“Umm,” you begin.

“It’s the trivium—grammar, logic, and rhetoric.”

“It’s…classical art and music. Like Beethoven and Mozart. Plus math and science.”

“It’s the pursuit of goodness, truth, and beauty. And Latin.”

Now I would not say any of this is incorrect per se, but as Chuck Evans, author of Wisdom and Eloquence, has noted, the focus is on the features, or the “how” of classical education, not the “why.” The “why” of a movement or organization is going to be its ultimate purpose, cause, or belief. It will be rooted in a story that generates a visceral reaction.

To explore the “why” of classical education, this article will focus on a a pivotal time in the development of Western Civilization: the Golden Age of Greece.

What is Civilization?

Before I examine the history of ancient Athens, it is important to reflect briefly on the nature of civilization. As I discussed in my previous article, civilizations are difficult to create and even harder to preserve.

Historian Will Durant defines it as such:

“Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral traditions, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end.

For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life.” 

Notice the defining feature of civilization: cultural creation. When the four elements Durant identifies are present, the resulting outcome is creativity and constructiveness for what can then become, what we will see in the Greek’s case, a free and flourishing society.

The Beginning of Democracy

In light of these insights about civilization, let us now to turn to the development of ancient Athenian society, specifically how democracy emerged in this context. To be clear, the Athenians did not necessarily weigh the different forms of government—dictatorships, aristocracies, and democracies—and choose democracy. Rather, they stumbled into it, classical warfare style.

In 507 B.C., a conflict broke out as Athenians sought to overthrow the tyrant Hippias. While the Spartan king Cleomenes was able to defeat this tyrant, he soon set up a pro-Spartan oligarchy, essentially a proxy state for Sparta. But then, in a surprising turn of events, an Athenian named Cleisthenes rallied his people and was able to take over control of Athenians, setting up equal rights for all citizens within a democratic structure.

Cleisthenes was instrumental in setting up ten districts, replacing a familial clan structure, in order to mitigate bias and align loyalty with the new democracy. Each district selected fifty representatives by lot to serve on the Council, which would submit proposals for approval or rejection by the Assembly, the gathering of all citizens, to make laws and resolve civil disputes.

Incidentally, Cleisthenes also introduced the idea of ostracism, whereby one could be banished for up to ten years with a vote of 6,000 citizens (of about 43,000 citizens total). In a tragic case of irony, we are told that Cleisthenes himself was ostracized at one point.

Now it is helpful to clarify here that the Greek view of citizenship was not rights-based. That is, citizenship was not grounded in natural human rights as we understand them today. Citizenship was based on one’s heritage. Both men and women could be citizenship, but only men could vote. So, as we can see, this Athenian democracy was far from perfect, but it was a step in the right direction for with citizenship comes responsibility, and responsibility implies freedom. Indeed, as Will Durant puts it, “Never before had the world seen so liberal a franchise, or so wide a spread of political power” (Will Durant, The Life of Greece, 267).

Democracy is Threatened

But would this nascent democracy last?

In 490 B.C., the Persian king, King Darius I (not to be confused with King Darius from the Bible), attempted to conquer Greece, a conglomerate of city-states such as Athens, Sparta, Argos, Syracuse, and so forth. But surprisingly, the Greeks held them off at the Battle of Marathon. The “Great King,” as he would be known, apparently did not realize that he was opposed by men who “owned the soil they tilled” and who “ruled the state that governed them.” They were free citizens, and with freedom, it turns out, comes fierce responsibility. 

As the story goes, after the Athenians won, one soldier, covered in blood, ran a far distance on foot back to Athens in order to share the news and declare victory. Upon arrival, he praised the goddess of victory, Nike, declaring “Rejoice, we have conquered!”, before falling over dead. This endeavor would inspire both the “marathon,” a long-distance foot race, and the name for a particular modern athletics company.

After his defeat, King Darius retreated back to Persia and was eventually succeeded by his son King Xerxes (known as King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther). King Xerxes sought to conquer Greece again, this time with an alleged two million soldiers. He defeated the Spartans at the famous Battle of Thermopolae, despite the courage and sacrifice of King Leonidas and his three hundred men.

Ultimately, at the decisive Battle of Salamis, the Athenians were able to give the Persians a final blow. By assembling a massive naval fleet, they soundly defeated the Persians. The story goes that Xerxes watched his ships burn to the ground from a distance, left a lieutenant in charge, and retreated back to Persia. The Persians would not return for over 1,000 years, during the rise the Ottoman empire.

With the Persians soundly defeated, the Athenians were now able to focus on creating and constructing their civilization. They rebuilt their city and set up a strong naval defense through founding the Delian league, uniting city-states across Greece, and moving the treasury to Athens.

This pivotal time in history would allow for one of the earliest and certainly the most well-known democracies of the ancient world to flourish. It would be marked by rule of the people, not a dictator. In fact, the military victories that occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars are so crucial for the future of Western Civilization that John Stuart Mill, the great economist, once stated the following:

“The Battle of Marathon, even as an event in British history, is more important than the Battle of Hastings.” -John Stuart Mill      

The Golden Age of Greece

With the Persians dispelled, the golden era was ready to begin. It would be characterized by the rise of free peoples and an experiment for a short while in the exercise of individualistic freedom over communal dependence.

This era would also be known as “the Age of Pericles,” named for the great statesman who led many of the reforms and historic architectural feats. He built strong defensive walls around the city of Athens, strengthened the navy, and secured thirty years of peace with the Spartans.

It was during this time that an explosion of creativity occurred, including the building of the Parthenon, the great temple in honor of Athena, on the Acropolis. The arts, architecture, literature, mathematics, history, and philosophy all experienced historic creative innovations during this time.

Some examples of the art and architecture include:

Luminaries of this brief eighty-year period includes names such as:

• Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, and Aristophanes (Literature)
• Anaxagoras and Hippocrates (Math and Science)
• Herodotus and Thucydides (History)
• Parmenides, Democritus, and Socrates (Philosophy)

The Centrality of Education

In addition to all of this innovation in the arts, sciences, and learning, the Athenians also knew how important education would be for this civilization to continue.

If Athens was going to be ruled by the people, that is, citizens, not a group of oligarchs–or worse, a tyrant–then the citizenry needed to be educated. They need to think carefully about what makes for just laws, along with the virtues to promote, and vices to suppress. What leaders of character, called archons, to elect. How to ensure the right laws were well-argued for and represented in the assembly.

Freeborn boys were educated from age six to sixteen. They were brought to school by slaves called pedagogues where they were then taught by their teachers. The curriculum had three main divisions—writing (reading and math), music (the lyre), and gymnastics (wrestling, swimming, and using the bow or sling), and later drawing and painting.

Higher education was provided by professional rhetors and sophists, who offered instruction in oratory, science, philosophy, and history. These instructors were quite expensive, and would later be critiqued by Socrates as disingenuous at times, but they did their part of educating the citizenry to represent themselves well in assembly. For if a civil dispute occurred, citizens had to represent themselves in court before a jury of peers.

After age sixteen, boys were trained for military service and civic participation as soldier-youths. Through physical training and instruction in democratic governance, literature, music, geometry, and rhetoric, they were preparing for full-freight citizenry. At age 21, they would be formally admitted by taking a solemn oath to the state, ancestral faith, and legal order (Durant, 291).  

Thus the seeds of the liberal arts, the tools for a free people to create and construct, were born.

Conclusion

Although the Golden Age of Greece, manifested through Athenian democracy, only lasted around eighty years (480-399 B.C.), it would impact the future of civilization for centuries to come. Due to war with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War and encroaching Macedonian invaders led by Philip II, the Athenian democracy would eventually end. Historians often point to 399 B.C., when Socrates was tried and convicted in the assembly for impiety and the corruption of youth, as the turning point in this crucial age.

To be clear, the Athenian democracy was not perfect. Nor was Greek morality. It is important to note that there was a separate, and even more important civilization developing, which ran parallel to the Greeks at this time: the call of Abraham, the nation of Israel, the giving of the holy scriptures, and ultimately, the coming of Christ.

The eventual meeting of Athens and Jerusalem would become the great nexus of Western Civilization. With the fusion of the legacies of these two cities, this civilization would spark a new era for humanity. It would go on to produce some of the world’s first hospitals, orphanages, and universities. And it would promote distinct values of objective truth, human rights, equality, compassion, modern science, and human innovation. To be sure, this civilization has its flaws and dark moments, as all civilizations do, and yet we can also so say that it provided pivotal contributions for the flourishing of humanity. Future eras such as the Hellenistic period, the days of the Roman Empire, Christendom, the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment would all harken back to ancient Greece for inspiration and insight.

As classical Christian educators, the story of ancient Greece, particularly the “golden age” examined in this article, offers a glimpse into the sort of education we seek to pass on to our students today. For as G.K. Chesterton famously stated, “Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.”

And as Will Durant cautions:

“For civilization is not something inborn or imperishable; it must be acquired anew by every generation, and any serious interruption in its financing or its transmission may bring it to an end. Man differs from the beast only by education, which may be defined as the technique of transmitting civilization.”

The post The Story of Civilization: The Golden Age of Greece appeared first on .

So what do we mean by Western civilization? Today we equate the “West” with Europe (predominantly Western Europe), and its offspring in the New World (especially the United States). However, Western civilization goes all the way back to the ancient world, grounded in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece and Rome. At the foundation of Western civilization, the Americas were unknown and our current understanding of global politics and economics was incomprehensible. Yet all the seeds of the distinctive culture of the west were present in the ancient context.

Important to our understanding of Western civilization are three key pillars that make it distinctive in the world: the Judeo-Christian tradition, democracy and rationality. I’m using these three concepts to carry a lot of freight, so I will spend the better part of this essay developing what I mean by these. Along the way we can evaluate why learning Western civilization is so important to our educational goals today, while also addressing some misconceptions that have undermined the perceived value of an education based on Western civilization.

Judeo-Christian Tradition

The religious traditions flowing from the Old and New Testaments represent the monotheistic base from which Western civilization has operated. This monotheistic base won out over its polytheistic context largely because of its correlation to the logical singularity of truth itself, which we will explore further when we contemplate rationality below. This singularity of truth corresponding with divine singularity is most prominently expressed through divine revelation. The divine logos functions as an expression of truth through God’s self-disclosure to the world. (Many will be able to hear echoes of Jordan Peterson’s work, which I reviewed previously) From outside our terrestrial systems, the voice of the creator and sustainer of the universe brings a perspective unachievable from our limited and finite vantage point. The Judeo-Christian matrix of beliefs promotes certain understandings of human existence and experience that are unique to Western civilization.

In Genesis 1-3, we learn that humanity has divine attributes, yet is fallen in nature. All people are created in the image of God. This makes us unique creatures in the universe, because we are steeped in divine qualities within our being. Yet the story of the fall of Adam and Eve explains how chaos and corruption taints and twists that divine spark. Worse than the devil outside of us is the devil inside us all. Sin causes enmity between people and God, between individuals, between people and creation. This aspect of our nature is often reflected in literature through narrative conflict. The idea of the fall explains why life is a path of suffering. At the core of both Jewish and Christian faith is sacrifice. To atone for sin, sacrifice is necessary. In the Old Testament, the rhythm of regular sacrifice upon the altar framed the narrative of individual and corporate sin. Sacrifice eradicated evil, and thereby the people aligned themselves with a holy God. “Be holy for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44). The emblem of the cross is paradigmatic for Christianity because it represents a solution to the problem of sin in the form of God entering into our humanity to accomplish the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. Salvation is accomplished not through our own effort, but through someone coming from outside our closed system to do what we could not do. The infinite takes on finitude to save the finite. Both Judaism and Christianity promote essential moral values based on the holiness of God. The moral law is bestowed on the world by a moral law giver who alone is holy and capable to proclaim what is just and right.

The contours of the Judeo-Christian tradition have shaped the west such that our legal traditions, our moral sensibilities and our understanding of individual rights can be tied to this heritage. It should be noted that the west is not the only locale where Christianity took root. We can trace from the earliest centuries historic churches in Ethiopia or India, for example, which maintain a living tradition today. Christianity has never been equivalent with Europe or fair-skinned culture. But for some reason Christianity took hold in the west in such a way that it fairly comprehensively became enmeshed within the narrative of the west in ways it didn’t in Asia or Africa. As we witness something like the fall of Western culture, it should not be surprising, then, that biblical Christianity has grown in both Asia and Africa.

Democracy

Since the time of ancient Athens, the ideal of governance by members of the populace has been one of several political experiments in Western civilization, and has ultimately gained broad consensus as a hallmark of the west. The fundamental idea has been to involve as many people as possible in self-government, with the assumption that individual liberties are best protected when individuals have a voice in policy making.

The Enlightenment sought to ground human experience in natural laws, leading to an articulation of fundamental human rights. This promoted a shift in thinking about government. The divine right of kings was questioned in light of authoritarian or incompetent monarchies under which human rights were disregarded. One need not listen to the vox populi when one is God’s sovereignly appointed authority on earth. The wars of religion (less of the people and more the monarch’s religion) left a distaste for state mandated religion. If individuals were not able to speak their mind to enact reasonable changes in policy, if they were not allowed to worship based on conscience, if they were not permitted to enjoy their basic rights as human beings, then government must change. The revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries challenged the established monarchical model of government in favor of a more democratic form, with human rights as the driving force.

In the American experiment of democracy, the founders quickly realized that one could exchange one form of tyranny (the authoritarian monarch) for another form in the many tyrants of unstructured democracy. Republicanism, or representational government, struck the middle ground between authoritarianism and anarchy. The enduring quality of the US Constitution reflects the depth of thought that went into the founding of the US republic. James Madison, the primary author of the constitution, relied heavily on classical texts and ideas as well as the thoughts of Bacon, Descartes and Locke. In the same years as the ratification of the Constitution, France experienced its own revolution, swinging radically from the authoritarian control of government by Louis XVI to the Reign of Terror by revolutionary republicans. Napoleon was able to step into the leadership vacuum left by these upheavals, with France only able to establish a lasting republic after years of aimless warfare. The American and French fights for democratic governments are emblematic of a centuries-long consideration of self-governance by a knowledgeable populace. Self-government was initially limited to landowning males with expansions of suffrage emerging during and after the industrial revolution. The ideal of popular sovereignty was that government would derive from the authority of the governed who participate in government primarily through voting for representatives based on their knowledgeable participation in public policy debates. People would have to hold in tension their own personal liberties and the common good to enact laws that both protected individual liberties and promoted the welfare of all. There are many forms that democracy has taken, and they have largely cohered in a mutual identity over against authoritarian and communist forms of government during and after the Cold War.

Education has been at the heart of this distinctively Western understanding of government. If people are to participate in self-government, they should be well educated in order to understand the rule of law, to engage in public policy debate and to contemplate the ethical values that bear upon individual and corporate well being. The transformation of education in the aftermath of the industrial revolution to focus predominantly on technical knowledge and job skills has gone a long way toward undermining what has been the chief aims of education in enabling the citizenry to participate in self-government with knowledge and insight. The loss is felt throughout society, as the voting base is often duped by logical fallacies and emotionally charged sound bites. If the fall of the west has drawn nigh, it has occurred due to the erosion of its democratic ideals. And the erosion of democracy occurred through educational reform that gutted it of its value as an instrument to provide a well-educated populace, able to participate meaningfully in self-government.

Rationality

At the very foundation of Western culture is a philosophical commitment to ground belief and truth claims in rational thought. Quite simply, rationalism is the view that human intellect is utilized to acquire and test knowledge. From the time of Aristotle, methods have been developed to hone intellect so that we can arrive at truth by way of deduction. (Jason has written extensively on Aristotle, which you can see here and here.) The syllogistic logic developed by Aristotle enabled thinkers to examine statements and draw conclusions deductively. The scholastics of the middle ages expounded Christian theology by using dialectic to extent philosophical and theological by way of inference based upon the authorities of scripture and the church fathers. The rebirth of classical thought during the Renaissance contradicted the scholastics’ dependence on Aristotelian logic, favoring rhetorical categories of argumentation over abstract syllogistic reasoning. However, dialectic remained the fundamental vehicle for Renaissance and Reformational thought despite humanists’ aversion to scholasticism’s dependence on Aristotle.

During the Enlightenment, Descartes challenged the empiricism of the scientific method by applying a method of doubt, or skepticism. Our senses can be inaccurate, therefore, the acquisition of knowledge must be attained through pure thought; by the application of deduction. Doubt can even be applied to our own existence. We may perceive that we doubt our own existence, but, as Descartes reasoned, something must be having the thought that we perceive as doubt. The thinker that is doing the doubting must exists, therefore I must exist. Cogito ergo sum. This methodological skepticism, then, utilizes doubt to tear away irrational thought in order to acquire foundational or a priori knowledge.

The idea of first principles can be applied to all fields of study: mathematics, ethics, politics metaphysics, etc. Rationalism was essential to the founding of the United States, as the revolutionaries based their call for independence on basic, self-evident truths that are natural laws giving human beings certain rights. As an example, take freedom of speech. Spinoza argued that human beings have the innate ability and the natural right to think their own thoughts and to express them verbally. A government that protects free speech for everyone does not undermine its own authority. If it were to attempt to limit expression the government would actually promote rebellion, since human thought cannot be controlled externally without violating a natural law. Therefore, government ought to protect and promote freedom of speech with the one caveat that speech not lead to harmful action, since the government has authority to maintain law and order. (see Spinoza, A Theological-Political Treatise, Part IV, 20.70-76)

A tension exists, though, between the pillars of Christianity and rationality in Western culture. Rationality, by only accepting human intellect as a source of knowledge, rejects divine revelation and spiritual insight as sources of knowledge. The skepticism of Enlightenment thinkers runs counter to belief as the basis of Christian doctrine and experience. Nevertheless, Judaism and Christianity have historically lived within the tension of faith and reason. The Old Testament has frequent appeals to human intellect. The rational application of the ten commandments to all aspects of life is at the heart of OT law. The wisdom tradition champions the acquisition of knowledge: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge” (Prov. 18:15). The prophet Isaiah proclaims the divine message, “Come let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isa. 1:18). In the New Testament Jesus often utilizes reason, with examples of scriptural interpretation from the Sermon on the Mount coming to mind. Numerous times in Acts, Paul uses reason and persuasion in his preaching (see for example Acts 17:1-4). In 1 Peter, the apostle calls his readers to have a defense prepared for anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that resides within (1 Pet. 3:15).

This tension between faith and reason saw the Christian church at various times draw upon the thought of Plato or Aristotle. Augustine in his Confessions reflects at length on the harmonization of faith and reason, yet recognizes the limits of pure reason:

Since we are too weak by unaided reason to find out truth, and since, because of this, we need the authority of the holy writings, I had now begun to believe that thou wouldst not, under any circumstances, have given such eminent authority to those Scriptures throughout all lands if it had not been that through them thy will may be believed in and that thou might be sought. For, as to those passages in the Scripture which had heretofore appeared incongruous and offensive to me, now that I had heard several of them expounded reasonably, I could see that they were to be resolved by the mysteries of spiritual interpretation. The authority of Scripture seemed to me all the more revered and worthy of devout belief because, although it was visible for all to read, it reserved the full majesty of its secret wisdom within its spiritual profundity.

Augustine, Confessions 6.5

If reason is limited apart from faith in divine, authoritative revelation, faith is likewise enhanced by reason. Anselm’s famous motto, “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum) articulates the view that faith can be grounded in first principles and is ultimately consistent with rational thought.

A Rationale for Western Civilization

Having explored to some extent the unique qualities of Western civilization, we may now be in a position to understand why it is so important to place it so prominently within our school curriculum. Students need to learn their story. The Western story is a complex story, unique and meaningful. It is not a superior civilization nor is it without its flaws. One only need consider the crusades or the slave trade to see that Western civilization has taken its wrong turns along the way. But there is genuine value in learning the deep structures of Western culture despite being flawed, and because it is flawed. Churchill’s loose quotation of Santayana would seem to fit here, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” However I take a more positive view. There is something precious to be learned that if lost does harm not only to individuals but also the whole society. The deep structures of Western civilization are ideally suited to train the hearts, souls and minds of students who will lead our churches and cultural institutions.

When it comes to the organizing principles of Western civilization, all who have been raised in the West will find their own perspective reflected in its history. Those with a Christian perspective will want to analyze the history of Western interaction with Judeo-Christian ideas: the lineage of theological thought centered around monotheism, divine revelation and the covenantal relationship between God and man. Those who are committed to democracy and human rights as fundamental values will want to engage Western civilization to understand its development and the tensions that exist between individual rights and the good of society. Those who are committed to the flowering of rationality, including modern invention, science, humanities and the creative arts will want to mine its riches and understand it deeply. Let this be an invitation to mine the Western tradition for all it is worth.

The post Why Study Western Civilization? appeared first on .