this young couple moves to a better farm across town. They are
5 Berry, A Place in Time, 218.
not seeking wealth so much as a better piece of land finally equal to them where they will make a living. The new farm is only a few miles away from the old one, and everyone in the community has at least one car, so it must be a very short drive from the new farm to the old. But remarkably, instead of maintaining her best friendships by car, Mary befriends the older lady at the farm across the street. Even more remarkable, the older lady next door is not the most pleasant person, and it will take years for these two women to enjoy the deep fellowship she already has with the other women only minutes across town.
This remarkable passage exposes that we moderns assume the right to choose our friends and spend time with the people we prefer most of all. We pray we will not have to talk to our neighbors before we get inside our houses. We connect with people online who agree with our educational or political philosophy in every particular. We expect to influence hundreds even thousands of people from our kitchen table, but what about our actual lives, the embodied people around us, the family next door, or the homeschool mom at church who uses a different curriculum? Does proximity actually have bearing on our moral responsibility to one another, or is this idea merely old fashioned? Do our Classics or Scriptures have anything to say about the scale of our lives and even the scale of our life’s work? We can reach anyone online, but Socrates usually talked to one person at a time. Now we can teach hundreds virtually, but the Incarnate Word had twelve disciples who walked with Him everywhere He was embodied. Thankfully, in both cases, the witnesses were writing things down. But let us not miss the essential elements of humane classical Christian living and teaching because we strive for a bigger audience or a larger platform. Our work and our lives may still be done rightly in person and with only a few people at a time. The humane scale of the lives of Berry’s characters confounds and challenges our modern expectations about the
A Good Teacher is Like a Good Farmer
reach of one successful Christian life and the influence of one lifetime’s successful work in classical education.
Classical Christian educators can absorb lessons from the lives of Berry’s good farmers. We recall the small scale of Berry’s characters’ lives and realize that the most meaningful lives can be lived and the most fruitful work can be done on a small scale within a small learning community with a few students at a time. We recall how Berry’s farmers value relationships over economic profit, and we can check any tendency to value people for the potential income they represent. We recall that Berry’s best farmers took whatever farm they had and went to work to make it better, and we can strive to do the same with the students we find in our classrooms or at our kitchen tables.
Through Berry’s stories of Port William, classical, Christian readers encounter characters that confront us and challenge our ways of thinking, living, relating, and even simply being in our modern world. Berry’s characters can join the cast of heroes who affectionately tyrannize us, shining out in our imagination with a glow that makes them impossible to forget or ignore. When readers spend time in the fields and barns around Port William, they perceive Berry’s characters share essential qualities with their oldest and dearest heroes in the oldest and dearest stories. His characters have beautiful, human lives filled with true community, but most especially, they are good and do good, and reading about them is good for us.
Veronica Boulden studied English and Religion at Charleston Southern University. She is also a graduate of the Circe Apprenticeship. She homeschools her daughters and helps administrate and teach at homeschool co-ops where she lives in Connecticut. She will begin graduate studies in Classical and Liberal Arts at Belmont Abbey this fall.
Forming a Desire for the Good Life
The Role of the Teacher in Moral Education
by Robert Delaney Introduction
Teachers worthy of the title desire that their students ultimately live a life dedicated to the good. However, teachers can feel disillusioned by their teaching having less impact in this regard than they would like. Despite our greatest attempts, the teacher is at the whims of the student as to whether or not he or she interiorizes the information taught and sees it as worthwhile. No book or method can generate the desired response. The student chooses to begin this venture of his or her own volition. If the teacher sees it as his or her responsibility to cause this pursuit of the good to occur, frustration and burnout will happen quickly. Instead, the role of the teacher is to cultivate within the student an inner hunger for the good life. This article will explain this dynamic by accomplishing the following. First, it will explain how, for Plato, the good is the soul’s end but that one cannot be rationally argued into pursuing it. Second, it will then explore the role of the teacher in making the student realize his or her desire for the good. Third, the article will conclude with ways to form the student’s desire for the good life through the imagination and the personal influence of the teacher.
The Good: The Indefensibility of Reason’s Terminus
For Plato, the good permeates all of reality and gives it its splendor. As he says in The Republic “the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge of all things known, but of their being and essence” (509b).1 The good, and a life lived in pursuit of it, is the goal of the philosopher’s life. Yet, many people substitute the truly good with objects that are merely effects of the good. Whether that substitution be pleasure, power, honor, security, or even self-preservation, many people distract themselves from that which truly makes life worth living. This substitution leads ultimately to a slavish existence.
Plato illustrates this reality famously in his Allegory of the Cave. Plato explains how the life of wisdom, i.e. life spent in pursuit of the good, begins. He imagines chained prisoners sitting in a cave, watching shadows flickering across the wall. The prisoners mistakenly take the shadows to constitute reality. One day a prisoner is freed and is able to escape the cave. At first, his eyes are unable to adjust to the brightness of the sun. After the adjustment occurs, he is able to see reality in its fullness. The prisoner, because of the sun’s luminosity, understands that the former shadows were mere distortions of real objects. Finally, he is able to see the sun (the good) and see where all objects gain their visibility. The prisoner is then sent back down to the cave in an attempt to liberate the other prisoners. The other prisoners, however, see him as crazy. They agree that it would be good to put the escaped prisoner to death for the sake of maintaining the order of the cave.
1 Plato, “The Republic,” in Great Books of the Western World: Plato, ed. Mortimer J. Adler (Chicago, IL: 1990), 384.
Plato’s allegory makes clear that the good both satisfies the human soul and is a great risk. Cave dwellers do not like light bringers. A great showdown between the two sides occurs again and again within the Platonic corpus, but is nowhere more radically on display—except in the very execution of Socrates—than in The Gorgias. In this dialogue, Socrates engages with the sophists Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles. The main dispute is between Socrates and Callicles on whether or not the just man who suffers is happier than the tyrant. Socrates argues for the sufferer and Callicles for the tyrant. Though Socrates is able to show the irrationality of Callicles’s position, there comes a point where the reader sees the great impasse between the two souls. Socrates points out that the tyrant, who is miserable, will put the just man to death because he cannot stand his virtue and the fulfillment this causes him. Callicles, in exasperation, says “is not that just the provoking thing!” (581b)2 The provoking thing is that the just man is not rewarded for his goodness. Rather, he is always willing to risk his life for virtue. For, as Socrates exemplified, life without the good is not one worth living. The good life itself is its own reward. Yet, Socrates cannot rationally prove that to Callicles; he can only lead him to the point of crisis or decision point. Herein lies the great paradox within teaching someone about the good: the good life cannot be obtained through abstraction, but it demands a risk of entering and directing one’s whole life to the good. The problem goes back to the escaped prisoner. Only the one who has encountered the good is transformed by it. Such a transformation requires opening one’s eyes and seeing that the good is truly good in itself. The good cannot be reduced to a mere syllogism or rational deduction. Because such a reduction is impossible, the good life is defenseless.
2 Plato, “The Gorgias,” in Essential Dialogues of Plato, ed. Pedro de Blas, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2005), 125.
D. C. Schindler, in his excellent book, Plato’s Critique of Impure Reason, explains:
It is the very nature of what is ultimate to be ultimately defenseless. Whenever we make an argument for something, we offer reasons for it. These reasons justify it by explaining why it is good or necessary. But by justifying it in this way, we are implying that its own goodness or necessity is relative to these reasons. A verbal defense will be adequate to the extent that a things goodness is in fact reducible to these (relative) reasons that can be given for it… Something that was good in an intrinsic sense would ultimately not be able to be justified in terms of anything but itself— and this includes any of its qualities, be they essential or accidental, which can be articulated in a proposition, for even an essential attribute is not the being of a thing, but the verbal sign of an aspect of it. Socrates can defend justice only by being just to the end. 3
Even though Socrates is often successful in showing the rational problems with sophistry, he is usually unable to convince the sophists to submit their lives to the good. Such a response requires that one sees the good as something subordinate to one’s self. In other words, one must see the good as desirable in itself and worth more than all other subordinate goods, even the good of one’s own life.
The Educator’s Role in Teaching the Good
3 D. C. Schindler, Plato’s Critique of Pure Reason: On Goodness and Truth in the Republic (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 237–238.
The aim of the teacher should be for the student to pursue the good life. Based upon what was said above, however, it seems that the educator’s role is superfluous. For, if ultimately the student must decide to pursue the good or not, then is the teacher even necessary? In other words, should we educators—who see the good life as the ultimate end of education—pack up shop and start a new career? While the alternative answer would make this a rather bleak article, the answer to this is no. Yet, one cannot expect that the student will pursue the good life through acquiring abstract knowledge alone. Instead, the educator has to form and elicit the pupil’s innate desire for the good.
The human being is, essentially, a desiring or loving being. As James K. A. Smith puts it, “it is our desires that orient and direct us towards some ultimate telos we take to be the good life, the version of the kingdom we live toward. To be human is to be a lover and to love something ultimate.”4 These loves can be for money, pleasure, honor, or the good. One spends his life trying to fulfill these goods. However, the acquisition of what one desires does not equate to human fulfillment. If our desires are incorrectly ordered, then pursuing our desires can lead to our misery. Furthermore, desire for purely natural objects does not satisfy the human heart. The heart and mind of a human being longs for the ultimate Good. All goods are but mere reflections and in-
4 James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016), 14–15.
timations of the infinite Good: God. 5 As Aquinas argued, all goods known by the human intellect ultimately bring us back to God. 6 For all goods depend upon and participate in God’s infinite Goodness for their being. The human heart, therefore, has an infinite longing for God that can only be fulfilled by Him.7
5 The concept of creatio ex nihilo makes it apparent that all beings depend on God for existence, but this in no way means that these beings add more to existence. As Robert Sokolowski puts it in The God of Faith & Reason, “Any particular being is actual and therefore has the perfection of existing, but it can be actual only because it must be contended within certain limits… But God… is the sheer act of existing. He is not confined to being this kind of thing as opposed to that kind. He is not a ‘kind’ of thing at all, only sheer esse… Creatures each exist in a certain way, whereas God is pure existence. Whatever goodness or greatness occurs in creatures occurs therefore in an eminent way in God. Hence after creation there are more beings but not more perfection of esse.” Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith & Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 42–43.
6 Aquinas argues this point in the Summa Theologica stating, “Now since our intellect knows God from creatures, it knows Him as far as creatures represent Him. Now it is shown above (I:4:2) that God prepossesses in Himself all the perfections of creatures, being Himself simply and universally perfect. Hence every creature represents Him, and is like Him so far as it possesses some perfection; yet it represents Him not as something of the same species or genus, but as the excelling principle of whose form the effects fall short, although they derive some kind of likeness thereto, even as the forms of inferior bodies represent the power of the sun. This was explained above (I:4:3), in treating of the divine perfection. Therefore the aforesaid names signify the divine substance, but in an imperfect manner, even as creatures represent it imperfectly. So when we say, ‛God is good,’ the meaning is not, ‛God is the cause of goodness,’ or ‛God is not evil’; but the meaning is, ‛Whatever good we attribute to creatures, pre-exists in God,’ and in a more excellent and higher way. Hence it does not follow that God is good, because He causes goodness; but rather, on the contrary, He causes goodness in things because He is good; according to what Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 32), ‛Because He is good, we are.’” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates, 1920), Ia, q 13, art 2.
7 St. Augustine put it famously, “to praise you [Lord] is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 3. Aquinas makes a similar point about the intellect. He writes that “there resides in every man a natural desire to know the cause of any effect which he sees; and thence arises wonder in men. But if the intellect of the rational creature could not reach so far as to the first cause of things, the natural desire would remain void. Hence it must be absolutely granted that the blessed see the essence of God.” Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, q 12, art 1.
The educator’s role is to make the student aware of the desire of the infinite inside his or her soul. This task requires two elements: first, unmasking idols that serve as substitutes for the infinite good; second, pointing out the hunger within the human heart. The first task is more difficult than it seems. The student—even one steeped in a classical education—is subsumed by various desires that orient them in different directions. Whether this be money, accolades, popularity, or a high GPA, all of these pursuits—if they are viewed as ultimate—end in existential frustration. The teacher is tasked with showing the vapidity of making such pursuits ultimate. The second task is revealing that the human heart has an innate desire for God. These other pursuits, though good, point us to the source of their goodness. C. S. Lewis wrote: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise it, or be unthankful for these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.” 8
The educator, in other words, is meant to make that echo more apparent within the student. Returning back to Plato, one begins to understand the Socratic Method. The teacher, as Socrates described it, is meant to act as a midwife drawing out within the student an awareness of his or her ultimate
8 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Touchstone, 1980), 121.
desire.9 Just as the midwife cannot give birth for a pregnant woman, neither can the teacher cause the student to pursue a good life. The teacher can, however, coax and guide students in realizing the ultimate strivings of their hearts for the infinite.
Forming the Desire: Imagination and Personal Influence
The teacher who wishes to lead the student onto the path of the good life takes on a momentous task. This role is forming the heart to seek after the good life. Within a culture that is antithetical to such a formation, the task seems daunting and, at times, impossible. The way to accomplish this is to properly form the imagination of the student to awaken a desire for the good life. The power of story and personal influence can give the educator a helpful method for eliciting this desire.
Narrative forms the imagination because, as Alasdair MacIntyre pointed out, the person views reality through an
9 Socrates explains this role in the Theaetetus stating, “my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men and not women; and look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth. And like the midwives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just—the reason is, that the god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit.” Plato, “Theaetetus,” in Great Books of the Western World: Plato, ed. Mortimer J. Adler (Chicago, IL: 1990), 516.
Forming a Desire for the Good Life
intelligible narrative.10 The person is contextualized in an embedded narrative of a world, country, city, family, and even one’s own life. To make sense of life, one must learn to “understand how others respond to us and how our responses are to be constructed” within these differing narratives.11 If our embedded narratives are saturated by consumerism, then our desires are going to be directed towards the newest iPhone. If our narratives are saturated by the gospel, then our desires will be directed towards the Kingdom of God. As James K. A. Smith points out, “shaping of our character is, to a great extent, the effect of the stories that have captivated us, that have sunk into our bones—stories that ‘picture’ what we think life is about, what constitutes ‘the good life.’ We live into the stories we’ve absorbed; we become characters in the stories that captivated us. Thus, much of our action is acting out a kind of script that has unconsciously captured our imagination.”12
The educator should expose the student to good stories to form these desires. A few examples should suffice to show the depth of a story’s ability to capture our moral imagina-
10 Alaisdair MacIntyre gave this famous example in After Virtue to illustrate his point: “I am standing for a bus and the young man standing next to me suddenly says: ‘The name of the common wild duck is Histrionicus histrionicus histrionicus.’ There is no problem as to the meaning of the sentence he uttered: the problem is, how to answer the question, what was he doing in uttering it? Suppose he just uttered such sentences at random intervals; this would be one possible form of madness. We would render his action of utterance intelligible if one of the following turned out to be true. He has mistaken me for someone who yesterday had approached him in the library and asked ‘Do you by any chance know the Latin name of the common wild duck?’ Or he has just come back from a session with his psychotherapist who has urged him to break down his shyness by talking to strangers. ‘But what shall I say?’ ‘Oh, anything at all.’ Or he is a Soviet spy waiting at a prearranged rendezvous and uttering the ill-chosen code sentence which will identify him to his contact. In each case the act of utterance becomes intelligible by finding its place in a narrative.” Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007), 243–244.
11 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 250.
12 James K. A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 32.
tion. The first theme is a story that shows the heroism of risking one’s life for the good. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy displays this throughout the plot and through diverse characters. Particularly, Frodo, and his treacherous journey to destroy the ring, displays the great selflessness found in the good person. Second would be a story’s theme that reveals the shallowness of a life spent in pursuit of lower goods. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a prime example. The life of avarice—and the parasitical effects it has upon one’s life—is nowhere better demonstrated than in Ebenezer Scrooge. The sadness of his life is put on display throughout his journey of Christmas past, present, and future, but is seen most radically in the juxtaposition of his decrypted spirit with the magnanimity of Tiny Tim. Third would be a theme that shows the moral transformation of a character because of an encounter with the good. Les Misérables demonstrates this beautifully through the life of Jean Valjean. Valjean, in encountering the great mercy of the archbishop, is haunted by this display of the good’s gratuitousness. The rest of the story is Valjean’s attempt to live in accordance with this goodness. Lastly, a story that displays the surrender of one’s heart to the good—despite struggling against it—shows the student the inner dynamics of this surrender. The climactic moment of conversion in Brideshead Revisited portrays this beautifully. The narrator’s surrender to God’s grace shows the reader the profound moment of light overcoming the darkness of the human heart.
These narrative examples display to the student how the good life is lived. The themes permeate the imagination and form within them a desire for the good life. The argument to be good is no longer abstracted in categories and moral commands. Instead, the inner beauty is made resplendent in the form of story. The beauty of the good awakens within the soul a desire to live one’s life in a similar way.
Story alone should not be the only method utilized. The student can still ignore books, arguments, and retellings of those who have lived the good life. But, as John Henry Newman stated, “they cannot bear [its] presence: it is holiness embodied in personal form which they cannot steadily confront and bear down: so the silent conduct of a conscientious man secures for him beholders a feeling different in kind from any which is created by the mere versatile and garrulous reason.”13 As seen in the Cave and on Calvary, the fact that the good embodied cannot be ignored is why the good man is usually killed by those souls that cannot stand to be convicted by being in the presence of the good. The good man’s teachings carry on because his disciples disseminate his message and get in similar trouble.
The life of Socrates exemplifies this reality. While he is remembered for his philosophy and argument, his students were enraptured by the goodness that exuded from his person. For example, in the Symposium, Alcibiades says the following about Socrates’s influence:
When we hear another speaker, even a very good one, he produces absolutely no effect upon us, or not much, whereas the mere fragments of you [Socrates] and your words, even at second-hand, and however imperfectly repeated, amaze and possess the souls of every man, woman, and child who comes within hearing them. And if I were not afraid that you would think me hopelessly drunk, I would have sworn as well as spoken to the influence which they have always had and still have on me. For my heart leaps within me… and my eyes rain tears when I hear them…
13 John Henry Newman, Fifteen Sermons Preached Before The University of Oxford Between A.D. 1826 and 1843 (New York: Longmans Green and Co, 1909), 92
For he makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the wants of my own soul (215c–216a).14
Socrates, and his life spent in pursuit of and eventually sacrificed for the sake of the good, haunted his student Plato throughout his writing. When Socrates argues that the happy man is the one who suffers for the good in the Gorgias, Socrates is the embodiment of that man. Furthermore, as D. C. Schindler points out, Socrates embodied the Good for Plato. He states, “Socrates says that the philosopher must go down [to the cave], but he in fact is the very philosopher who goes down . Socrates is known as one whose words and deeds ‘match up’… Socrates simultaneously explains and enacts a meaning; he is the embodiment of the truth he communicates. In this respect, then, he represents a real image of the good.”15
The educator, likewise, should strive to embody the good life. Modeling for the student the life of virtue and the joy that arises from it. The teacher, therefore, needs to be sure that his or her classroom exudes the pursuit of the good life. The student is asked to reexamine his or her life both via the information taught and the teacher’s embodiment of the good. The teacher that requires such is a teacher who takes an interest in the life of the student. The teacher encourages him or her to live up to the goodness that the teacher sees in them. This encouragement is done through holding them to high standards, meeting them in mercy, praying for them, and, most of all, loving them despite their faults. The presence of the teacher who expresses the good life in word and deed does more to demonstrate the good life than any book or lecture could accomplish. The good meets the student face to face, and a decision must be made about it.
14 Plato, “Symposium,” in Essential Dialogues of Plato, ed. Pedro de Blas, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2005), 106.
15 Schindler, Plato’s Critique of Impure Reason, 168.
Conclusion
The pursuit of the good life is a risk of one’s entire being. The good life demands all that we have and will not accept anything less. A person who truly examines one’s life in relationship to the good will realize hsi or her poverty and implore God for His grace to become good. In chapter 18 of Luke’s Gospel, supplication is illustrated in the juxtaposed stories of the rich young man and the blind man beside the gate of Jericho. The rich young man desires to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. He asks the incarnate Good— Christ Jesus—what else he must do to gain this life. Christ asks if he follows the law of Moses. The young man answers affirmatively. Jesus tells him to then go sell all his things and follow Him. “But when he heard this he became sad, for he was very rich” (Luke 18:23, RSV). The young man wants the good life to be subservient to him and his projects, which is why he cannot do as Christ asks. He knows that he cannot be happy without this surrender, but he cannot take the risk. Alternatively, a few verses later, a blind man from Jericho cries out, despite the protests of the crowd, for Christ to heal him of his blindness. Jesus approaches him and asks him to make his request again. He does so, and Christ heals him. The blind man, glorifying Christ’s name, then follows Jesus. Gregory the Great, commenting on this passage, stated that the blind man “was asking neither for gold nor for riches of any kind, but for the light, since without this gift, all others goods could not satisfy him.”16 Once again, we return to the light illuminating the darkness. The Good One Himself can shed light upon our darkness, but the healing can be received
16 Gregory the Great, “Pope St. Gregory the Great’s Homily on Luke 18:31–43,” The Divine Lamp (blog), last modified March 2, 2011, https://thedivinelamp.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/pope-st-gregory-the-great-on-luke-1831-43-for-quinquagesima-sunday-march-6/.
only in humility. The good is bestowed upon us as a gift to which we must surrender. No prior demands or bargaining can be made as a prerequisite to our acceptance of this gift. Only in a humble heart that acknowledges its need for the gift can the gift of grace be accepted. Yet, even the Logos proposes to the student whether or not he will take the venture of faith and follow Him. If accepted, one is able to see the true splendor of existence. For one begins to see existence through the lens of the Good who is the source of all other goods. Put simply, one must ask the Good Teacher to give us the grace to live the life we ultimately desire, one in pursuit of Himself. As educators, let us pray that our students have their eyes opened by the Good and walk away glorifying Him.
Robert Delaney is a doctoral student in the Ph.D. in humanities at Faulkner University and has a Master’s in Catholic Theology from the University of Holy Cross. He is an 8th-grade religion teacher at a local all-girls Catholic high school. He is also the IKON: Director for the Newman Idea, a non-profit that helps college and high school students integrate knowledge with their Christian faith. He and his wife live in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Public Education for the Common Good?
A Critical Analysis of Aristotle's Understanding of the State's Role in the Education of Children in The Politics
by Lucas E. Vieira
Introduction
In our culture today, the question “To whom does the responsibility to educate children belong?” is a contentious one. Many assume that the responsibility of education falls on the state, while others argue that education is the responsibility of the household. The overwhelming majority of students in America are educated in public schools, as opposed to private schools or at home. While many champion Aristotle as a forerunner of the classical education movement, it is without a doubt that classical Christian educators today would find themselves shocked by his understanding of the relationship between the state and education. In this paper, I seek to address the following inquiry: How does Aristotle’s view of the role of the household in the polis (political community) affect his view on public education? With books one, seven, and eight of The Politics as guides, I shall posit that Aristotle’s view of public education is directly tied to his dubious understanding that the state is logically prior to the family and individual. Because of this, Aristotle fails to properly assign
the responsibility of education to the household and instead assigns it to the state, which commits a similar mistake that Aristotle accuses Socrates of in book two of The Politics.
The Household as a Part of the Political Community
Among political treatises and works, Aristotle’s Politics is perhaps one of the most renowned. In his work, Aristotle discusses the purpose and goals of political communities. Moreover, he analyzes the different types of political constitutions, the role of citizens, and the distinct parts of the political community. In book one of The Politics, Aristotle begins by arguing that the city-state is a community which is organized for the sake of the highest good of human happiness. He states, “If all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.”1 Thus, the political community exists to attain the common good—namely human happiness. 2
With the telos of the political community established, Aristotle goes on to reveal his initial method in analyzing the function and existence of the political community. Positing that one needs to analyze the parts in order to understand the whole, Aristotle begins his project of political analysis by looking at the family. 3 City-states, Aristotle argues, are made up of villages which are made up of families. While the city-
1 Aristotle, The Politics and the Constitution of Athens, ed. Stephen Everson (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 1.1.1252a.3–6.
2 Tim Duvall and Paul Dotson, “Political Participation and ‘Eudaimonia’ in Aristotle’s ‘Politics,” History of Political Thought 19, no. 1 (1998): 21–34, http://www.jstor. org/stable/26217451.
3 Aristotle, The Politics, 1.1.1252a.27.
state arises to meet the needs for an individual to attain the truly good life, the family exists to supply everyday needs. Aristotle states, “The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men’s everyday wants.”4 If the family is to supply men’s everyday wants, who is to rule the family? Aristotle argues that families are to be ruled by the eldest male (which would be most likely the husband and father). He states, “Every family is ruled by the eldest, and therefore in the colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed because they were of the same blood. As Homer says, ‘Each one gives law to his children and to his wives.’”5 In a sense, the father is to be the ruler of the household. 6 Aristotle later goes on to say that the Father’s paternal relations to his children are ordered by nature.7 Unfortunately, Aristotle neglects to further explain what falls under that particular fatherly rule.
In chapter two of book one, Aristotle demonstrates that man’s ability to attain eudaimonia is directly connected with the existence of the political community. 8 Thus, the state takes logical priority when understanding the nature of man. Aristotle claims,
The state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body is destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except homonymously, as we might speak
4 Aristotle, The Politics, 1.1.1252b.12.
5 Aristotle, The Politics, 1.1.1252b.20–24.
6 David J. Riesbeck, “Aristotle on the Politics of Marriage: ‘Marital Rule’ in the Politics,” The Classical Quarterly 65, no. 1 (February 2015): 134–152, https://doi. org/10.1017/s0009838814000755.
7 Aristotle, The Politics, 1.12.1259b.1.
8 Randall Curren, “Aristotle’s Educational Politics and the Aristotelian Renaissance in Philosophy of Education,” Oxford Review of Education 36, no. 5 (2010): 543–559, https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2010.514434.
of a stone hand; for when the destroyed hand will be of no better than that.9
In Aristotle’s thought, the family and the individual serve simply as a stepping-stone to the more ultimate community—the city-state. The question that arises, then, is what role does the family play in an individual’s pursuit of the eudaimonistic life once the city-state has come into formation?
Aristotle’s Limits on the Polis in Book Two of The Politics
In book two, Aristotle begins to analyze Socrates’ vision for the political community. Socrates’ proposal in Plato’s Republic is that all children, wives, and property would be held in common by the political community.10 Aristotle argues that Socrates’ proposal is misguided and would prove detrimental to the city-state.11 If the community were to hold property, women, and children in common, then the property would fall into disrepair because people care for things better when they have ownership. Furthermore, if women and children are held in common, then more conflicts would arise between members of the polis because the relations would be unclear.12 More importantly, though, Aristotle’s primary critique lies in the fact that the city-state actually thrives on differences within the political community; for it was out of differences that the need for the city-state actually arises.13 When the
9 Aristotle, The Politics, 1.2.1253a.19–23.
10 Aristotle, The Politics, 2.2.1261a.17–23.
11 Darrell Dobbs, “Aristotle’s Anticommunism,” American Journal of Political Science 29, no. 1 (1985): 29–46, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.2307/2111210.
12 Aristotle, The Politics, 2.3.
13 Aristotle, The Politics, 2.4.
state takes over the distribution of women and children so that the community might hold them in common, the state is standing in the role of the unified household—which ends up being detrimental to the state because that is not its role by nature. According to Aristotle, the state cannot and should not play the role of the household or individual. When it does, the political community’s ability to achieve eudaimonia becomes hampered. Indeed, Aristotle seems to wholeheartedly reject Socrates’ ancient form of communism within the political community. Too much unity in the city-state will lead to its utter downfall.
Aristotle on Public Education and the Role of the Legislator
We have seen thus far that the political community exists in order to enable its members to achieve the common good of human happiness. While the family is an essential building block of the political community, the state exists prior to the family. Moreover, Aristotle argues the polis should not enact the unity which by nature characterizes the family. When it does so, the polis is unable to fulfill its purposes. In book seven, Aristotle turns to address the function of the legislator—the one who is administering justice and law within the political community. He argues that one of the tasks of the legislator is to seek to make the citizens of the polis good. Men, argues Aristotle, must have their habits and reason moulded in order to bring about a virtuous citizenry.14 A virtuous citizenry will lead to a political community which truly seeks the good. Indeed, the legislator in the Aristotelian vision plays a role in bringing about virtue in his
14 Aristotle, The Politics, 7.13.
citizens.15 Now, it is necessary to point out that Aristotle does not believe that a citizen needs necessarily to be a good man in order to be a good citizen; though, there is no doubt that he would not be against having a citizenry made up of truly good men.16
If the quality of the citizens affects the ability of the political community to attain the common good of human happiness, then the legislator, according to Aristotle, should pay special attention to how the citizens are trained in virtue. It is for this reason that Aristotle suggests that legislators should pay special attention to the formation of children.
Aristotle suggests that the legislator should pay special attention to the procreation, quantity of, and education of children.17 The city-state, in book seven of The Politics, is now tasked with micromanaging one of the building blocks (the family) which helped bring it into existence. He states,
Since the legislator should begin by considering how the bodies of the children whom he is rearing may be as good as possible, his first care will be about marriage—at what age should his citizens marry, and who are fit to marry? In legislating on this subject he ought to consider the persons and the length of their life, that their procreative life may terminate at the same period, and that they may not differ in their bodily powers, as will be the case if the man is not able to beget children while the woman is unable to bear them, or the woman able to bear while the man is unable to beget, for these causes arise quarrels and differences between married persons.18
15 Dustin Hornbeck, “Seeking Civic Virtue: Two Views of the Philosophy and History of Federalism in U.S. Education,” Journal of Thought 51, no. 3–4 (2017): 52–68, https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/90017079.
16 Aristotle, The Politics, 3.4.
17 Aristotle, The Politics, 7.16.
18 Aristotle, The Politics, 7.16.1334b.29–39 (emphasis added).
Aristotle goes on to argue that legislators must regulate the age of the parents involved in procreation and the time of year in which procreation occurs.19 Not stopping there, Aristotle discusses the type of bodies the parents should have. Lastly, Aristotle argues that deformed children should be put to death and that the state should set limits on the number of children a family could have and that if a family transgresses this limit an abortion must be procured. 20 It is clear that for Aristotle, once the city-state comes into existence, the family seems to lose all agency and autonomy over one of the essential elements of a marriage—procreation. The legislator thus takes on the role of the paternal ruler, and this rule continues into the education of the child. 21
Out of all the possible topics Aristotle could conclude The Politics with, he chooses education. Indeed, the education of the children in the polis is the most important responsibility assigned to the legislator according to Aristotle. He posits at the beginning of book eight, “No one will doubt that the legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of the youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizens should be moulded to suit the form of government under which he lives.” 22 Since the government will be better if the character of citizenry is good, it is the state’s job to regulate and legislate the education which will bring about that character.
What does this, then, entail for the relationship between education and the state? In Aristotle’s formulation, education cannot be private. Indeed, since the legislator’s goal is to develop good character in the citizenry, the legislator must develop that excellence in the children through public education. He states,
19 Aristotle, The Politics, 7.16.
20 Aristotle, The Politics, 7.16.1335b.20–27.
21 Aristotle, The Politics, 7.17.
22 Aristotle, The Politics, 8.1.1337a.10–14.
Since the whole city has one end, it is manifest that education should be one and the same for all, and that it should be public, not private—not at present, when everyone looks after his own children separately, and gives them separate instruction of the sort which he thinks is best; the training in things which are of common interest should be the same for all. Neither must we suppose that anyone of the citizens belongs to himself, for they all belong to the state, and are each of them apart of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole. In this particular as in some other the Lacedaemonians are to be praised, for they take the greatest pains about their children, and make education the business of the state. 23
There should be a singular type of public education of children, since the city has a singular end—the common good. The citizens belong ultimately to the state according to Aristotle and thus their education should be fully controlled by the state. It is for this reason that Aristotle praises the public education system made use of by the Lacedaemonians. Education must “be regulated by law” in order for the political community to reach eudaimonia . 24
The Erasure of the Family & Individual in Aristotle’s Politics
Having provided a thorough overview of Aristotle’s understanding of the role of the family in the polis as well as the relationship between the state, children, and education, the following question arises: Even though the formation of
23 Aristotle, The Politics, 8.1.1337a.21–33.
24 Aristotle, The Politics, 8.2.1337a.33–34.
virtue matters in the political community, does that then necessitate that it is the state’s job to form virtue? Indeed, might that virtue find its origin in one of the constituent parts of the political community—namely, the family?
By placing the state logically prior to the family and then building his political vision on that structure, Aristotle inadvertently erases the very building blocks which are required for the existence of the polis in the first place. The household is necessary for the political community, but then the state comes along and swallows up the natural duties of the household. Indeed, Aristotle originally argues that fathers had a paternal relation to their children in book one, but by the time we arrive at book seven it has become the state’s job to oversee procreation and to rear children. But, according to nature, procreation and childrearing belongs to the family. Aristotle’s method of analysis has in turn erased that which he is analyzing.
Moreover, consider Aristotle’s critique of Socrates’ communist community in book two. Aristotle suggests that the difference within the community is what allows the political community to flourish. When the community holds all things in common, the community fails because it has begun to act like the household—which is unnatural. Yet, when Aristotle begins to discuss the education of children, difference is looked down upon. Aristotle suggests that since the whole city has one common end, children all require a uniform public education which is one and the same. The question is, “Does the common good require the same education legislated by the state?” Or, “Can the common good still be achieved if each household educates their children, albeit in different ways?” Considering how the differences within the community lead to flourishing because it develops a need for political friendship, I argue that private education allows for the growth of community differences which could lead to that friendship.
Conclusion
While Aristotle aims to properly analyze the parts of the city-state, he erases these parts when it comes to education. The household loses all authority when it comes to procreation and childrearing (which would exist naturally apart from the city-state). Indeed, Aristotle neglects to grasp the nature of the individual and the family fully in The Politics, thus handing responsibilities to the state which belong to the family or individual. Can the happiness of the individual members of the political community be achieved if the proper natural relations which exist between them are disrupted?
An approach which values the natural rights inherent to the individual would bring about an educational system markedly different from the one proposed by Aristotle. While virtue would still be valuable in bringing about the common good, the state would not be the ultimate source of that virtue formation. Instead, the formation of virtue would remain in the hands of the individual and their families. Thus, education would be private, and not public.
While there is much to glean from Aristotle in The Politics, Aristotle’s fatal flaw of neglecting the role of the family and the individual in the polis ultimately comes to a head in his final books on the rearing and education of children. Aristotle seems to have fallen into a similar pit as Socrates by giving the city-state too much to be responsible for in the name of seeking after the common good. Indeed, our modern culture has fallen into that pit as well. We would do well to return the responsibility of education to the household, for that is what nature and nature’s God requires.
Lucas E. Vieira serves as the Head of Upper School at Beacon Hill Classical Academy, providing leadership for all aspects of the 6–12th grade program. In addition, he is the Founder of the Beza Institute for Reformed Classical Education, an organization which seeks to promote classical education from a Reformed Protestant perspective through publishing, podcasts, and teacher resources. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Classical Christian Studies from New Saint Andrews College, a Master of Legal Studies from Trinity Law School, and his B.A. in Philosophy & Religious Studies from Westmont College. He lives in Southern California with his lovely wife, Madelyn, and their two children.
Math for Goodness Sake
by Dr. Josh Wilkerson
You might be wondering how an article on mathematics found its way into an issue of a journal whose theme is “Goodness in Classical Christian Education.” If you ask people about their experience of mathematics in school you’ll get many different responses and very rarely, if at all, will those responses contain the word “good.” For most people math is “confusing,” “boring,” “stressful,” “too abstract,” “not applicable for me,” and even “the exact opposite of all that is good and holy.” In fact, one of the most common statements heard in mathematics’ classrooms is “when am I ever going to use this?” Please notice how I refer to this as a statement and not a question. While it might sound like a question, students who speak these words usually don’t mean it as a question. Rather, “when am I ever going to use this?” is typically student-speak for “this is a waste of time because I’m never going to use this.” This statement is typically offered by a student hoping to disengage from the activity at hand. It is an excuse, an avoidance, a cop-out. If we dig deeper and we have “ears to hear” we can understand that this is also a value statement. If we had a student-speak translator the question “when am I ever going to use this?” might be translated as “why should I value this?” The utility of mathematics, the cornerstone of modern STEM education, has become so prevalent in educational language that students can’t imagine
valuing mathematics for anything else. So when they perceive a lack of utility in a math lesson the first thing that comes to their mind is “why should I even bother?”
It is my contention that we will never cultivate the mathematical affections of students by focusing on the utility of mathematics. Now, to be clear, mathematics is obviously extremely applicable to the world around us and we as teachers should certainly be exposing students to the wonderful and often awe-inspiring utility of mathematics. My argument is simply that utility is not the primary way to win their hearts. Many students (and adults for that matter) come to us having experienced some form of math trauma—that is, they were made to feel ‘other’ in the context of mathematics. This might have been from being slower than classmates at completing problems, or not grasping a concept immediately and being made to feel incompetent. Whether it was one instance or many instances, students with the mindset “I’m just not a math person” can quite readily point to embodied, negative/ traumatic experiences as solidifying their (perceived) fixed lack of capability. If we consider how trauma impacts us in other areas of life maybe it will be more obvious how unhelpful it is to attempt to heal wounds by offering the traumatized a presentation on the utility of the traumatizer. Perhaps a better approach to healing math trauma is to consider mathematics as being intrinsically valuable, inherently good, and, much as sin entered the world in Genesis and corrupted everything made good, students’ experiences of math trauma should be recognized and named as moments of broken human interactions that are not true to the intended purposes of mathematics.
The goal of this essay is to argue for the inherent goodness of mathematics and to offer practical ways we might bring this to bear in the classroom. In Classical Christian education circles we often talk of the ideals of “the Good,” “the True,” and “the Beautiful.” One can readily find articles on
the truth or beauty of mathematics, but we often downplay the good. Despite society’s tendency toward the rejection of objective truth, no one will argue that two plus two is always equal to four. Math lives in the realm of truth. “Math is true” isn’t a hard sell. From our perspective of classical Christian educators we can push even further in that math does not merely reside in some secular realm of objective truth, some cold hard and sterile reality, but rather we can view mathematics in the words of the English mathematician Hilda Phoebe Hudson: “To all of us who hold the Christian belief that God is truth, anything that is true is a fact about God, and mathematics is a branch of theology.”1 While maybe not as obvious as “math is true,” a quick internet search will reveal a wealth of resources and images related to the claim that “math is beautiful.” Even the novice mathematician can point out Fibonacci patterns and see the golden ratio in the spirals of nautilus shells and even the structure of the galaxy itself. More adept mathematicians might point to the beautiful fractals in the Sierpinski triangle, the Koch snowflake, the Menger sponge, and the Cantor set. And to mathematician and non-mathematician alike there is something beautifully alluring in the striking truth of Euler’s formula that e iπ+1=0.
In the words of the mathematician G. H. Hardy in his essay “A Mathematician’s Apology”:
The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colors or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics. 2
1 Hilda P. Hudson, “Mathematics and Eternity,” The Mathematical Gazette 12, no. 174 (January 1925): 265–70.
2 G. H. Hardy and Charles Percy Snow, “A Mathematician’s Apology” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
While much has been said in regards to the truth and beauty of mathematics, less has been written on its inherent goodness3 and that is what the remainder of this essay will attempt to do. Our perspective needs to be that mathematics is at its core a virtuous activity and its enjoyment is not reserved for “the intellectual elite.” I will make a case for why we should view mathematics as an inherently virtuous activity from a Christian perspective. To close I will offer several practices that address how we as Christian educators can instill in students an appreciation for the inherent goodness of math.
Why should mathematics be considered inherently good?
First, let us consider one argument for why we should view mathematics as an inherently virtuous activity. It is worth noting that truth, beauty, and goodness do not operate in silos. Rather, there is much interplay between these ideals. One could argue that because math is true and because math is beautiful it is therefore inherently good. While this may certainly be the case, I would like to offer an argument for the goodness of mathematics that might add some additional context rather than relying solely on an argument based on truth and beauty.
Whenever I ask teachers or students at Christian schools how they understand math from a Christian perspective, what makes the way they learn math different from the way the secular world learns math, usually one of the first responses is something akin to “mathematics reveals that God is a God of order,” or something along those lines. The argument
3 One obvious exception is Mathematics for Human Flourishing by Francis Su. This is an excellent text on the virtues inherent in the discipline of mathematics.
seems to be 1) God exists, 2) God made the world, 3) the world exhibits order and predictability that are well described mathematically, therefore 4) order and predictability and by extension mathematics are characteristics of God, or they at least seem important to Him. While the secular math classroom can only focus on the third point, the Christian math classroom can see mathematics as a deeper tie to the Creator. The physicist Eugene Wigner famously wrote in his paper “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” that “The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.”4 While the secular math classroom wonders why math works so well, the Christian math classroom has clear answers.
While it is certainly true that God is a God of order, I believe relying only on this statement to argue how math is done Christianly is to undersell the connection between God and mathematics. When we say “God is a God of order,” we should consider that phrase more akin to statements like “God is love” and “God is just.” When we say things like “Our God is a God of order,” or “Our God is a God of love,” or ” Our God is just,” we are not claiming that the concepts of order, love, and justice are qualities that God displays, or qualities that exist outside of Him. When we say “God is just” we mean something very different than when we say “that judge is just.” When we say “that judge is just,” we mean the judge exhibits the qualities of justice. When we say “God is just,” we mean God defines justice. There is no concept of justice apart from an understanding of the nature of God.
4 Eugene P. Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 13, no. 1 (February 1960): 1–14. Originally a Richard Courant Lecture in Mathematical Sciences delivered at New York University, May 11, 1959.
The same can be said of love. We recognize love in a person because we recognize a quality of God in that person.
It is my belief that we should take this same perspective when we claim that “Our God is a God of order.” By this claim we shouldn’t merely mean that God acts in an orderly fashion. We should mean God defines what an orderly fashion is. Order is not a quality God decided to portray; rather, order flows from His nature. If this can become our perspective, then when we speak of mathematics portraying God as a God of order, that description will carry so much more meaning. Instead of just correlating our mathematical results with some quality that God displays, we can realize those results are better understood as a manifestation of God’s nature. In a way we are communing with Him in our work as mathematicians, gaining deeper insight into His character.
One of my favorite pieces of scripture that I find helpful in illuminating a Christian understanding of mathematics is Colossians 1:15–17:
He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things were created through Him and for Him . And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Notice the emphasis on “all things.” “All things” makes it clear that there is nothing (no-thing) in creation that exists apart from Christ. “All things” is also delineated into two categories, “visible” and “invisible.” Visible: points, lines, shapes, written numbers, equations, graphs, maps, architecture, etc. Invisible: theories, concepts, logic, abstractions, proofs, etc. You can see how the categories of “visible” and “invisible” seem to aptly cover both the physical aspects of mathematics as well as the conceptual ones; the hands-on ap -
plications of mathematics and the abstract mental playground of mathematics. All of these things were created by Christ, for (the glory of) Christ, and are held together right now, immediately, in this moment by Christ.
The German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler noted that, “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.”5 Kepler believed that in doing mathematics he was “merely thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”6 Order is a deeply profound and intimate aspect of Christian faith that should lead us to worship. The mission of mathematics, as informed by a Christian worldview, is to: increase our versatility in worship by 1) Refining our sinfully broken minds through a contemplation of the creation God called ‘good,’ 2) Engaging us in the difficult yet worthwhile pursuit of the ideal by which critical thought may be judged, and 3) Instilling within us a sense of awe in communing with the Creator.
How can mathematics be considered as inherently good?
Having established the inherent goodness of math as being reasonably understood as part of the inherent goodness of God’s nature, we will now look at how we as Christian educators can go about instillinging in students an appreciation
5 Epigraph, without citation, in Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 231.
6 This statement is widely attributed to Kepler but has not been verified in any original writings of Kepler (ttps://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johannes_Kepler, accessed March 31, 2024). See also Melissa C. Travis, Thinking God’s Thoughts: Johannes Kepler and the Miracle of Cosmic Comprehensibility (Moscow, ID: Roman Roads Press, 2022).
for this inherent goodness. I will start with making the case that we actually can impact student affections for mathematics through our classroom practices and then this article will close with practical implications for mathematics pedagogy across the K–12 spectrum, including mathematical play, collaborative problem-solving, and service-learning.
The Cultivation of Mathematical Affections
First, I would like to briefly make an argument for the not-so-obvious claim that we can cultivate the mathematical affections of students through our teaching practices. That is, our teaching practices have a formative power in shaping student belief that mathematics is at its core an inherently good and virtuous activity. I use the phrase “mathematical affections” in the same way that Jonathan Edwards used the term “affections” in A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. Affections are not emotions (we are not trying to get students to love math or find it their new favorite subject). Rather, affections are more akin to aesthetics; a mechanism for orienting your life and determining what is worthwhile. Edwards’ goal was to discern the true nature of religion and in so doing dissuade his congregation from merely participating in a Christian culture (a mimicked outward expression) and motivate them to long for true Christian conversion (an inward reality of authentic Christian character). The purpose of this article is to engage us as math educators in discerning the true nature of mathematical teaching and assessment and how we use it in the classroom: does it simply mimic the modern culture of utility by requiring outward demonstrations of knowledge retention and application, or does it aim deeper at analyzing true inward character formation?
James K. A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom (and later You Are What You Love) makes the case that we need to shift our
understanding of humans as primarily ‘thinkers’ or ‘believers’ to an understanding of humans as primarily ‘lovers.’ In Smith’s argument, we are what we love and our love is shaped by practices (what Smith calls liturgies): “An education is a constellation of practices, rituals, and routines that inculcates a particular vision of the good life by inscribing or infusing that vision into the heart (the gut) by means of material, embodied practices.” 7
If humans are primarily lovers whose loves are shaped by practices, then math students are primarily lovers whose loves are shaped by practices. David J. Clarke in NCTM Assessment Standards for School Mathematics I , states “It is through our assessment that we communicate most clearly to students which activities and learning outcomes we value.” 8 By ‘assessment,’ Clarke doesn’t mean only exams or tests. We are assessing students in math class constantly—by how we pose questions to the class during a lesson, by how students work together on example problems, by the homework we assign, and yes, by our quizzes or tests. Assessments are formal but they are also informal. I would like us to understand the word ‘assessment’ as simply a synonym for ‘teaching practices.’ Even secular standard writers in math education understand that our teaching practices shape how students value mathematics. This means that if we want students to develop mathematical affections then simply showing a “Why is Math Good?” slide in class is not enough. Students cannot cannot be argued or lectured into cultivating mathematical affections. So then how does this look in the classroom?
Below, I offer three practical examples of what this looks like in the math classroom. These are by no means the only three ways to cultivate the mathematical affections of
7 James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 26.
8 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Mathematics Assessment Standards (Reston, VA: NCTM, 1995).
students. So before I close with three practical examples, I would like to speak briefly on general guiding principles that teachers can use to develop their own activities that focus on the goodness inherent in mathematics.
Math is more than calculations
My general advice is to offer students embodiment over application. What do I mean by that? Rather than simply focusing on answering the question of “when am I ever going to use this?” with applications of mathematics, instead we should truly consider what it means to do math from a Christian perspective. So by ‘embodiment’ I mean a way of living out the gospel through the discipline of mathematics. What does it mean to do math Christianly? Does doing math Christianly mean that 2 + 2 = Jesus? Obviously not. There is not a Christian arithmetic and a secular one. But we need to realize that math is more than calculations. I don’t think any honest person would believe that all there is to math is arithmetic. I do think that a lot of honest people believe that all there is to math is calculations—so like arithmetic, just more complicated. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyone who has studied higher level mathematics will know that there comes a point in math class where students are no longer asked to do calculations. And while we certainly do teach calculation methods to our K-12 students, we would be horrible math teachers if our only concern for them was that they be able to memorize algorithms for completing calculations and solving equations. The vast majority of my time as a math teacher is spent trying to get students to think logically/rationally/ creatively/independently—not algorithmically. I want them to be able to solve problems like sustainable energy, human trafficking or world hunger—problems whose solutions are not numbers that can be arrived at by way of a memorized
formula or a graphing calculator. They need math to solve those problems and any other problem of importance that they can imagine. It is our job as math teachers to get them to see that. Math is everywhere. Math is pervasively engrained in both the physical and social structure of the world around us and it is equally as pervasive in the rational processes of the human mind as we attempt to explore, understand, appreciate, and communicate knowledge of anything around us. Math is more than calculations.
Christianity is more than thinking
I had a pastor who used to be fond of saying that “Christianity is always more than thinking, but never less.” Christianity is more than thinking; it is more than an intellectual endeavor. Christianity is more than learning new facts and being able to give new answers/responses to the questions of the world. The gospel is transformative of the whole person, not just of the intellect. Beyond that, the gospel of Jesus Christ is transformative of all of creation. When rightly understood, the gospel is a message about the redemption of something that is broken—broken people in a broken world—not just fixing our mental understanding to be correct. Sin is a horrible thing. It is much more than wrongful actions that we commit. Sin seeps down into our souls, perverting our intentions, decaying our physical body, and spreading through all humanity into the creation we were designed to oversee. Sin is not a thing that we do, sin is a thing that we are. Sin is pervasive. “But where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). In other words, if sin is pervasive then grace is not only pervasive but also prevalent, permeating, extensive, all-inclusive, boundless, unrestricted, and inescapable. The gospel changes everything about us to the core of our being in more ways than we can even comprehend. To think
that applying Christian faith to mathematics implies there is a “Christian” way of computing calculations and a “non-Christian” is to vastly underestimate the message of the gospel. In sum, I believe my students need math to solve any meaningful problem that they will encounter in life. I also believe that the greatest problem that they will encounter is that of their own sin nature. It is only by experiencing the full grace of God that our students will ever have a proper perspective on themselves and the world around them. Through this lens, deep beyond the surface level of life, is where I hope students will explore the integration of mathematics with Christian faith.
1. Mathematical Play
The first practical example I have to offer of a teaching practice that will cultivate the mathematical affections of students is mathematical play. Play is one of the most prominent developmental expressions of childhood. You don’t have to teach young children to play, it is completely natural. Children are also constantly learning and making sense of the world through their play. Play is what stimulates their brain and challenges them to grow. Play is to children what work is for adults. Play is fundamentally creative—whether it is a child creating a tower out of blocks or an adult creating a solution to a crossword puzzle. For those who have experienced math trauma we can see their pain in being told “the math you created was not good.” Nobody would tell a child their block tower was ugly, but we say things equivalent to that in math all the time.9
9 To be clear, I do not mean we should just say “good job” for any random numbers a child produces. We might not call their block tower ugly but we can help them see ways to make it more structurally sound. In the same way, any attempt at thinking mathematically is a positive attempt on the part of the child. The job of the teacher is then to help them make their math more “structurally sound.”
One of the first steps I would encourage teachers to consider in cultivating the mathematical affections of students is to make ample space in the curriculum for moments of mathematical play—especially in the youngest grades. Rather than having young students learn math facts through flashcards and timed worksheets, consider games that build math fact fluency.10 Playing a card game in which children have to pair cards together to “make a ten” is achieving the same learning objective as a worksheet might but it is doing so in a more enjoyable context. Consider what each of these assessment options is communicating about the nature of mathematics. A timed worksheet is communicating that you must be fast and you must be correct in order to be good at mathematics. While we certainly want students to be efficient and accurate, we also want them to be flexible and worksheets do a poor job of assessing flexibility. Worksheets also do a poor job of assessing strategies—all you can see is the answer without knowing how the student arrived at that answer. Did they actually know their 4’s multiplication facts or were they really quick at counting on their fingers? Games don’t just give us a chance to find enjoyment in mathematics but they also give a chance for teachers to listen to student reasoning and engage them in questioning. At its core, mathematical play is humanizing.
Mathematical play is not merely an alternative to flashcards for young children learning math facts. Francis Su dedicates an entire chapter to “play” in Mathematics for Human Flourishing , arguing that math play builds hopefulness, curiosity, concentration, confidence in struggle, perseverance, the ability to change perspectives, and an openness of spirit that contributes to community. Ben Orlin has a great book
10 Jennifer Bay-Williams and Gina Kling have an excellent resource Math Fact Fluency with over sixty games and assessment tools that support learning and retention of math facts.
Math Games with Bad Drawings. Dan Finkel founded the website www.MathforLove.com to share his mathematical games and the research that supports their use. Search “recreational mathematics” and you’ll find a number of additional games and puzzles that are aimed primarily at the enjoyment of mathematics. The more we can find time for mathematical play in the classroom, the more we can shape students’ perspective of mathematics beyond algorithms and right answers.
2. Collaborative Problem-Solving
When God was speaking creation into existence there was only one thing He declared as “not good,” and that was for the man to be alone. There is goodness in community and collaboration. Math is not meant to be done in isolation and neither the textbook nor the teacher should be considered the ultimate authority. Math students need to know how to engage well with their classmates, learning to both listen and lead. As students collaborate they must also communicate well with each other. Communication necessarily happens in community, with a diversity of thoughts and abilities. To communicate well is to be prepared to engage the thoughts of others and to be willing to have one’s own thoughts refined in return. This leads to empathy and grace. Mistakes will be made in the doing of math. In fact, mistakes must be made in order to learn. Students must feel free to make conjectures, ask questions, make mistakes, and express ideas and opinions without fear of criticism. Students should be expected to show grace to both their classmates and their teacher. And students should expect to receive grace from both their classmates and their teacher. For those who have experienced math trauma they have felt removed from a mathematical community. We should invite them back in.
Probably the best resource I can share on collaborative problem solving is Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl. Liljedahl gives 14 teaching practices that research supports in stimulating thinking rather than mimicking in a math classroom. Rather than summarize all 14, I will just reference the first three practices (which, if teachers do nothing else but implement these three things I guarantee they will see a drastic improvement in student thinking).
The first practice is to start class with a problem, or “thinking task,” or “anchor task.” Whatever it’s called, it needs to be an open ended question that is not obvious to students and invites them to explore. By setting the stage with a “thinking task” every day we communicate to students that the real nature of mathematics is learning to ask the right questions rather than simply answer questions posed in a similar style to previous examples. It shows them that math is about trial and error and refinement. Liljedahl encourages teachers to use non-curricular thinking tasks (puzzles, brainteasers, riddles) at the very beginning of the year to set the routine of collaboration norms before moving to thinking tasks that are more related to the curriculum.
The second practice is to form collaborative student groups by visibly random grouping (for instance having a deck of cards that students draw from to determine their groups). This practice communicates that everyone is capable and a helpful contributor to the problem solving process. There is no ability grouping. Students know they have no choice in their groups and they are forced to interact with different classmates everyday. Not only does this build community in the classroom but it also helps students in explaining their reasoning—the way one student understands might be very different from another student.
The third practice is to have students work in groups on thinking tasks while standing at whiteboards or chalkboards (or what Liljedahl refers to as VNPS: vertical non-permanent
surfaces). Yes, it is helpful for children to stand up and move around, but beyond that there is something inviting about a whiteboard (or similar surface). Students can just start writing knowing that it will be really easy to erase a mistake. The medium of whiteboards help get students over the math equivalent of writer’s block where students stare at a blank page and are unwilling to start writing until they have the final answer worked out perfectly in their brain. This invites students into the messiness of mathematics. If all students see of math is a textbook, full of polished proofs and examples, this adds to the perception that math is a pristine discipline handed down from on high. The reality is it took a lot of messy work over many (often hundreds) of years to reach the polished version of proofs and examples we find in textbooks today. Whiteboards invite students into the wonderful messiness that is real mathematics.
3. Service-Learning
One of the best ways to cultivate in students a sense of the goodness of mathematics is through service-learning. When we are broken, when we are suffering from (math) trauma, one of the most important elements involved in our healing is the opportunity to be of genuine help to others. A real problem is never truly solved without some sacrifice made on the part of the problem-solver (a giving of talent, time, or treasure). A true problem-solver operates in a constant mindset of serving others. Math education is not ultimately about self-promotion, rather it is about equipping students to love and serve others well.
Service-learning in mathematics means taking the mathematics that students are learning and finding a way for them to use those concepts and skills to serve their community. Solving a series of problems on factoring quadratics is cer -
tainly a math concept, but nobody is being served through the process of learning that concept. Taking students outside to pick up litter around the school campus is a great act of service, but nobody is learning math through that activity. Service-learning attempts to combine both the mathematics and the act of service in meaningful ways. What follows are two examples, one from fourth grade and another from high school statistics.
At Regents School of Austin where I teach, every year our fourth graders’ study of mathematics culminates with a service-learning project. In Austin, Texas there is an organization known as Community First! which provides tiny homes to the chronically homeless. The mission of Community First! is not to simply house the homeless, but to provide very intentional community structures in the way they situate their tiny homes and the amenities of their master planned community (hence the name community first). Our fourth grade mathematics curriculum ends the year with a geometric unit on perimeter and area. Our fourth graders travel to Community First! and tour the village, learning about the property, the mission behind the movement, and getting a chance to meet residents. Students then take what they’ve learned from their field trip and what they have learned in their geometry unit and they work in teams to design a tiny home for Community First! Students have to use the concepts of perimeter and area in designing their blueprints but they also have to consider what Community First! prioritizes in their homes—gathering spaces for community building. Students then build LEGO models of their designs and pitch their designs to a Community First! representative. Students not only have to master the requisite math skills but then also understand those skills in the context of service.
Another service-learning project occurs every year with our high school statistics students. Partnering with the same organization as our fourth graders, the high school statistics
students meet with a Community First! representative to learn about the organization from a data-gathering standpoint. Students then use what they have learned in statistics to design a survey instrument to gauge the effectiveness of Community First! in meeting its stated goals with its residents. The students then travel to Community First! to administer their survey to residents, they analyze the data they gather, and then they present their findings to the administrators of the non-profit. Through this project statistics students come to not only apply their data analysis skills in a creative and meaningful context, but they also come to see that behind every data point is a person, and that person has an important story to tell.
With service-learning activities students are not merely required to “do the mathematics” but they must also understand and defend the worthiness of the cause motivating the project. But in serving, the students are still doing very real (and often complex) mathematics. There is something about the physical practice of getting outside the classroom to collect and analyze data that implants an appreciation for the processes of mathematics into students. And not only are students doing real mathematics, they are often doing so in an unfamiliar/uncomfortable (read: human) way. There is no answer in the back of the book to look to. In service-learning there is interaction with actual human beings. The data on the paper now has a face and the analysis becomes a little messier and less clinical. This helps shift the focus of learning math from individualistic outcomes (such as a grade) to the more altruistic aims of education. As one student said in reflecting on their service-learning experience “The service-based aspect of the project made it more engaging because we met new people and we had the mindset that we could actually help someone by completing this project.”
Conclusion
In this article we have considered the case that mathematics is an inherently good and virtuous activity and that the learning of mathematics has a much deeper purpose and meaning than simply being useful. By seeing mathematics as deeply connected to the ordered nature of God we can see mathematics as a missional activity that increases our versatility as worshipers of Christ. Having established a “lens of goodness” through which to view mathematics, we then considered the practical outworkings in the K–12 mathematics classroom. First we considered how teaching practices can shape the affections of students and then we presented three specific examples: mathematical play, collaborative problem solving, and service-learning. Through these practices students learn not just that math is good, but how it is good. As teachers, this is how we can achieve our goal of cultivating the mathematical affections of students.
Dr. Wilkerson currently serves as the K–12 Mathematics Department Chair at Regents School of Austin where he has taught since 2012. He oversees the math curriculum at Regents, in written form as well as in human form in the training of teachers. He believes strongly in the teacher as the living curriculum and the storyteller for the students which lead him to be a founding member of the Restoring Mathematics LLC consulting company. He holds degrees in Mathematics (BS, Texas A&M University), Theology (ThM, Dallas Theological Seminary), and Math Education (PhD, Texas State University). He is passionate about restoring faith in the teaching of mathematics and has written extensively on this topic for various publications as well as his own website, GodandMath. com. He is currently serving as the president of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences.
Filling the Soul with Goodness Through Curiosity and Wonder
by Dr. Karla M. Memmott
John Steinbeck’s short story “The Affair at 7 Rue de M—” is a tale that breaks the traditional Steinbeck mold of the Central California venue and transports the reader to a comic-horror family scene set in Paris. The plot involves a laissez-faire father who is transformed into a family warrior as he exercises efforts to extricate the cancerous, pulsating wad of rubbery chewing gum from the mouth of its host, the father’s son. The rise of action begins as the eight-year old victim cries out to his father, “I am not chewing it, sir. It’s chewing me!”1 The pulsating monster has gained senscience, is named the Thing , and struggles for survival to live in the salivary cavern inside the son’s mouth. One can’t help but ask if Steinbeck was equipping parents with the right story to share with their children just before bed in hopes of eliminating that nasty “curious American practice, the chewing of bubble gum.” 2 However, in the midst of the tension between comedy and horror, Steinbeck inserts a profoundly philosophical statement, “Intelligence without the soul to balance it must of ne -
1 John Steinbeck, “The Affair at 7, Rue de M—,” Magazine of Horror: The Bizarre, the Frightening, the Gruesome 2, no. 6 (Winter 1965–66): 61.
2 Steinbeck, “The Affair at 7, Rue de M—,” 60.
cessity be evil.”3 Whereas one may question whether this type of intelligence must of necessity be evil, the statement challenges a thought provoking contemplative session nonetheless.
Steinbeck was not the only author wrestling with the issue of a soulless intelligence. C. S. Lewis grapples with the condition in his book The Abolition of Man and David V. Hicks prefaces his book Norms & Nobility with similar concerns. Each author commences with a focus on the purpose of education. There is an underlying question of whether the soul needs education as much as the mind. Lewis launches his exposition in response to a publication to which he gives the pseudonym The Green Book . He asserts the education promoted in The Green Book is an operation to produce learners who are soulless.4 He continues his argument with a prophecy that exclusively intellectually-focused intelligence without soulful and emotional counterbalance will produce shadows of people when he writes, “We remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”5 Whereas such a casing of a human being may not of necessity be evil, such a Thing is most certainly without virtue, truth, goodness, and beauty. It produces a being that is inhumane.
With similar concerns as Lewis, Hicks focuses on the end product of an educational system that concentrates on rationalism, science, and technology which leads to a soulless education that lacks human virtue. He asserts that “intelligence must address the whole student, his emotional and spiritual sides as well as his rational. The aims of intelligence, the teacher’s methods, the books and lessons, the
3 Steinbeck, “The Affair at 7, Rue de M—,” 65.
4 C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (NewYork: Harper Collins, 1974), 25.
5 Lewis, Abolition, 26.
Filling
traditions, and regulations of the school—all must express not just ideas, but norms, tending to make young people not only rational, but noble.”6 Hicks concedes the need for rational thought, however, it must exist in combination with the noble, well-ordered soul to guide the learner to discern good and evil, modesty from immodesty, holy from vulgar, and eternal from temporal.
Whereas Steinbeck’s reader is left wondering whether the Thing has been completely conquered, Lewis and Hicks insist that an educational system focused exclusively on the mind will metaphorically kill the student. Cognitive intellectual development which includes rational development is certainly a part of the overall learning experience. However, a good education is also bound with moral and character development of the soul so that the learner becomes a thoughtful, emotional person equipped to exercise virtue and discipline. An intelligence that nourishes the soul along with the mind prevents human beings from becoming Things. Subsequently, an education paradigm that nourishes the soul requires more than cognitive intellect. Although many components are needed for such a pedagogy, two critical components, authentic curiosity and genuine wonder, must be part of a good education so that the soul as well as the mind is developed.
One challenge that develops when presenting an idea that includes two elements is the way in which the elements are listed. Any type of sequential order may give the false impression of increasing or decreasing levels of importance. Secondly, sequential order may also cast a vision that the elements take place in a particular order. However, since description can only take place with one article at a time, an order must be put into place. When considering curiosity and
6 David V. Hicks, “Preface to the 1990 Edition” in Norms & Nobility: A Treatise on Education (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999), vi.
wonder as part of intelligence, the learner may enjoy both elements in a near simultaneous experience.
Curiosity
Curiosity is a desire to learn or to know. The curious person begins at a state of ignorance but is motivated by various reasons to learn. Curiosity often has a negative connotation, after all it was “curiosity that killed the cat.” Some may suggest that it was Eve’s curious desire to know more that resulted in the original sin.7 Furthermore, Dante suggests that Odysseus’ explorative curiosity destined him to hell:
Then, while its tip was moving back and forth, As if it were the tongue itself that spoke, The flame took on a voice and said: ‘when I set sail from Circe, who, more than a year, had kept me occupied close to Gaëta, (before Aeneas called it by that name), not sweetness of a son, not reverence for aging father, not the debt of love I owed Penelope to make her happy, could quench deep in myself the burning wish To know the world and have experience Of all man’s vices, of all human worth. 8
Odysseus’ condemnation is the result of a curiosity that was stronger than the desire to live virtuously by respecting familial duty and marital vows.
7 Genesis 3:1–6.
8 Dante, The Divine Comedy: Inferno, vol. 1, trans. Mark Musa (New York: Penguin Books, 1971), XXVI, 88–99.
Additionally, Michael de Montaigne suggests that curiosity for knowledge can become a dangerous desire:
It [curiosity for knowledge] is far more hazardous to acquire than any other food or drink. For with other things, what we have bought we carry home in some vessel, and there we have a chance to examine its value and how much we shall take of it and when. But learning we can at the outset put into no other vessel than our mind; we swallow it as we buy it, and leave the market place already either infected or improved.9
Admittedly, curiosity can become a precarious desire when left unfiltered, or when pursued with ravenous gluttony that prohibits one from contemplating the merit of the knowledge acquired.
The crux of curiosity as a vice rests with the way in which curiosity exists in partnership with a well-ordered soul. Thomas Acquinas masterfully addresses curiosity by bifurcating curiositas with studiositas. Zach Howard succinctly summarizes the differences noting that when early scholars such as Acquinas spoke of studiositas:
They praised studiousness, they did not limit the virtue to nerdy students who constantly hit the books. Rather, studiositas describes the virtue of a strong mind capable of pursuing whatever knowledge it seeks in a well-ordered and godly way. In contrast, curiositas describes an intemperate and weak mind pursuing knowledge in a disordered and ungodly way. Ultimately, curiositas is indulging our
9 Michael De Montaigne, “Of Physiognomy” in Great Books of the Western World, vol. 23. ed. Mortimer J. Adler, trans. Donald M. Frame (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1993), 546.
desire to know at the wrong time or in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons.10
Howard observes that the negative connotation often previously associated with curiosity stems from a weakened, disordered soul.
Aquinas addresses the issue of curiosity by putting forth the motive behind curiosity. He responds to the objections toward curiosity by noting that “the desire or eagerness to know truth is itself either upright or perverse.”11 According to this position, curiosity that is genuinely posited toward truth-seeking and virtuous soul-structured is upright. Conversely, curiosity which is based on selfish and evil desires, or curiosity that leads to selfish evil actions is a perversion. This form of curiosity is a vice. Thus, in Homer’s Odyssey, Telemachus— Odysseus’ son—arguably travels with virtue. He is genuinely curious about his father’s whereabouts. However, Odysseus’ curiosity is a means of vice since he continues his curious endeavors due to selfish ambition. Throughout the duration of this essay, the term curiosity is advocating virtuous desire to know the higher truths necessary for a well-ordered soul. Virtuous curiosity is what guides a human being from a state of ignorance to an experience of enlightenment. Curiosity represents a desire to learn and understand otherness beyond that which one may know or understand at a particular point. Curiosity is not limited to one means of understanding but becomes a multifaceted component of a person’s intelligence and means of understanding. It is expressed in imaginative literature, experience with the physical world, and historical examples such as travel. The curious person acknowledges the uniqueness of a new situation and moves toward the situation
10 Zach Howard, “When Curiosity Becomes a Vice,” Desiring God, May 7, 2023, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-curiosity-becomes-a-vice.
11 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Part II-II, Question 167, First Article, https://sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/sum424.htm.
to seek understanding. Curiosity takes place when an exiled murder sees a burning bush that is not consumed by the fire and he says to himself “I will go over and see this strange sight.”12 Imaginative curiosity is expressed in what appears to be a typical wardrobe closet that is suddenly chilled and laced with pine branches. It is curiosity that lures a Daughter of Eve into an unknown world and to experience this new world.13 Curiosity as a critical component to a fully developed intellectual maturation which guides the individual to a greater understanding of the larger space than previously comprehended. Curiosity manifests out of a desire for the learner to take time to observe the changes in the physical world around her. It allows the learner to stop and meditate on the newness of the day to day, whether that newness is watching a butterfly emerge from the chrysalis, chicks push out from an eggshell, or a newborn puppy wiggle its way back to its mother for nourishment. In each instance, the learner has set aside a moment from the mundane to ponder a fresh experience which in turn offers greater insight into the physical world. The newness of the discovery allows the learner to meditate on what was previously understood and synthesize the new discoveries as part of her greater understanding. Curiosity is integral to travel which propels one to leave a space of familiarity and tread into the unfamiliar sparked simply by the quest to understand otherness. Historical human movement was often motivated by need, and consisted of traversing space by land or sea spurred by incentives such as transporting large troops for colonial settlement, or war. It could also consist of mandated individual movement for purposes such as political communications.14 Voluntary trav-
12 Exodus 3:3 (ESV).
13 C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (New York: Harper Trophy, 1978), 1–24
14 Paul Fussell, ed. “The Eighteenth Century and the Grand Tour,” The Norton Book of Travel (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), 21.
el inspired by curiosity eventually evolved from this type of restricted human movement. As the methods and means of movement became less dangerous, travel-like activities were integrated into human movement of the ancient world. These travel-like activities were spurred on by curiosity, and may have included such adventures as viewing the Seven Wonders of the ancient world or religious travel to shrines and festivals.15 Thus, historical travel represents human curiosity to learn about and gain understanding of otherness. Curiosity is also represented in a desire to learn about the intangible. The desire to understand that physical and metaphysical realms of creation stir longings in the soul. Whereas the exploration of the physical world helps the human understand her place in the vast space of humanity, it also guides to an understanding of her own smallness and humility. Similarly, curious contemplation of the immaterial leads to places of humility but it also challenges one to look beyond the immediate into the transcendent. The curious desire to understand is reflected by internal meditations on self-knowledge, society such as the eagerness to challenge injustice, and a higher yearning for the spiritual. Each layer of immaterial curiosity stirs and nourishes the soul.
The pursuit of self-knowledge reflects a curiosity turned inward. This quest is organic and has transitioned into many varied approaches since the Delphic know-thyself injunction was inscribed in the ancient temple of Apollo. One may challenge that curiosity toward self fails to meet the definition of curiosity since curiosity is often directed toward otherness. Whereas internally focused curiosity acknowledges self as currently am, internally focused curiosity also admits ignorance of self of who I can become. Subsequently, internally focused curiosity seeks to understand the otherness of the maturing and aging self. Therefore, the dictum to “know thyself” may be
15 Fussell, “The Eighteenth Century and the Grand Tour,” 23.
no less puzzling in contemporary society than when it was declared at the time of the original inscription. John Beare suggests the declaration is paradoxical and a “moral shibboleth” in his essay “Self-Knowledge.”16 How is self-knowledge acquired? What does it mean to know one’s self? For what purpose? Is self-knowledge unique compared to other types of knowledge? Is self-knowledge permanent or transformational? These are questions ancient philosophers once debated, and contemporary philosophers continue the discussion. Despite the philosophical challenges which arise with the discussion of self-knowledge, one of the greater curiosities faced by a human being is the desire to know and understand one’s self. The personal probe may focus on personal situational questions such as “why am I sad” or “why am I happy.” When faced with such questions, the person begins a pursuit of personal knowledge and understanding. She is curious about the internal within her soul. In her book Know Thyself: Western Identity from Classical Greece to Renaissance, Ingrid Rossellini contends that self-knowledge materializes as the result of the relationship between self and another source of influence. Rossellini traces self-knowledge through this trifold paradigm of self-polis, self-deus, and self-ego. She notes that the pivotal points of self-curiosity contributed to the culturally defined and then redefined concepts of self, which in turn led to “the creation of values and ideals that, down the centuries, have shaped and motivated the choices and actions of people and the makeup of their society.”17 Although the internally curious question about self may give the person clarity, the results are revealed in the way the questions are answered. Whereas Rossellini investigates self-knowledge within the ancient Greek and Roman polis, the self-polis curiosity in
16 John I. Beare, “Self-Knowledge,” Mind, New Series 5, no. 18 (1986): 228.
17 Ingrid Rossellini, Know Thyself: Western Identity from Classical Greece to the Renaissance (New York: Doubleday, 2018), xiii–xiv.
contemporary society is still reflected with such questions as “who is my tribe” or “why don’t I fit in.” Likewise, modern self-deus curiosity is noted with self-focused scrutiny such as “Does God exist, and if so, what is my relationship like with this God.” Although inquiry of the self is internally focused, it reveals a normal human curiosity nonetheless.
The curious desire to know also thrusts a human into social settings such as passionate pursuit for justice and truth. An individual observes or experiences the injustice of a current condition. However, imaginative curiosity motivates the person to ponder a world in which such injustices do not exist. Many people focused on internal curiosity long for an other world in which truth and justice prevail. Although the desire to understand the possibility of such an existence is itself evidence of the curious nature of humans, a deeper foundational issue is why humans are curious about truth and justice. N. T. Wright suggests that such a inquisitive plight for another means of existence represents an transcendental echo of another type of existence: “There is someone speaking to us, whispering in our inner ear—someone who cares very much about this present world and our present selves, and who has made us, and the world for a purpose which will indeed involve justice, things being put to right, ourselves being put to rights, the world being rescued at last.”18 Wright suggests that curiosity to ponder a world without injustice leads the learner to a more meaningful understanding of the world in general, one’s place in the world, and one’s internal desire to live in peace with that world and others. The desire to understand truth and justice in the world eventually guides one toward a contemplation of that which is good .
An educational paradigm that fails to guide the learner toward pondering the good fails to nourish the soul. Such an
18 N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: Harper One, 2006), 9.
intelligence may fill the mind, but leaves a substantial portion of the learner empty and hungering for more. The soul is the spiritual makeup of a human being. To deny the soul food does not make the soul cease to exist. It forces an emaciated essence of a person to struggle for survival. Despite what may be a desperate condition, the hungering soul becomes naturally curious and seeks understanding. Wright suggests that the curious pursuit of the spiritual has become a common quest in contemporary society: “‘The hidden spring’ of spirituality is the second feature of human life which, I suggest functions as the echo of a voice: as a signpost pointing away from the bleak landscape of modern secularism and toward the possibility that we humans are made for more than this.”19 The curious nature of the human beckons her to find something that will fill the soul. Some may suggest that rational intelligence also includes curiosity. After all, rationalists also have a desire to know and to understand. Unlike scientific rationalism which suggests that the search must lead to a reasonable response, curiosity enchants with open-ended results. The quest may not end in a clearly definable answer. To the contrary, reasonable intelligence requires that the curious endeavor must lead to an explicable response. Steinbeck jabs at exclusively rational intellect in his story. Despite witnessing the pulsating gummy wad, the French cook refused to consider its existence: “Our French cook solved the problem by refusing to believe it even when she saw it. It was not reasonable, she explained, and she was a reasonable member of a reasonable people.” 20 The rational intelligence represented by the cook had no explanation which was derived from human reason. Thus, the situation itself did not exist. The cook’s dilemma highlights what Hicks acknowledges as a failure of contemporary educational
19 Wright, Simply Christian, 20.
20 Steinbeck, “The Affair at 7, Rue de M—”, 64.
intellectualization. “Ideology feeds on popular conceptions of science and the breath-taking achievements of technology… that solutions to all-important questions will be devised in time by science.” 21 Unlike this type of rational inquiry, curiosity beckons the learner into a new experience and often into a new world that does not make the promise of immediate resolution. This is not to suggest that one cannot live without reason, but simply that reasonable inquiry is not the same as curious inquiry. Abraham Heschel notes that “soul and reason are not the same.” 22 Curious intelligence grants permission to the person to be comfortable in the soul with the inexplicable. The unresolved answers for the challenging perplexities promote deeper thinking which incorporates the mind and the soul.
Wonder
Curiosity and wonder can often become confused with one another. However, the two are distinctly unique. Whereas curiosity begins with the desire to know, wonder concludes with awe and inspiration. This is not to suggest that curiosity must begin before wonder. A person can be in wonder, and then develop a curiosity to learn more. Sadly, the word wonderful which was once used to describe the experience of being filled with wonder has become so benign that wonderful can mean a fun vacation or a new movie release. Similarly, the word awful , which once meant command awe or inspiration, has morphed into an antithetical meaning of horrible or unpleasant.
21 Hicks, Norms & Nobility, 61.
22 Abraham Joseph Heschel, Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979), 7.
A challenge one faces when discussing wonder is to incorporate a vocabulary that will inspire to the degree the concept deserves. Heschel has, arguably, restored some of honor due to the sense of wonder with his use of the word ineffable : “What smites us with unquenchable amazement is not that which we grasp and are able to convey but that which lies within our reach but beyond our grasp; not the quantitative aspect of nature but something qualitative, not what is beyond our range in time and space but the true meaning, source and end of being, in other words the ineffable.” 23 Granted, the unspeaking nature of the ineffable may exceed wonder, however it conveys the inspired feeling of being awe-struck.
The second obstacle to discussing wonder is that the average person rarely encounters wonder as part of daily living. Subsequently, the daily acts of wonder are small. Many people may “wonder if” such as “I wonder if she will arrive in time for dinner” or “I wonder if he will purchase me a gift.” The day-to-day routine of urban life seldom affords one the opportunity to genuinely be in wonder, or to experience the ineffable. If challenged to wonder more deeply, one may simply wonder to achieve some type of solution. Steinbeck subtly hints toward this oversight in his story. The father is not amazed that the gum has survival instances, only how the gum became alive. The response is akin to the ancient Pharisees who fail to marvel that a person was healed; but are rebuffed because the healing did not take place during a reasonable time. 24 A preset paradigm that does not include elements of wonder, fails to notice the truly wonderful. Historically, humans were in awe of the natural elements. Heschel notes that nature demands one to be in wonder : “There are three aspects of nature which command man’s attention: power, loveliness, grandeur. Power he exploits, loveliness he
23 Heschel, Man is Not Alone, 5.
24 Mark 3: 1–6 (ESV).
enjoys, grandeur fills him with awe.” 25 If Heschel’s comment is interpreted that the only means of experiencing wonder is through the grandeur of nature, it is understandable why wonder is often not a part of intellectual development. After all, modern science and technology, however, have largely subjugated nature which in turn frequently prevents the experience of grandeur. The raging river has been dammed up to a manageable flow; the torrential downpour is little more than pitter patter on the roof, and the majestic mountains are dissected with major thoroughfares. Whereas art once reflected the smallness of a person against the imposing backdrop of nature, artificial fireplaces now suggest that humans have mastered the elements. Whereas colossal peaks once demanded contriteness, weekend travel excursions are selfie photo-ops. This is not to suggest that members of contemporary society do not experience any wonder. Afterall, many individuals have left the complexities of urban living in remote areas. Additionally, many individuals temporarily seek out the natural environment through regular camping or backpacking outings. Whereas relatively few people may have the opportunity to experience a virgin night sky absent any light pollution, many people can look at the photographic images and be moved to a state of wonder based on the photographs. It appears Heschel may be alluding to the fact that many people do not consistently experience the unmitigated power of nature on a regular, first-hand basis. If natural grandeur in some form is necessary to experience wonder, perhaps the word wonderful has become so benign because one seldom has the opportunity to be filled with wonder in such a setting. It is equally understandable why wonder is no longer considered a necessary element of human development. With little chance to encounter the grand and to be genuinely inspired, soulful wonder becomes drab
25 Heschel, Man is Not Alone, 3.
repetition as noted by Hicks: “The student, who was once challenged to integrate his life and his learning, is now asked to observed in detached analysis nonliving matter in the laboratory or to decode dead words on a page.” 26 An intellectual education that lacks the ability to tease the mind with wonder certainly cannot tickle the soul with wonder.
However if natural magnificence is simply one means of enjoying wonder, then wonder can become part of one’s normative experience. The soul would subsequently have more opportunities to be filled with awe and inspiration. According to ancient words from Agur son of Jakeh the amazing can be found in the simple. “There are three things that are too wonderful for me, four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a virgin.” 27 Agur has looked up and traced the heights and movement of the eagle as it peacefully and effortlessly circles skies. He has looked down at the rock to ponder the stillness and movement of a snake as it endured excessive temperatures on its underside, and then slithered to shade at just the right moment. The ships risk destruction from the great waves and monsters of the deep, but traverse the distance nonetheless. He ponders the risk of rejection a man faces from a woman, but the man approaches her anyway. The musings are simple, but lead to richer thoughts, risks and peace of movement in the human experience. They lead to be in wonder of one’s own movement through the journey of life. Agur’s examples demonstrate the ability of the ancients to be in wonder in the simple. Contemporary poets such as Mary Oliver also serve as a herald to seek amazement in the small. Whether she is writing on moles, geese, mushrooms, kittens, or roses, Oliver reminds her readers to take time to
26 Hicks, Norms & Nobility, 60.
27 Proverbs 30: 18–19 ESV.
be in wonder. She distinctly asks her reader this question in “Bluefish”:
The angels I have seen coming up out of the water! There I was, drifting, not far from the shore, when they appeared, flying in their blue robes from the waves, from the reflecting clouds, from the brimming of high tide—a thousand hungry fish, open-mouthed charging like small blue tigers after some schooling minnows, darkening the water, ripping it to shreds. Have you ever wondered where the earth tumbles beyond itself and heaven begins? 28
Oliver draws the reader into her world as she observes the beauty of the blue fish flying out of the water in a frenzy for food.
28 Mary Oliver, “Blue Fish” in American Primitive (New York: Back Bay Books, 1983), 79.
One can imagine the fish scurrying about under the water, and just for a moment propelling itself out of the water and encountering the skies before its natural state summons it back into the water. At just the right moment when the reader is focused on pending carnage, she thrusts the reader into a state of wonder by asking, “Have you ever wondered.” It’s as if Oliver is challenging the reader to contemplate times when she, too, may have been momentarily thrust into a state of existence pondering the heavens instead of focused on the feeding frenzy of natural desires. Through her poetry, Oliver challenges the reader to step into a state of wonder.
Transitioning into a state of wonder can take place while experiencing the grandeur of nature. However, it can take place while contemplating the small elements of nature. The words of Agur and Oliver also serve as reminders that wonder takes place vicariously through the recorded musings of others. Stepping into a state of awe also takes place through other artistic representations. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch dominates a single wall in a small room in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. It does not include any natural elements other than human beings. However, the magnitude and and vibrancy of the painting can thrust the unsuspecting museum goer into a state of awe. Similarly, the soulful crooning of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom character in Phantom of the Opera lures the listener toward melancholic meditations. Many potential stimuli ignite states of wonder.
Education based on a state of wonder runs antithetical to the rational, science-based paradigm highlighted by Steinbeck and also addressed by Lewis and Hicks. An educational system that insists on pure reason does not have a place for wonder. Wonder is a condition which cannot be squeezed into a box of reason. Furthermore, wonder challenges the scientific because wonder may lead to a situation in which science cannot provide an answer. Ultimately, wonder raises awareness of a soulful longing and hunger, which is a condi-
tion pure rationalistic education and science-based education abhor. Thus, such a paradigm stands much to gain by denying wonder and focusing on an intellect without a soul.
Soulful Intelligence
Curiosity and wonder do not make for a better educational paradigm of themselves alone. Curiosity may lead the learner to simply pursue more understanding without an intended end. Additionally, wonder may create such a feeling of smallness which may lead one to depression. However, when held in the proper perspective, curiosity and wonder lead to something grander. The greater consideration of curiosity and wonder is at the base level of human awareness. Genuine curiosity and authentic wonder pique an awareness of something transcendent which only can be interpreted in the soul of a person. The consciousness enlightenment brought about by curiosity and wonder arouses a metaphysical appreciation that cannot be explained. The awakened soul of a person yearns to understand place and purpose within the vastness of the universe in a way that intellect alone cannot answer. The soul humbly comprehends that greater forces are at work. Curiosity and wonder cause moments of pause and questions like that of the Psalmist:
What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
Filling the Soul with Goodness Through Curiosity and Wonder
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 29
Curiosity and wonder reminded the learner what it means to be human. It reminds the person that she is one small piece in an eternal puzzle in which each piece is part of the beautiful picture of the puzzlemaker.
Steinbeck’s comment that evil results from an intelligence which lacks a soul remains debatable. However, what can be confirmed is that an intelligence that fails to consider the soul will contribute to the upbringing of something less than human. It becomes a Thing. However, an educational environment which values curiosity and wonder stimulates the soul and guides the learner toward becoming a fully humane human being instilled with awe and wonder towards much more than simply cognitive intellectual development. Curiosity and wonder inspire beyond just the reasonable. They fill the soul to seek the goodness of so much more.
Karla Memmott earned a PhD in Humanities from Faulkner University. She is the Rhetoric Program Coordinator for Legacy Classical Academy and teaches rhetoric at Kepler Education. She lives in Fair Oaks, California where she homeschools her children. She and her husband Kyle are the founders of Acacia Classical Academy, which is a classical Christian home-schooling education experience designed to meet the rising needs of homeschooling families in their area. They enjoy hiking, camping, playing board games, and walking their dog Kona.
29 Psalm 8: 4–8 (ESV).
The Foundational Goodness of the Trivium
Poetic Knowledge in John of Salisbury's Metalogicon
by Tracey Leary
The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury was written in the twelfth century as a defense of the vital importance of the liberal arts as they had been traditionally defined and practiced toward the historically accepted ends of eloquence and wisdom. An anonymous opponent to the value of the liberal arts for these purposes, whose real name has never been known but who is designated by John as Cornificius, “denies that eloquence should be studied,”1 and argued that the liberal arts were no longer useful in achieving these purposes on two accounts. First, he claimed that eloquence is a quality that men either have or do not have. When they do have it, it is not necessary to improve upon it, and when they don’t, not even wisdom can grant it to them. Eloquence, he said, is “a gift that is either conceded or denied to each individual by nature. Work and diligence are superfluous where nature has spontaneously and gratuitously bestowed eloquence, whereas they are futile and silly where she has refused to grant it.” 2 Second, Cornificius asserted conversely that eloquence, when
1 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, trans. Daniel D. McGarry (Philadelphia, 2009: Paul Dry Books), 10.
2 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 24.
possessed, could not bestow wisdom, the pursuit of which ought to be of primary importance for students. John quotes him as further saying, “Clearly the rules of eloquence confer neither wisdom nor love of wisdom… Philosophy is concerned not with words but with facts [and] eliminates the rules of eloquence from its activities.”3 John’s antagonist draws the conclusion from these arguments that the liberal arts, which are primarily concerned with the development of rhetoric and therefore eloquence, are unnecessary and even detrimental to the pursuit of wisdom.
John defends the study of the liberal arts as vital to the ends of wisdom in a surprising way. He argues that one of the primary purposes of these methods of study is not Sophistic proficiency in expression but poetic knowledge, and he does this nearly a century before Thomas Aquinas, the “first to use the exact term poetic knowledge,” refers to this poetica scientia in his works.4 This Thomistic mode of knowing was thoroughly explained and defended in James Taylor’s work on the subject as “the appropriate means of reawakening the intuitive nature of human beings who are able to know reality in a profound and intimate way”5 and it is his explication of this idea that is most significantly resonant in John of Salisbury’s work a thousand years prior. In the Metalogicon, John clearly relates each of the subjects of the Trivium—grammar, logic, and rhetoric—to an aspect of poetic knowledge which Taylor also identifies as integral to a way of understanding the world around us which predates scientific reasoning as we moderns utilize it. In doing so, he opens a window into a realm of scholastic practice of his day which has largely been lost.
3 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 25.
4 James Taylor, Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education (Albany, NY, 1998: State University of New York Press), 3.
5 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 4.
First, John identifies the study of grammar as intrinsic to the pursuit of philosophy, or wisdom. “One must learn to discriminate between what is said literally, what is said figuratively, and what is said incorrectly, if one is ever easily and accurately to comprehend what he reads.”6 It is, of course, largely by reading that we pursue wisdom, a pursuit which comes to a complete standstill if we cannot understand what we read: “Who will try to exclude [grammar] from the threshold of philosophy, save one who thinks that philosophizing does not require an understanding of what has been said or written?” 7 However, John says that one of the first stops on the journey to pursue philosophy is poetry. He makes two claims: “That ‘Poetry is the cradle of philosophy’ is axiomatic” 8 and “poetry belongs to grammar, which is its mother and the nurse of its study.” 9 For John, it is the study of poetry, or words in a context of beauty and intrinsic meaning, which first points the diligent student to wisdom. James Taylor clearly states that poetic knowledge is not synonymous with poetry. “Poetic knowledge is not necessarily a knowledge of poetry but rather a poetic (a sensory-emotional) experience of reality.”10 However, the study of poetry does indeed lend itself to and prepare the mind for poetic knowledge. It fosters a way of contemplation and of looking carefully at the object of that contemplation so that the thing contemplated becomes intimately known. Poetry, more than any other reading that can be undertaken, nurtures “the kind of intellectual sympathy by which one places oneself within the object in order to coincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible.”11 John’s placement of poetry as
6 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 55.
7 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 61.
8 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 63.
9 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 52.
10 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 5.
11 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 9.
a prerequisite of philosophy argues for his understanding of the importance of poetic experience, as well as the study of the words themselves, to the pursuit of wisdom, and he follows the ancients in this, as Taylor concurs: “Poetry, and all art, for the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition, was considered a means of real and valuable knowledge, a knowledge of the permanent things.”12
Next, John defends the study of logic as necessary to the pursuit of truth without which wisdom cannot be obtained. “The human mind must apply itself to the quest for wisdom, and thoroughly study and investigate questions in order to formulate clear and sound judgments concerning each. Logic is exercised in inquiry into the truth.”13 John goes on to say that, “Truth is the subject matter of prudence. Prudence consists entirely in insight into the truth, together with a certain skill in investigating the latter.”14 He later quotes Cicero’s definition of prudence as “a virtue of the conscious soul… whose object is the investigation, perception, and skillful utilization of the truth.”15 John explains that prudence is born when “sensation gives birth to imagination, and these two to opinion, and opinion to prudence, which grows to the maturity of scientific knowledge.”16 However, this sensation doesn’t have to be pleasant: “The prophets testify that even fear, which is ‘the beginning of wisdom,’ is a result of the sensory experience or mental image of pain.”17 The importance of knowledge beginning with either a painful or pleasant sensation resonates with that which is often considered to be the beginning of philosophy, the sense of wonder, or the “poetic
12 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 12.
13 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 74.
14 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 75.
15 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 224.
16 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 222.
17 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 231.
impulse to know in all men.”18 As Taylor clearly states, “The beginning of poetry, philosophy, and science is wonder.”19 It too has been called a painful sensation at times, “classified by Aquinas and many before him as a species of fear.” 20 Here, it is important to note as well that when John mentions “scientific knowledge,” he is not referring to a systematic process involving the computation of data, but rather a knowledge which is the result of “reading, learning, and meditation” of which grammar “is the basis and root” which implants the “seed [of virtue] in nature’s furrow after grace has readied the ground.” 21 Taylor quotes Robert Edward Brennan in saying that scientific knowledge for Aquinas has to do with conclusions, and the same is evident for John. 22 This process which leads to prudence, as described by John, is very close to the development of poetic knowledge described by James Taylor, which also begins with sensation: “Sensations belong to the mind/soul while senses pertain to the actions of the body and lead to this knowledge based on perceptions of the senses.” 23 Sensation also here leads to imagination: “Sensory-based intuitions create images upon which the memory reflects.” 24 Opinion then is reflected in what Aquinas called the estimative sense, and which is defined by Taylor as the ability to judge the “inwardness (good or evil) of things.” 25 That estimative opinion may then be expressed in action, which is the virtue of prudence. According to Taylor, “the estimative sense is the sensitive reflex
18 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 24.
19 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 71.
20 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 25.
21 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 65.
22 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 54.
23 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 29.
24 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 60.
25 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 44.
that lays the foundation for the virtue of prudence.” 26 John further says that it is the function of prudence to produce a man who “looks to the future, and forms providence; recalls what has happened in the past, and accumulates a treasury of memories; shrewdly appraises what is present, and begets astuteness or discernment; or takes full cognizance of everything… and constitutes circumspection.” 27 In practicing this virtue, one forms an instinctive estimative sense, or “the ability to know (judge) without the labor of discourse.” 28 Thus for John, the study of logic is entirely concerned with the pursuit of truth as evidenced by the development of prudence in the learner but must have sensory experience as its starting point. Finally, John explores the study of rhetoric as it also is related to prudence and through prudence to reason. He references a fable in which Prudence has three daughters: Love of Reason [Philology], Love of Wisdom [Philosophy] and Love of the Beautiful [Philocaly]. 29 The love of Reason as manifested in Philology is, according to John, the branch of Prudence which is most concerned with eloquence, personified in Mercury, as the fable tells of the wedding of the two. 30 John had previously referred to this fable in regard to the relationship between eloquence, reason, and prudence: “Prudence, the sister of Truth, arranged that [her daughter], the Love of [Logical] Reasoning and [Scientific] Knowledge, would acquire fertility and luster from Eloquence.”31 It is the function of Philology through the love of Reason to protect eloquence as it “strives to attain certitude, and exercises great caution to avoid error.”32 However, the Reason to which John
26 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 47.
27 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 222.
28 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 47.
29 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 246.
30 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 246.
31 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 78.
32 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 247.
refers is a Reason firmly grounded in poetic knowledge. “Nature first evokes our natural capacity to perceive things, and then, as it were, deposits these perceptions in the secure treasury of our memory. Reason then examines with its careful study, those things which have been perceived, and which are to be, or have been, commended to memory’s custody.”33 Likewise, for Taylor, “Poetic knowledge… moves to deeper realities… through the concrete things of the world [and] operates through images, as does the cognitive sense process where the intellect gazes and penetrates with light our memory’s storehouse of images.”34 Thus, Reason is, for John, “that power of the soul which examines and investigates those things that make an impression on the senses or intellect”35 but in such a way that, as Taylor quotes Aquinas as saying, “Memory is being guided by reason in a purely natural way… It tends, of its own accord, to link together various items of experience that are alike. Reason merely takes advantage of this tendency.”36
Importantly, though, John also states that Reason is not the soul’s highest function. Rather, intuitive understanding transcends Reason, and it is in this argument that we most clearly see John’s equation of the apprehension of wisdom with poetic knowledge. For John, it is ultimately from intuitive understanding that wisdom proceeds, not from reason. 37 He says, “[Intuitive] Understanding is consequent upon deliberation, and firmly embraces the better part. For [intuitive] understanding concerns itself with divine truths, and the relish, love, and observance of the latter constitutes true wisdom.”38 Aquinas also distinguishes poetic knowledge from
33 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 34.
34 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 53.
35 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 35.
36 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 46.
37 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 231.
38 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 232.
discursive reasoning by defining its quality of connaturality as “an intuitive way, refined by habit, of knowing immaterial reality and transcendent truth.”39 That John also has immaterial reality in mind is evident when he says, “Certain lesser philosophers, reasoning from the fact that from sense perceptions our mind proceeds to scientific knowledge, argue that we can have scientific knowledge only of those things that are perceived by our senses. It is evident how lethal admission of such a proposition would be to philosophy.”40 He also affirms the role of habit in preparing the mind for wisdom when he says that men must develop a taste for it: “I believe that wisdom derives its name from the fact that good men have a discerning taste for the things of God.”41 St. Thomas says that “while discursive reasoning attains to metaphysical truth by carefully moving from one thing known? to another, these same truths can be approximated by the mode of poetic knowledge.”42 John echoes this when he says that “The only possible explanation of our knowledge of God, whom we do know, is that our mind is unfettered, free, and exempt from [essential unity with] what is mortal and material.”43 The knowledge of God, the ultimate end of wisdom, can only be gained through poetic knowledge.
What, then, hath eloquence to do with wisdom? John tells us at the outset of his treatise, “Just as eloquence, unenlightened by reason, is rash and blind, so wisdom, without the power of expression is feeble and maimed.”44 In the same way that Dante’s Saturnians were compelled to express their contemplative insights from their ascent into the Empyrean though a deafening call for zealous action, so the wisdom
39 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 81.
40 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 232.
41 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 231.
42 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 81.
43 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 233.
44 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 10.
that John of Salisbury identifies as a knowledge of God must be expressed in ways that accurately communicate the deep truths entrusted to him: “All creatures, as if by public attestation [witness to and] proclaim the glory of their Creator.”45 These are truths that cannot be known by scientific knowledge, but must be known poetically. When man, through the wisdom gained by poetic knowledge, is permitted to glimpse even a small portion of God’s glory, how can that glory be expressed through “vanity, falsity, or emptiness”?46 Instead, “The truth of anything is directly dependent on the degree in which it faithfully reflects the likeness of God.”47 How vital it is that men faithfully reflect their creator in both their words and deeds.
In practical terms for the classical educator, the connection between poetic knowledge and the trivium is of great importance. Often when we consider how to move our students through the stages of the trivium, we do so from the perspective of seeing the work of schooling as the active pursuit of knowledge. There is much to be said for this, and there certainly does need to be an expectation of the student’s own intellectual exertion in acquiring knowledge. However, as both John of Salisbury and James Taylor show us, the importance of poetic knowledge, a knowledge which is largely received by the student rather than acquired through activity, must be considered as the context in which progression through the levels of the trivium takes place. If as classical educators, we truly believe that, as Taylor quotes John Senior as saying, “The purpose of the humanities is not knowledge but to humanize,”48 we must pay attention to the indispensable place of poetic knowledge in ensuring that the skills and
45 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 271.
46 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 267.
47 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 267.
48 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 155.
knowledge that our students gain by their participation in the levels of the trivium do indeed humanize them. We must heed John Senior’s further warning, “You must never make the mistake in thinking that the only kind of knowledge is intellectual knowledge.”49 Poetic, or experiential, knowledge must be well formed in the student before formal schooling begins and must be considered as the touchstone to which the knowledge and tools gained through the trivium must constantly return, if the education of a student is to be complete. For classical educators, considering the place of poetry in grammar, wisdom in logic, and prudence in rhetoric, as we develop our assignments and lessons, is a good place to start.
Tracey Leary is a doctoral student in the graduate humanities program at Faulkner University and holds an M.Ed. from Auburn University at Montgomery. She has more than twenty years of experience in education, which includes teaching in both public and private school environments as well as homeschooling her own children and directing a local classical co-op, for which she also wrote and compiled its secondary humanities curriculum. She now teaches integrated humanities classes for Kepler Education and lives in Montgomery, Alabama, with her husband and three boys.
49 Taylor, Poetic Knowledge, 165.7
No One is Good but God Alone
Telling the Story of Christic Goodness
by Dr. Joshua D. Brumfield
In the beginning was the Word… and the Word said, let there be… and it was… and it was good. The Logos of God spoke, narrated the creation of the cosmos, light and dark, day and night, sun and moon, animals and fish and birds, man and woman,… and it was very good.
The Word spoke to Adam, invited him to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life, but Adam listened to another voice and death entered the story, but the Word promised not to abandon man to Death’s tragedian story.
As sin multiplied the race made for worship, made with a natural desire for God, turned that perverted desire into idolatry. And that race made for truth, made to be prophets of creation, clouded that calling with lies. And that race made for dominion and stewardship of creation, perverted this responsibility into tyranny. Throughout, goodness was obscured. And so we came to Babel and to Egypt, to the reign of tyrant kings who would feign to act as gods, demanding worship, child sacrifice, and slavery.
After 400 years in Egypt, the Word heard the cry of His people. The Word came to a desert shepherd, a murderer, and used him to establish the Passover. He narrated unleavened bread, the sacrificial lamb, and the conquest of the old gods into their story, into our story. And His goal was the same as
before. We were made for worship. And so, when He rescued the people from slavery in Egypt, Moses told Pharaoh they must go into the desert to worship. Freedom is for worship. Right relation to God is goodness. Once the people were in the desert and free from the Egyptians, they committed idolatry. In their 400 years in Egypt they became spiritual slaves. They became part of that pagan story of idolatry and slavery. They lost the virtue of goodness. They no longer knew how to worship rightly or live justly. So, in addition to the 10 Commandments the Word of God gave them 600 other commands. Because when you are an addict, when you don’t know what’s good for you, obedience is the path out of spiritual slavery. They needed to learn goodness again.
After generations of struggle from Judges to Kings, from Prophets to the Maccabean revolt, the Logos was made flesh and pitched his tent among us. He entered into the story of Mary and Joseph, Andrew and Simon, James and John, Martha and Mary, you and I. In the desert, the Incarnate Word resisted the story of the Enemy. He rejected the empty promises of bread and circuses, of pride and power. And embraced our story of redemption as His story:
And as [Jesus] was setting out on his journey,a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18).
So our Lord answered the rich young man who, quite reasonably and respectably, addressed him as “good teacher” and asked about eternal life. The young man confirms he has kept the commandments. Mark tells us that Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (Mark 10:21). The rich
young man went away sad and shocked. Such an encounter sheds light on the proper place of goodness in God’s story, in our story, and thus in the approach to goodness that Christian classical education should take today.
If the rich young man had indeed kept the commandments since his youth then he was likely a man of some natural virtue and goodness. Yet Jesus, looking at him with love, called him from good to better, from natural goodness to graced sanctity. Similarly, a Christian approach to goodness in the classics—both in myth and philosophy—ought to be sober about vice, honest about pagan virtue, and clear and joyful about the difference Christ makes for our thoughts about and our practice of goodness.
To pass on goodness for the sake of human flourishing requires, first, an attentiveness to the students in front of us here and now. How do we elevate their minds and hearts for goodness in imitation of the Good Lord? Educating in a classical mode requires us to wisely mine the treasures of the classics and to do so in a Christian key. After all, the Christian reception of the Classical tradition was not a blind one. Just as grace heals and elevates nature, so the Christic vision of goodness as received and handed down in the tradition incorporates, converts, and transfigures the classical Greek and Roman approaches to goodness.
Simone Weil, the French philosopher, argued that being rooted was “perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”1 The corollary, of course, is that “uprootedness” was “by far the most dangerous malady to which human societies are exposed.” 2 We live in a rootless society.
1 Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Obligations Towards the Human Being (London: Penguin Classics, 2023), 43.
2 Weil, The Need for Roots, 47.
For many, God’s story, the “Divine Comedy,” the story of the victory of the Logos, is no longer our story. We have forgotten it. It no longer moves us and inspires us in concrete recognizable ways. We are no longer recognizably a people set apart. We’ve lost our roots and forgotten God’s story, the story of the victory of Good over evil.
Our actions reflect not the Paschal Story, but our consumeristic stories, our sports stories, our political stories, our selfies and follows, our tweets and rants. Many of our students and their peers, as they play make-believe or dream of the future, weave their imaginative tales with Marvel or Disney characters, sports heroes or TikTok influencers. In their imaginations, in their hearts, their story is not Jesus’ story.
As classical educators we might be tempted to believe that the myths of old, the stories of Homer and Virgil, are closer to our story, that they offer better examples of goodness and are more redeemable than those of TikTok and Facebook. And we wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but we must teach with care. Their roots are not entirely our own.
Classical Christian culture was the providential result of the meeting of Greek philosophy with Judeo-Christian faith, which gave it an incredible dynamism and a simultaneous fragility. The missionary nature and universal striving of Christian culture means that it moves and abides through traditio rather than through geography, ethnicity, or heredity, which makes it especially vulnerable to this rootless age. And so, in classical Christian education we seek to continue the traditio, to hand on the story and strengthen the roots of goodness in our students. To show them through the classics what goodness really is—as others proclaim to them the gospel of selfishness, hedonism, and worse.
It is true that Greek mythology offers a rich tapestry of tales that reflect various aspects of the human condition, including goodness and justice. Several myths can be interpreted to illustrate virtues and goodness as valued by the ancient
Greeks. The tales of Perseus and Heracles both exhibit fortitude in the face of adversity. The former can be read to highlight the importance of standing up against evil and injustice, even at great personal risk, while the latter’s commitment to atoning for his mistakes and protecting the weak exemplifies a pagan approach to virtuous action and redemption. But the more philosophical Greeks recognized that the myths could not convey true goodness and justice. For Socrates, the Good was closely linked to knowledge and virtue. He believed that true happiness and fulfillment could only be attained through the pursuit of wisdom and the cultivation of moral excellence. And, of course, Socrates was killed as an atheist for rejecting the stories of the gods, though an atheist he was not. In the Platonic theory of Forms, the Good is posited as the highest Form, from which all other Forms derive their existence and value. The Good is described as the source of truth, beauty, and justice, providing the ultimate standard by which we can understand and evaluate reality. But even Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle can only go so far on natural reason alone. The early Christians saw the truth in their philosophies and ultimately put Christianity on the side of truth and goodness, of Logos, and against the primacy of the gods. In his groundbreaking book Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger put it this way:
The Christian faith opted… against the gods of the various religions and in favor of the God of the philosophers, that is, against the myth of custom and in favor of the truth of Being itself and nothing else. Hence, the accusation made against the early Church that her adherents were atheists. 3
3 Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004), 142.
The early Christians recognized that the Incarnation of the Logos radically changed the God of the philosophers. The Christian faith revolutionized the philosophical concept of God, by establishing at its very core the concepts of person, reason, and love: God is not just thought, but a Trinity of persons who love. In this way, truth (faith and reason) and love (goodness) are once more closely united.
Therefore the Christian idea of goodness which we aim to hand on to our students must reflect an analogous revolution—or conversion, if you prefer. If classical Christian educators wish to form Christians who can bear witness to the One True Story, to a world without roots, their goodness must exhibit the Christian difference.
Before we articulate that Christian difference and look to Tolkien to help us imagine it, let us consider the results of the classical Greek education in paideia . The Greek schools sought to prioritize what was good, just, and true. They sought to form rhetoricians, speakers who needed to also be virtuous. Since their orators would have the power to influence society toward—or away from—justice, the orator needed to be good.
However, St. Augustine shows us how fallen man responds to such a well-intentioned but ultimately Pelagian pursuit of goodness. In his Confessions, looking back on his time as a famous and successful orator, Augustine expresses shame and regret at the pride and vanity driving his desire for excellence, an excellence which was not accompanied by moral goodness. Augustine was powerless to change his bad habits. Not until his conversion was he able to integrate his formation in paideia with goodness through grace. And only then was he freed of the moral malaise that had afflicted him. In other words, not even the best forms of goodness the classical world had to offer could ultimately be pleasing to God. In light of concupiscence such excellence was experi-
No One is Good but God
enced not as a graced gift but as a poisonous source of pride. After all, they were still stuck in the wrong story.
In light of Adam’s fall, none of us can by our own efforts span the abyss separating us from God. Even Socrates in his natural goodness is powerless before this stain. “Only through Christ’s death on the Cross can this abyss be bridged: only the one reborn in baptism can glorify God by the morality of the “new creature” in Christ.”4 Even in his goodness, Socrates remained a fallen man, a concupiscent man, a man in need of a savior. For the classical Christian educator—and for every Christian—this fact is key, this recognition places us and our students back on the stage of God’s story, in the drama of salvation history.
In light of this Dietrich von Hildebrand lists four distinguishing marks of Christian morality, of Christian goodness. 5
1. “The indispensable and all-important role of humility.”6 The fatal flaw of paideia finds its medicine in Christ. In light of the Cross, in light of the fact that the Logos of God emptied himself, took the form of a slave, and became obedient unto death, no Christian can approach goodness without growing increasingly in humility.
2. “The interpenetration of attitudes which seem to exclude each other on the level of mere natural morality.”7 Consider, for example, Jesus’ admonition that the Apostles are not to lead the Church by lording over others. Rather, Christian leadership is service. Whereas the pagan model of courage is the soldier, for the early Christians, the martyr who combines a certain
4 Dietrich von Hildebrand, Christian Ethics (New York: D.McKay, 1953), 424.
5 von Hildebrand, Christian Ethics, 431–434.
6 von Hildebrand, Christian Ethics, 431.
7 von Hildebrand, Christian Ethics, 432.
meekness and humility with dauntless courage is the hero and the Christian disciple par excellence .
3. The “specific goodness of charity is its very core.”8 Plato and Socrates aim at justice, but Christ calls us to charity. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). Jesus’ otherwise insane call to love our enemies exemplifies this difference, and the charitable love of St. Stephen, during his martyrdom, puts it into practice. Enemy-love sets Christian goodness apart.
4. “That all virtues… originate in a response to God.” 9 This final mark of von Hildebrand brings us back to humility. The Christian can never boast in his goodness, because it is all a gift from God and a graced response. “We love, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
As classical Christian educators seeking to hand on the tradition of Christian goodness in a secular and rootless age of selfish consumption and relativistic waffling, we strive to form our students and ourselves in the distinctly Christian goodness which signifies our membership in God’s story, the story of the victory of the Logos.
J. R. R. Tolkien can help us and our students to imagine just that sort of goodness today. First, Tolkien recognized the uprooting of England’s culture and mythology. In a letter to Milton Waldman, he explains:
Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less
8 von Hildebrand, Christian Ethics, 433.
9 von Hildebrand, Christian Ethics, 433.
No One is Good but God Alone
connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story—the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths—which I could dedicate simply: to England; to my country… I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.10
At least at some point in the long and tedious work of the sub-creation of Middle-Earth, Tolkien hoped to re-establish roots for England. Although in many ways, these roots may be particularly Anglo-Saxon in inspiration and nature, for Tolkien, whose faith was so dear to him,11 there are undoubtedly specifically Christian notes hidden subtly but unmistakably at the foundations of Middle-Earth. In a letter to Robert Murray, a friend and Jesuit priest, Tolkien admits that,
The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‛religion,’ to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.12
Elsewhere he acknowledges, “I am a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories).”13 Recognizing this, theologian
10 J. R. R. Tolkien, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, eds. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), Letter #131 to Milton Waldman, 1951.
11 Cf. Holly Ordway, Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography (Elk Grove Village IL: Word on Fire Academic), 2023.
12 Tolkien, Letters, Letter #141 to Robert Murray, S.J.
13 Tolkien, Letters, Letter #213 to Deborah Webster.
Fleming Rutledge argued that Tolkien embedded within The Lord of the Rings “a rare glimpse of what human freedom within God’s Divine Plan really means.”14
So, do we find evidence of von Hildebrand’s specifically Christian form of goodness in Tolkien’s legendarium? The first mark was humility as a fundamentally necessary counterpoint to the pride which inevitably wells up within concupiscent and otherwise excellent humans. The clearest example is Frodo, though Sam and others also fit the bill. The great and powerful of the age, Gandalf, Aragorn, Elrond, and Galadriel all recognize—in their own form of humility—that in their greatness they must not take the ring. The temptation to power for the sake of the good would be too great. Frodo is the ring-bearer precisely because he recognizes his smallness. Tolkien himself explains: “Frodo undertook his quest out of love—to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task.”15 Compare the humility that is inextricably bound up with Frodo’s heroism with the heroism of Odysseus. Christ indeed makes a difference. Tolkien is subcreating from within a different story than Homer.
The second mark of Christian goodness was the presence of paradoxical virtues which could hardly be imagined to be integrated in the natural goodness of the Greeks and Romans. Although a number of characters would exemplify this, Aragorn stands out. On the one hand he is a relatively standard warrior king. He is portrayed as a noble and heroic figure, possessing both physical prowess and inner strength. Despite his rough exterior, Aragorn exudes a quiet dignity and a sense of authority that commands respect from those
14 Fleming Rutledge, The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2004), 2–9.
15 Tolkien, Letters, Letter #255 to Eileen Elgar.
around him. But, paradoxically and perhaps surprisingly, near the end of The Return of the King Aragorn is recognized as rightful heir because he has “the hands of a healer.” Throughout he uses his knowledge of herbalism and medicine to treat wounds and injuries, both minor and severe. But his healing of the “Black Breath” inflicted on Eowyn, Faramir, and Merry, which is apparently even beyond Gandalf’s skill, reveals his royal identity, fulfilling the old rhyme remembered by Ioreth, “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.” Only Aragorn could save those wounded by the Enemy, just as only Christ can heal those mortal wounds inflicted on our souls.
The third distinguishing feature of Christian goodness listed by von Hildebrand was the “specific goodness of charity,” which ought to call to mind our Lord’s admonition to love our enemies as well as our friends. Early in The Fellowship of the Ring , shortly after Gandalf has revealed to Frodo that Bilbo’s ring is the ring of power and Gollum has revealed the names “Baggins” and “Shire” while being tortured, Frodo exclaims “What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!” The conversation which ensues is key to the Christian substructure of the entire series. Gandalf replies:
“Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”
Frodo quite honestly answers, “I am sorry. But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum… he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.” Gandalf, in wisdom:
“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many—yours not the least.”16
Fleming Rutledge is again helpful here, explaining that the “conspicuous Mercy shown to Gollum even before the saga begins, starting with Bilbo, then continuing with Aragorn and the Woodelves and then Frodo (instructed by Gandalf), then Faramir, and finally in the last hour even Sam, who refrained from killing Gollum on the brink of Doom […] This Mercy (Pity) is the theme that is highlighted by Tolkien perhaps most of all.”17 Tolkien himself repeatedly emphasizes the centrality of mercy and pity writing, “It is the pity of Bilbo and later Frodo that ultimately allows the Quest to be achieved.”18 And later explaining, Frodo “(and the Cause) were saved—by Mercy: by the supreme value and efficacy of Pity and forgiveness of injury.”19 Finally, in an obviously Christian key, he adds, “The ‘salvation’ of the world and Frodo’s own ‘salvation’ is achieved by his previous pity and forgiveness of injury.” 20
Finally, the fourth of von Hildebrand’s marks of Christian goodness, the foundation of all human goodness in
16 J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002), 58–59.
17 Rutledge, The Battle for Middle-earth, 340.
18 Tolkien, Letters, Letter #191, draft to Miss J. Burns.
19 Tolkien, Letters, Letter #191, draft to Miss J. Burns.
20 Tolkien, Letters, Letter #181, unsent to Michael Straight.
No One is Good but God
God’s goodness, may be harder to find in Middle Earth, as God makes no formal appearance in The Lord of the Rings. We see almost no explicit reference to religion at all except for a few brief references to Sauron being worshiped in the dark years. And yet, God’s goodness is all over the place in Middle-Earth if we are looking for it. The working of Providence in the “deep narrative” is one of Rutledge’s primary themes. We can note numerous instances but perhaps one of the most clear is in “The Shadow of the Past,” when Gandalf is explaining what the ring is, where it came from, and how it came to Bilbo:
“There was more than one power at work, Frodo. The Ring was trying to get back to its master… It abandoned Gollum. Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire!
“Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker [Sauron]. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.”21
The Priority of God’s plan is subtly working throughout Tolkien’s narrative. Just as Divine Providence silently moves within our day-to-day lives, inviting us to participate in God’s story. This requires an attentiveness to the specifically Christic character of goodness in His story.
In challenging the rich young man, Jesus also challenges our students—in the midst of their battles with the root-rotting effects of this secular age—to transcend mere natural goodness and mere obedience and to follow Christ, to love as He loves.
21 Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 81.
As classical Christian educators, we stand at a critical juncture, tasked with nurturing the roots of goodness in our students in an age characterized by uprootedness and moral relativism. Drawing from the riches of both classical wisdom and Christian revelation, we seek to guide our students out of false or incomplete notions of the good and towards a life of goodness that is both rooted in tradition and dynamically infused with the transformative power of Christ. This requires that we find ways to highlight for them the difference Christ makes in our conceptions and actions of goodness.
The example of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth serves as a poignant reminder of the enduring relevance of Christian goodness in the face of modern challenges. Hercules is admirable. Beowulf is impressive. But imitating Frodo and Sam, Gandalf and Aragorn can help us also to imitate Christ whose foolishness is wiser than our wisdom and whose weakness is stronger than our strength. Here we glimpse the paradoxical virtues of humility, mercy, and sacrificial love that find their source and summit, their inspiration and completion, in Christ.
May we be ever seeking to form and inspire the imagination to see beyond the natural virtues of the pagan classics and to hope in the eucatastrophic upside-down Christic victories which only grace makes possible and which we and our world so desperately need.
Dr. Joshua D. Brumfield is IKON Program Director at The Newman Idea, a teacher of theology at Jesuit High School New Orleans, and an Adjunct Instructor of Theology at St. Meinrad School of Theology. Dr. Brumfield is the author of The Benedict Proposal: Church as Creative Minority in the Thought of Pope Benedict XVI as well as several articles. He and his wife have four children whom they have homeschooled in the classical tradition.
The Fear of the Lord is the Path to Virtue
by Dr. Abigail Mirau
For the ancient philosophers and writers, virtue is a lifelong pursuit. As a lifelong pursuit, virtue cannot be merely an act of goodness or something which has the appearance of goodness, or the appearance of any other virtue. Virtue is not merely being kind and certainly is not manifested in one’s ability to push moral standards onto another. Virtue cannot be achieved by governments, leaders, or philosophical ideals and conversations, but is achieved in slow, intentional efforts of the individuals who choose the virtuous life. When one person chooses virtue, so might someone else, such as other members of the community or State, and then the State may begin to exhibit virtue as its own characteristic. Virtue is part of the ongoing conversation and pursuit of wisdom. In looking at the wisdom of ancient writings, the individual can learn how to live a virtuous life and engage in this lifelong pursuit and action together. The words of Socrates, Aristotle, and Solomon as the writer of the Book of Proverbs, show how the ideals of virtue are attainable, coming through wise choices and instruction, producing a virtuous community and a flourishing life.
Socrates debated the question of virtue and its existence, relevance, and teachability in the individual life throughout his dialogues. One such conversation, recorded by Plato in
The Republic, was with Adeimantus. Adeimantus appeals to Socrates, saying:
The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honourable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honour them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods: they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men’s doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man’s own or his ancestor’s sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will.1
Adeimantus has pointed out the stigma of virtue: that virtue does not seem to truly exist or be attainable and is only held by the rich and powerful while being a catalyst for abuse towards the lower class, thus becoming an injustice and vice. This distinction between vice and virtue had earlier been established in Book I: “[…] we were now agreed that justice was
1 Plato, “The Republic,” in The Great Books of the Western World: The Dialogues of Plato, ed. Mortimer Adler, vol 6 (Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1990), 313–314.
The Fear of the Lord is the Path to Virtue
virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance.” 2 Thus pursuing justice is inherent to pursuing virtue resulting in wisdom and a better life. But how could this be possible when it seemed as if the rich and powerful are the only ones able to pursue a life of actual virtue because they hold justice in the strength of their hand?
To answer this, it is important to recognize that justice, wisdom, and virtue may belong to the stronger, but it is not the stronger among men, but the stronger of the Creator of these attributes and pursuits themselves. Solomon, in the book of Proverbs, suggests that virtue is part of cultivated wisdom, and wisdom is found in knowledge, which can be gained by listening to wise instruction. The beginning of the book of Proverbs speaks to the need for wise instruction and why the proverbs were written in the first place. Solomon introduces his book in the following manner:
The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth— Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. 3
Solomon, at this time, was the strongest of men in his community, as in the most powerful and the most able to execute justice, wisdom, and all other virtues. He recognizes, howev-
2 Plato, “The Republic,” 308.
3 Proverbs 1:1–6 (ESV).
er, that it is not because of his status or power, but because of the God Whom he follows. This speaks humility into the life of one who would deem wisdom as part of a virtuous life. The wisdom and justice of a virtuous life begin with listening to wise instruction. And as Solomon very wisely states, this listening comes not from other men but from God. Solomon adds in the next verse, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”4 Aristotle, who did not recognize a higher power such as God explicitly, did recognize that wisdom and virtue must come from an outside place, and not from the words of men alone. But he knows that living a virtuous life well brings happiness, not in a temporary sense, but in a more Christian-influenced understanding of joy, in being beyond circumstances and occupations but part of a person’s purpose. In Nicomachean Ethics he states, “The happy life is thought to be virtuous; now a virtuous life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. […] For happiness does not lie in such occupations, but, as we have said before, in virtuous activities.”5 Happiness, or the flourishing life, for Aristotle, was the telos, and thereby happiness is the activity of virtue. As he writes:
For no function of man has so much permanence as virtuous activities (these are thought to be more durable even than knowledge of the sciences), and of these themselves the most valuable are more durable because those who are happy spend their life most readily and most continuously in these; for this seems to be the reason why we do not forget them. The attribute in question, then, will belong to the happy man, and he will be happy through-
4 Proverbs 1:7 (ESV).
5 Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” in The Great Books of the Western World: Aristotle II, ed. Mortimer Adler, vol 8 (Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1990), 431.
The Fear of the Lord is the Path to Virtue
out his life; for always, or by preference to everything else, he will be engaged in virtuous action and contemplation and he will bear the chances of life most nobly and altogether decorously, if he is ‘truly good’ and ‘foursquare beyond reproach.’6
A virtuous man will be a happy, flourishing man; therefore, being virtuous is desired because happiness is desired. If happiness, or completion, is the ultimate end, and virtue leads one to that happy life, then virtue is to be desired above other things. He emphasizes this saying:
If reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life. But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything. This would seem, too, to be each man himself, since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It would be strange, then, if he were to choose not the life of his self but that of something else. And what we said before will apply now; that which is proper to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing; for man, therefore, the life according to reason is best and pleasantest, since reason more than anything else is man. This life therefore is also the happiest.7
The pursuit of virtue in life is a daily exhibition towards something greater, beyond the self, and yet yields a happier life for the self. Socrates reflects this idea in The Apology when
6 Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” 346.
7 Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” 432.
he implores his listeners: “The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.” 8 To be unrighteous, unvirtuous, is worse for a man’s life and soul. What these two missed is what source that “divine life” and “divine reason” come from, and from which every man can live with the best in mind and heart. Once again the book of Proverbs, and the wisdom of Solomon, provides the answer. As Proverbs 3:5–6 encourages: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.” That fear of the Lord and the wisdom of a life of virtue produces a full, flourishing, happy, and righteous life that Socrates and Aristotle believed to be the end and purpose for the human soul.
To live this way, in action of virtue, then means the passing on of a wise life to the generations to come in the raising up of youth. Aristotle writes, “After these matters we ought perhaps next to discuss pleasure. For it is thought to be most intimately connected with our human nature, which is the reason why in educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain; it is though, too, that to enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on virtue of character.” 9 This awareness and wisdom to how one pursues and understands virtue comes by being built into the youth, producing their character. Aristotle establishes some of these thoughts when he writes:
It will also on this view be very generally shared; for all who are not maimed as regards their potentiality for virtue
8 Plato, “The Apology,” in The Great Books of the Western World: The Dialogues of Plato, ed. Mortimer Adler, vol 6 (Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1990), 210. 9 Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” 426.
The Fear of the Lord is the Path to Virtue
may win it by a certain kind of study and care. But if it is better to be happy thus than by chance, it is reasonable that the facts should be so, since everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all causes. To entrust to chance what is greatest and most noble would be a very defective arrangement.10
Virtue is not simply stumbled upon or acquired. In fact, it seems to be in direct opposition with human nature as many others have pointed out. This does not make it unattainable or unworthy of pursuit, but as a lifelong choice, it potentially becomes more difficult and can be lost with age, thus needing to be a lifelong pursuit, and is not something where one can ever reach a limit. It is a daily opportunity to live a life of virtue and wisdom. Socrates says this in his conversation with Adeimantus: “Such as one will despise riches only when he is young; but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not single-minded towards virtue, having lost his best guardian. […] Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life.”11 Without philosophy as a guardian and the instruction of virtue, it will succumb to human nature for vice. Upon hearing of his own death sentence, Socrates even implored members of his audience to watch for virtue amongst his sons and followers saying:
When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pre -
10 Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” 345.
11 Plato, “The Republic,” 404–405.
tend to be something when they are really nothing, then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring, about that for which they ought to care and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.12
Virtue must be taught and sought after. That is why there is such a necessity for philosophy and philosophers and their admonition to all people that life is about more than the immediate present. The call back to the wisdom of Proverbs enters again into the conversation as the missing piece. While philosophers pursue wisdom, that wisdom is only ultimately found in looking to the Wisest One. Proverbs 16:16 says, “How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver” (ESV). Riches and wealth do not bring true happiness, nor virtue. But wisdom and understanding, a life of virtue, rooted in learning from God, does.
One last vital part to the pursuit of wisdom and virtue is in living, as Socrates and Aristotle argue, an examined life. It begins with the individual. Socrates makes this blatantly obvious in his own defense:
For if I tell you that to do as you say would be a disobedience to the God, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me.13
12 Plato, “The Republic,” 212.
13 Plato, “The Republic,” 210.
The Fear of the Lord is the Path
This life of virtue is to be guarded and directed. It works for the greater good, not only of the individual, but also of the community. Socrates emphasized this in his many examples to explain the nature of justice and virtue: “Yet surely the art of the shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects; he has only to provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already ensured whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied.”14 When people are pursuing a life of virtue, they are doing so in taking care of what has been entrusted to them. This then brings happiness to that which is entrusted, such as a flock, producing a greater reward for the person, the shepherd. The cycle of reward, happiness, and virtue can continue, benefitting all involved. Proverbs 8, the call of wisdom Proverbs in which wisdom is personified, emphasizes the pursuit on a daily, individual basis for the good of the entire community throughout its entirety:
Does not wisdom call?
Does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:
“To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man.
O simple ones, learn prudence;
O fools, learn sense.
Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right, for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them.
14 Plato, “The Republic,” 305.
They are all straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge. Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.
“I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength. By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly.
I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me. Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver.
I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries.
“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.
Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields,
The Fear of the Lord is the Path to Virtue
or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.
“And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.
Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death.”
If the life of virtue is not pursued well, it is lost amongst other things and becomes unattainable, unreasonable, and even unreal as a way of living. But living a life of virtue is what reminds people that they are more than the moment in which they find themselves.
While Socrates and Aristotle had some wise ideas about living a virtuous life, without the continual pursuit of God as its sources, they always fell short. Wisdom is not found within the hearts or minds of an individual because he or she will rely solely on the individual experience and subjective feelings. By interacting with others and discussing what virtue,
wisdom, and a happy life really are, and even why those are desirable things, a person can grow and be part of a flourishing community. The virtuous life is the happiest life for the individual and his or her community. Fearing God is the beginning of the wise life which produces virtue because a follower of Christ should strive to emulate His characteristics, which are of the highest virtue and desire.
Dr. Abigail Mirau is the Associate Professor of English Composition at Mid-Atlantic Christian University in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. She received her undergraduate degree from Crossroads College in General Ministry and Biblical Studies & Theology, her Masters in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University, and her Doctorate of Philosophy in Humanities from Faulkner University. Her joy is in teaching students and helping them learn how to think as they pursue the lives God has granted to them.
Book Review
Tracy Lee Simmons' On Being Civilized: A Few Lines Among the Breakage
by Dr. Gregory Soderberg
In 2002, Tracy Lee Simmons published the widely-acclaimed Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin . His latest book shows us what he’s been up to since that time: which is reading a lot of good books and writing about them. On Being Civilized might not be what you assume it is (it certainly wasn’t what I assumed it would be), but it turns out to be something very important for our cultural moment. The book consists mostly of book reviews that Simmons wrote and published over his long career as a journalist. Although we book reviewers fondly hope that people actually read, and maybe even profit from, our reviews, the book review isn’t exactly a major literary genre. Simmons helps to make the case for its importance, however, and demonstrates how a review can, and should, be written. Simmons manages to summarize and distill the main argument of each book with very few references or quotes from the book itself. One senses that we are sitting in on a conversation between Simmons and each of the various authors, with the scent of coffee, or even tobacco, in the background. Simmons models for us how to read—how to take the best from a book, and how to politely brush away the less salutary.
Simmons also saves us a lot of time, since no one has enough time to read all the books one wants to read. Simmons helps us glean the best from a wide range of books. Additionally, Simmons is an artful wordsmith in his own right, and so he models both how to read well and how to write well.
The book is divided into five main sections: Biography, History, Language, Literature, Culture. Each section contains many reviews of books that fit within those categories. Reviews range over a wide variety of topics: Winston Churchill, Graham Greene, Alistair Cooke, Kenneth C. Clarke, classics, the 60s, etiquette, classical education, and Jacques Barzun, to take a cursory sampling. Each review features commonplace quotes gathered from Simmons’ own lifetime of reading, as well as Simmons’ own commentary. So, while the reader will learn much about each of the people and topics under review, he also has the privilege of taking a seat in a virtual library and hearing Simmons’ dialogue with each of the authors he reviews.
Each entry in this volume is written with elegant style, generosity, barbed wit at times, and is sprinkled with insights into culture, education, and the classics. The final reason to read this book is because it will reignite your own desire to read widely, and to read well. Simmons is a wise guide in this journey, and we should be thankful for these lines he has dropped to help stave off the wreckage of our civilization.
Dr. Gregory Soderberg teaches and mentors students of all ages at Kepler Education, the BibleMesh Institute, and Redemption Seminary. He writes at gregorysoderberg.substack.com and gregorysoderberg.wordpress.com.
