The modern world of education is characterized by the opposites of integration: isolation and reductionism. Colin Gunton, in the 1992 Bampton Lectures at Cambridge, entitled The One, The Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity, uses the terms, “disengagement” and “fragmentation” to describe the predicament of modernity. The term “disengagement” he attributes to Charles Taylor, and he describes “fragmentation” by stating “that the cultural disarray that is so marked a feature of our times derives from our failure to integrate or combine the different objects of human thought and activity: in brief, science, morals and art” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; 13-14, 114-115).

The modern and post-modern cultural project has abandoned God, has denied the reality of the transcendentals (truth, goodness and beauty) and forsaken the cultural heritage of wisdom. Because of this it has majored on the centrifugal (center-fleeing) forces of the mind, that is, the tendency to divide, distinguish, dissect, and deconstruct, without strong enough centripetal (center-seeking) forces—the power to unite, integrate, enliven, and edify—in order to balance them out. Analytical thinking is not bad in itself, but synthetic thinking is more primary and necessary. The modern and post-modern project has been an attempt to deny the primacy of synthetic thinking. 

So much has been said before by many. A good example is the first chapter of Stephen Turley’s Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness and Beauty (Classical Academic: Camp Hill, PA, 2014; 1-8). Turley draws a strong contrast between “what we might call the moral age versus the modern age, or the sapient age versus the scientific age” (2). This is another way of explaining what I am getting at through the analogy of centrifugal and centripetal forces. Not so often recognized is the fact that the theology of wisdom in Proverbs provides the needed centripetal forces of integration.

Jews, and later Christians, developed a theology of wisdom from Proverbs in ways that made possible the classical-Christian synthesis of the patristic and medieval eras. Careful study of this theology of wisdom in Proverbs and later traditions thus provides scriptural foundation for the Christian appropriation of the classical liberal arts tradition.

The Need for Integration

Why was it right for Christians to adopt pagan learning, and to read Greek philosophy and myths? How were we able to get beyond the oft-quoted dictum of Tertullian, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” and into St. Augustine’s call to plunder the Egyptians? I believe the answer can be found in the development of a theology of wisdom. In particular, for Augustine the Jewish book Wisdom of Solomon was likely instrumental in helping him make this move in the direction of a careful appropriation of the pagan liberal arts tradition (see particularly Wisdom of Solomon 7.15-8.8). 

Tertullian’s rhetorical question comes from De praescriptione haereticorum 7:9 (“Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis?”). The observation is often made that this quote, taken out of context, has been used to criticize Tertullian unfairly. However, the standard critique is justified given three factors:

1. his sweeping dismissal of Greek philosophers using 1^st Corinthians and Colossians out of context earlier in ch. 7,
2. his strong discouragement of curiosity in 7:12-13, and
3. his naïve take on the relationship of Solomon’s wisdom to that of the surrounding world in 7:10 (“Nostra institutio de porticu Solomonis est qui et ipse tradiderat Dominum in simplicitate cordis esse quaerendum.” “Our education is from Solomon’s portico, who also had passed on that the Lord must be sought in simplicity of heart.”).

In actual fact, both Paul and the Solomonic tradition drew from and engaged with sources of wisdom from outside the Hebrew tradition. Paul quotes from a Hymn to Zeus in Acts, and the Proverbs has many features and exact wordings in common with other ancient near eastern wisdom traditions. Augustine’s call to plunder the Egyptians (see Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana 2:40) calls for wise and careful integration with other sources of knowledge without compromising fundamental Christian beliefs.

The situation of the early church is analogous to our predicament today. Teachers in classical schools are not unaffected by the fragmentation of the modern and post-modern world. Whether the teacher has an education background or not, there is no escaping the various movements, philosophies and techniques of the broader world of education. Everyone in classical education is concerned about not falling into the trap of simply recapitulating the problems of modern education. What is not so clear is how to go about doing that, and the extent to which this requires a refusal to engage with the world of modern education. We have enough to worry about with keeping our own catechumens faithful, not to mention the exhausting work of recapturing something of the traditions of the ancients. What has the classical school to do with modern pedagogy?

If we add to that the confusing array of ideas about teaching propagated within classical education—a wonderful and edifying array, to be sure, but confusing nevertheless!—then we should understand that there is perhaps even greater possibility for confusion for the average classical educator in how to make sense of it all. Not every expression of classical education is alike, and how am I to sift, how am I to integrate, how am I to synthesize all these ideas into a practical vision for my day-to-day realities as a teacher, into a conviction of priorities for my vocation as a teacher? The pressure on the classical teacher to integrate various ancient philosophies, modern pedagogy, and a holistic Christian vision of education is truly enormous. Only the power of a developed theology of wisdom can energize and guide such a task.

A Theology of Divine and Human Wisdom

In Proverbs and later Jewish texts like Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon, particularly where Wisdom is personified as a figure mediating for God, we have been given some broad but nevertheless illuminating parameters for a philosophy of education or pedagogy. Moreover, the pedagogy that this theology of wisdom implies majors on the centripetal forces (integration, unification, edification), rather than the centrifugal forces (analysis, dissection, deconstruction) of the mind. 

Because of this an understanding of the theology of wisdom can help the classical education movement in three key tasks:

1. sustaining an ongoing dialogue with historical pedagogies,
2. guiding the use of the many modern technical resources and quantitative assessments of teaching and learning through qualitative values, and
3. involving a holistic and engaged account of morality and human formation. 

The theology of wisdom developed in the Jewish and Christian traditions provides such an integrating power, and it does so through what I would call a traditional and transcending pedagogy.

By “traditional” is meant both its commitment to a continuing dialogue with historical sources of wisdom and its prioritization of qualitative concerns. This should be carefully distinguished from “traditionalism,” which would hold that all significant knowledge is derived from tradition.

The term “transcending” recognizes both the transcendent quality of Wisdom itself—as in the transcendental triad (truth, goodness, and beauty)—precisely because it is God’s Wisdom, while at the same time acknowledging the inability of humans to fully capture or contain its essence. For instance, consider Job 28:12-13: “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its worth. And it is not found in the land of the living” (ESV). We cannot master Wisdom, but we can participate in it.

Because of Wisdom’s immanent presence within the world and human culture, however, there is that real access to wisdom, without which we would search for it in vain: “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding…” (Prov 3:13ff.). The human educational endeavor is thus a continuous communal process of transcending in accordance with and development of the tradition of wisdom, as a response to God’s invitation to us through the immanent presence of his transcendent Wisdom.

Applying a Theology of Wisdom to the Problem of Technicism

As a test-case of the value of developing a theology of wisdom, and an illustration of what it might look like in practice, the rest of this article will develop how a theology of wisdom can address a problem within modern education, which plagues classical schools as well: the problem of technicism.

Technicism is not simply an over-fascination with technology as a means of stimulating learning out of students, though that problem plagues modern education as well. Instead, technicism refers to a broader ideological approach to education that has become captivated by quantitative measurements and the economic evaluation of success. In technicism education has been reduced to something that can be measured in numbers alone. Teachers are made into technicians, who simply pull the levers and push the buttons assigned to them by the ruling technocrats. Technicism focuses on quantities and techniques, rather than quality and values.

It is not only classical educators that view technicism as a problem. For instance, in a leading educational journal David Carr and Don Skinner note the wide influence of technicist models on theory about learning and the professional role of the teacher, and then bemoan how “their baleful influence—on, for example, latter day talk of learning objectives, attainment targets, performance indicators and curriculum delivery—is everywhere apparent in the contemporary ‘audit culture’ of educational theory and policy….” (“The Cultural Roots of Professional Wisdom: Towards a Broader View of Teacher Expertise,” in Educational Philosophy and Theory 41:2 (2009), 144). Now let’s not get this wrong. An ‘audit culture’ is a very fine thing, if what we are concerned with is factories, markets, money and products. But it is at least a questionable theoretical assumption that schools should be modelled on this plan. Inevitably, such a pattern turns the focus away from many of the things that really matter in education, like the cultivation of wisdom and virtue. A government bureau of education can hardly be concerned with such things, when handy charts and graphs stand before them emphasizing the bottom line and the achievement gap. 

If there is a defense for a technicist model of education, it rests on the assumption that education is an applied science, like the medical practice. In this line of thinking teachers themselves need not be concerned with the theory behind the practices they employ (Who cares for all that heady stuff, anyway?), only with efficiently employing them in order to get results, measured, of course, in high test scores. After all, the average doctor only needs to be able to diagnose and treat patients, rather than understand all the detailed scientific theory that may undergird such practices. It is hard to argue against an analogy with so revered a profession as medicine, but here the analogy must fail. Who will be a better teacher? One who has been given five ways to manage behavior in the classroom and eight types of lesson plans, or one who has refined and honed teaching practices over years of seeking the truth in the tradition of educational philosophy? How can an unreflective teacher impart and embody wisdom?

The theology of wisdom in Proverbs 1-9 provides an antidote to the technicist over-fascination with techniques and quantitative assessment. The Hebrew concept of ḥokmâ or wisdom likely grew out of the idea of skillful expertise in some craft, i.e. technical skill (for instance, see Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1-15, NICOT; Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2004; 76-77). Yet in Proverbs we see the concept broadened and deepened into the masterful understanding for life that the English word ‘wisdom’ evokes for us today. The roles of parent and sage are fused within this holistic and value-laden passing on of the tradition. In Proverbs the prototypical son is being educated for life, the royal son is being educated to rule, and the noble’s son to carry out his official duties in the royal court. This training in technical proficiency is carried out by the father/sage in a heavily value-laden context. The student is to love wisdom and to seek it above riches; he is to reject folly in both his princely duties and his personal life. 

A theology of wisdom does not reject technē, all the techniques and quantitative measures. It simply puts them in the proper role of subservience under qualitative values and ideals for life. This will inevitably transform them, since all the techniques classical educators use must be fitted to wisdom’s ends. Nevertheless, techniques, arts, and judgments themselves remain intact under the guidance of wisdom. After all, Wisdom herself rules over all technē as a master craftsman, who was with God at the beginning as he wisely ordered all of creation (Proverbs 8:22-31). Yet this holistic vision of education requires much of the teacher.

In classical education the teacher must be a magister of the arts, a sage, a philosopher; must be a participant in the Wisdom that comes from above (cf. James 3:17). Only then can the teacher cultivate wisdom in the young and simple. Only then will the teacher wisely order techniques, practices and assessments to the right ends.  The theology of wisdom thus helps us avoid the trap of technicism through its integrative vision, in which qualitative values rule quantitative measures. Moreover, the traditional and transcending pedagogy that a theology of wisdom implies prevents us from reducing education to modern technicism, even as it provides us with a way of integrating the valuable techniques it has birthed.

In this way a modern book of teaching techniques, like Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion 2.0: 62 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College, can be mined for its wisdom and then integrated into a classical vision of education that has broader aims than students’ mere economic success in life. Wisdom cries aloud in the educational marketplace, “You who are simple, seek wisdom!” Her path of wise integration is hard, but all other by-ways and shortcuts represent the easy roads of Folly.

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Consider the painting Marble Champion. This 1939 piece features three children, one girl and two boys. It is painted in such a way that one only sees the children and the marbles. There is no physical context given. The viewer is drawn into a world solely inhabited by children at play. The faces of the children tell a story of triumph and indignation as the red-haired girl seems about to win to the dismay of the black-haired boy. The blond-haired boy expectantly awaits the final throw. Imagine how such a idyllic scene warmed the hearts of Americans in the midst of the Great Depression and on the cusp of war in Europe.

Childhood has not always been idyllic and has undergone transformation over the centuries. Among one of the greatest achievements over the last century was the dramatic increase in the survival rate of children. As recently as 1950, the global youth mortality rate was as high as 27%, meaning that only three of every four children could be expected to live to 15 years of age and beyond. In 2020 the World Health Organization reports global youth mortality at 3.7%. Keeping children alive has been one of the significant factors in growing the world population, which has not been a bad thing. With a greater population, we have seen the rise in new technologies, an expansion of available food, and an actual diminution of deaths by warfare.

One of the great landmarks in the history of childhood was a fresh perspective on children as persons that emerged during the Renaissance era. In this article I intend to explore the ways in which childhood, or the perception of childhood, changed during the Renaissance with a view of understanding better what it means to view children as whole persons.

Renaissance Childhood

The transformation of society from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance has been variously understood. In many respects, we can see a tremendous amount of continuity between the ancient world, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance era. However, certain landmarks differentiate the old world from the new. The fall of Constantinople, for instance, ushered in a new era of learning in the West, as Byzantine scholars fled military conquests of the Ottomans. These scholars brought with them manuscripts of ancient authors that were either unknown or forgotten in the West. The Italian Renaissance, centered in Florence, brought a cultural renewal based on a flourishing of interest in classical texts.

Renaissance humanism during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries applied the great works and artifacts of Greece and Rome to reconsider the social institutions of the day. This focus on what we might call the humanities contributed to an emphasis on virtue ethics and paideia. With virtue ethics, the humanists saw that the cultivation of moral character emancipated the individual from duties or rules. Virtue went hand in hand with paideia, a view of education as the training of young persons as virtuous members of the state. The humanists envisioned the liberal arts as the means of liberating the individual from the constraints of social institutions prominent during the Middle Ages. Writes:

“The writings of Dante, and particularly the doctrines of Petrarch and humanists like Machiavelli, emphasized the virtues of intellectual freedom and individual expression. In the essays of Montaigne the individualistic view of life received perhaps the most persuasive and eloquent statement in the history of literature and philosophy.”

Steven Kreis, “Renaissance Humanism” at historyguide.org

One can trace transformations in society, from the Protestant Reformation to the democratization of nations, to the humanist impulses of the Renaissance. So, too, the transformation of the view of childhood. Although viewed as an extreme view, Philippe Aries, a prominent French medieval scholar during the 1960s and 1970s, argued that “in medieval society, the idea of childhood did not exist.” (Ariès, Centuries of Childhood (1962): 125.) He reasons that works of art and literature depict children as little adults. In a largely agrarian society, children were expected to work from the earliest ages. The high infant mortality rate also meant adults were less inclined to become attached to an idealized view of childhood. Aries’s view that childhood is largely a social construct is potentially problematic, but there is some veracity that Renaissance humanism went a long way toward transforming what childhood meant.

Viewing children as whole persons emerged during this era. The humanist impulse to train children in virtue considers them as having moral agency even during their youth. Similarly, there was a somewhat sentimental view of the emotional bonds between children and their parents. Educational thinkers of the Renaissance period encouraged the emotional connection between parent and child. Writing about Leon Alberti, the Italian educationist, Julian Vitullo contextualizes his work:

“Male pedagogues in Renaissance Florence participated in debates about different styles of discipline with the assumption that the emotional bonds that children form with adults would influence their own behavior as citizens. Pedagogues stressed the importance of recreation when they discussed the need to raise children with love, joy, and serenity.”

Julian Vitullo, “Fashioning Fatherhood: Leon Battista Alberti’s Art of Parenting.” Pages 341-353 in Albrecht Classen, ed. Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), 347.

Notice how discipline goes together with love, joy and serenity. Vitullo spells this out in more detail with regard to Alberti’s educational philosophy, “Alberti makes clear in his dialogue that he is aware of different notions of pedagogy and chooses a model of affection and positive enforcement that had already been detailed by classical thinkers such as Quintillian” (352). Alberti may have in mind here the advice given by Quintillian to fathers in his Institutio Oratio, “I would, therefore, have a father conceive the highest hopes of his son from the moment of his birth. If he does so, he will be more careful about the groundwork of his education” (Inst. 1.1).

This transformation of childhood spread from Italy to other locales in Europe as the Renaissance spread. Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a brief treatise on the education of children. In this he concludes:

“Consider how dear a possession you’re son is, how diverse a thing it is and a matter of much work to come by learning, and how noble also the same is, what a readiness is in all children’s wits to learn, what agility is in the mind of man how easily those things be learned which be best and agreeable to nature, especially if they be taught of learned and gentle masters by the way of play.”

Erasmus, The Education of Children, transl. Richard Sherry, P.iii.

We see here a recognition that children are ready and eager to learn. Erasmus advises that children be taught by masters who both exhibit expertise but also gentleness, which in this context means a lack of harsh punishments. The word “play” is interesting, and I wonder if there is a play on the word ludus in the original Latin, a term that can mean both play and school.

Connecting the Traditions

The Renaissance holds many compelling connections to our educational renewal movement. The reappropriation of classical texts led to a renewal of educational theories and a reappraisal of the child as a whole person. Yet, we can see echoes of this view of children at other stages in the traditions, both ancient and modern.

To begin with, when we consider the biblical view of children, there are multiple passages that promote a high view of children. Take, for example, Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The English translation is somewhat misleading, as it literally says to train the child “about his pathway.” There seems to be an indication that the child is fully capable of walking in the right moral pathway in his youth.

The prophet Malachi promises that in the renewal of Israel, God will turn “the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers” (4:6). The emotional connection between parent and child sounds here similar to the advice of the Renaissance pedagogues. The essence of a renewed society resides in the home where there’s a bastion of deep emotional bonds.

Jesus admonition to “let the little children come to me” (Matt. 19:14) speaks to a profound capacity in childhood for faith. Jesus’ view of children is profound indeed. Consider his an earlier passage in Matthew in which Jesus declares, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (11:25). The deepest matters of heaven and earth revealed to little children. As we consider a biblical theology of childhood, statements like these point to an understanding of the child as having great capacity for faith and learning.

Viewing children as whole persons – capable of profound thought, faith and moral direction – implies a form of education that trains children in their affections. I like how Christopher Perrin connects ordo amoris to the teachings of Christ. He writes:

“Jesus often signals an ordo amoris, telling the rich, young ruler there is one thing he lacks (Matt. 19) and telling Martha that though she is busy about many things, Mary has chosen what is best: to converse with him rather than prepare dinner (Luke 10). When Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, he responds that there are two: to love God with your whole heart and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22). Jesus seems to believe that there is a divinely ordered hierarchy of loves and pleasures.”

Christopher Perrin, “I Would Like to Order… an Education,” Inside Classical Education.

In the City of God, Augustine expresses how a person can have a properly ordered love for what is good. But this takes training in the affections. He writes, “For though it be good, it may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately” (Augustine, City of God, XV.22). This leads, then to his classic statement, “It seems to me that it is a brief but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love (quod definitio brevis et vera virtutis ordo est amoris)” (Augustine, City of God, XV.22).

In his essay “Men without Chests,” C. S. Lewis builds his argument on Augustine’s dictum, “St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it” (C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 16). The child must learn to regulate his or her affections based on an evaluation of objective value. The thesis of Lewis’s The Abolition of Man comes down to whether one views education in modernist terms (facts, figures, pure reason, critical analysis, etc.) or as a means to train children to have proper emotional responses to what is true, good and beautiful. Lewis writes:

“Hence the educational problem is wholly different according as you stand within or without the Tao. For those within, the task is to train in the pupil those responses which are in themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists. Those without, if they are logical, must regard all sentiments as equally non-rational, as mere mists between us and the real objects. As a result, they must either decide to remove all sentiments, as far as possible, from the pupil’s mind; or else to encourage some sentiments for reasons that have nothing to do with their intrinsic ‘justness’ or ‘ordinacy.’”

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 20-21.

Now, Lewis uses the term Tao to indicate the most basic universal principles without recourse to theistic language. In doing this, he dispenses with a critique that his argument depends on Christian moral virtue. Instead, by looking to natural law, he is able to demonstrate that the affections are universal in nature and inherent in what it means to be human.

Children as Persons

The educational value of viewing children as whole person is tremendous. The Renaissance humanists reconsidered the purpose of education in light of their philosophical commitment to viewing children as having moral character and emotional capacity. The biblical view of children corroborates this insight. As educators today, we may need a renewal once again to understand the full capacity of every child to think, feel and believe.

Charlotte Mason understood this principle to be foundational when she writes:

“If we have not proved that a child is born a person with a mind as complete and as beautiful as his beautiful little body, we can at least show that he always has all the mind he requires for his occasions; that is, that his mind is the instrument of his education and that his education does not produce his mind.”

Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education, 36.

From the earliest ages, children show a capacity to learn. Consider how easily a child learns language, without any other help than to imitate the language users around them. Mason goes on to illustrate this point.

“Reason is present in the infant as truly as imagination. As soon as he can speak he lets us know that he has pondered the ’cause why’ of things and perplexes us with a thousand questions. His ‘why?’ is ceaseless. Nor are his reasonings always disinterested. How soon the little urchin learns to manage his nurse or mother, to calculate her moods and play upon her feelings! It is in him to be a little tyrant; “he has a will of his own,” says his nurse, but she is mistaken in supposing that his stormy manifestations of greed, wilfulness, temper, are signs of will. It is when the little boy is able to stop all these and restrain himself with quivering lip that his will comes into play; for he has a conscience too. Before he begins to toddle he knows the difference between right and wrong.”

Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education, 37.

Notice how many capacities are within the child: rationality, imagination, morality, conscience, emotions. All of these need to be trained for the person to grow, but the educational point is that training the child does not instill these. Instead, these capacities are already in the child. Our educational renewal movement has the opportunity to bring forward a renewed vision of the child as a whole person, to enact a Renaissance of education in our day.

Training the Prophetic Voice by Dr. Patrick Egan is a must-read for classical Christian educators seeking to build a robust rhetoric program. Grounded in biblical theology, this insightful book provides a framework for developing students’ prophetic voices – the ability to speak with wisdom, clarity, and conviction on the issues that matter most.

As an experienced educator, Dr. Egan understands the vital role rhetoric plays in shaping the next generation of Christian leaders. Through time-tested principles and practical guidance, he equips teachers to cultivate students who can articulate the truth with passion and purpose.

Whether you’re looking to revitalize your existing rhetoric curriculum or lay the foundation for a new program, Training the Prophetic Voice is an invaluable resource. Discover how to empower your students to become effective communicators, courageous truth-tellers, and agents of transformation in their communities and beyond.

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I am reading it aloud with my son this summer. I was struck on this reading (perhaps my fourth or fifth time through the series) by the critique Lewis levels on modern education in the opening chapter. As many may already know, Lewis spells out his philosophy of education in his series of lectures contained in The Abolition of Man. We’ll touch on that in a moment. But the interesting feature of the narrative is that one is able to see the failings of the educational system in 1950s Britain through a literary lens in more immediate ways than can be conveyed in a lengthier philosophical treatment. Let’s recount what occurs in the first chapter of The Silver Chair.

Why is Jill Crying?: The Darkness of Valueless Education

We are first introduced to Jill Pole as the girl crying behind the gym on “a dull autumn day.” We will immediately be told why she is crying, so I want to point out the use of the adjective “dull” here. It is often the case that weather reflects the mood of the characters. In this case, the word “dull” although depicting a particularly common autumnal day in England also plays a potential double service in framing the educational critique about to unfold. The weather is as dull as the school we will soon learn about.

So why is Jill crying?

“She was crying because they had been bullying her. This is not going to be a school story, so I shall say as little as possible about Jill’s school, which is not a pleasant subject. It was ‘Co-educational,’ a school for both boys and girls, what used to be called a ‘mixed’ school; some said it was not nearly so mixed as the minds of the people who ran it.”

C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, 1

Notice again the word play, this time made more explicit as Lewis repeats the word “mixed” with two different senses. Jill had been bullied. We might think this is the result of the mixing of boys and girls: girls being the natural prey of the aggression of boys. But it soon unfolds that boys like Eustace are likewise bullied and girls like Edith Jackle can dish it out just like the boys. No, bullying is merely a presenting symptom of a deeper issue at Experiment House (the name of the school Jill and Eustace attend). Lewis places the blame on the leaders of Experiment House:

“These people had the idea that boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked. And unfortunately what ten or fifteen of the biggest boys and girls liked best was bullying the others. All sorts of things, horrid things, went on which at an ordinary school would have been found out and stopped in half a term; but at this school they weren’t. Or even if they were, the people who did them were not expelled or punished. The Head said they were interesting psychological cases and sent for them and talked to them for hours. And if you knew the right sort of things to say to the Head, the main result was that you became rather a favourite than otherwise.”

C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, 1-2

Lewis here depicts a child-centered school environment where the leadership is more interested in experimental psychology than in training students to learn and think. Our author perhaps exaggerates to create a humorous opening scene, but there is much that rings true in the farce.

Throughout the rest of the chapter, we gain further insights into Experiment House. It is a school where “Bibles were not encouraged” (p. 5). It was a place of “hopelessness” (p. 6). And the expected outcomes at such a school are dire indeed.

“Owing to the curious methods of teaching at Experiment House, one did not learn much French or Maths or Latin or things of that sort; but one did learn a lot about getting away quickly and quietly when They were looking for one.”

C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, 8

Experiment House was less a place where children desired to learn, but a place where children desired to escape. Together Jill and Eustace escape to Narnia by way of a door in the high stone wall which was usually locked to keep the children from getting out.

Lewis’s Critique of Modern Education: The Loss of Values in Education

Underlying the cynical depiction of Experiment House is the profound concern Lewis has that modern education has jettisoned traditional values. Undue focus is given to scientism and technicism. I appreciated when Jason wrote on these two ideas, perhaps even coining a term or two. What these ideas capture is that science and technology aren’t the problem. Instead, it is something like the undiscerning application and the unpracticed practitioners applying new methods with the ring of science who have thrown out the baby, the bathwater and the tub as well. That is to say, modern education has sought to rid itself of the great books, the values that are embedded in them and the methods by which we might acquire knowledge of objective value.

Lewis expressed his philosophical critique of modern education in The Abolition of Man, the 1943 publication of a series of lectures on education delivered at King’s College, Newcastle. This was a good ten years before publishing in narrative form his cynical depiction of Experiment House in The Silver Chair. Central to his argument against modern education’s penchant for abolishing traditional values is what he calls the doctrine of objective value. This is “the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and other really false, to the kind of things the universe is and the kind of things we are.” To put this another way, if something exists in reality, there is a real, objective value associated with it. When we see a natural vista, say the Grand Canyon at sunset, the beauty of this vista is inherent in what it is we see. It is good and right for us to call it beautiful or sublime or majestic. So the doctrine of objective value would say that the kind of thing the Grand Canyon is calls forth such predicate adjectives as beautiful, sublime or majestic. Furthermore, because we are the kinds of creatures that we are, it is inherent in our natures to have an emotional response to the Grand Canyon that calls forth from us phrases like, “This is majestic.”

To make his point, Lewis takes to task the authors of The Green Book, hiding the true identity of the authors by way of pseudonymns. (The actual book in question is The Control of Language: A Critical Approach to Reading and Writing, by Alex King and Martin Ketley published in 1939.) Lewis identifies how the authors are suspicious that “all predicates of value” (16) are based on emotions. Better to excise such frivolous use of language as children would then be made susceptible to propaganda. Such is the advice given in The Green Book. Lewis sees how this may at first glance be an appropriate exercise for the mind, but it leaves the heart untrained. Such an education produces what Lewis calls the trousered ape and the urban blockhead. The viewpoint of the authors of The Green Book “hold that the ordinary human feelings about the past or animals or large waterfalls are contrary to reason and contemptible and ought to be eradicated” (The Abolition of Man 22-23).

The dystopian society produced by educating boys and girls without proper training in the affections gives us individuals not only skeptical about value statement, but equally skeptical about ethics. Can we then trust that our neighbor won’t cheat? Can we expect the soldier not to abandon his post? We are left with a kind of brutish form of humanity (the trousered ape) or an uncaring intellectual (the urban blockhead). Experiment House in The Silver Chair exemplifies this with bullying becoming the singular factor for moving up the dominance hierarchy as a student. The leaders of the school view this with the kind of uncaring detachment of a lab technician.

The alternative to this is spelled out by Lewis in a brief review of such figures as Augustine, Aristotle and Plato. All three saw the goal of education as the formation of individuals whose emotions or affections were properly ordered according to the doctrine of objective value.

St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it. (26, referring to City of God book 15, chapter 22).

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 26, referring to City of God book 15, chapter 22

Here we see that the human must be trained to match one’s love to the object of affection. There are things in this world worthy of love and things in this world that are distasteful. Learning to distinguish and differentiate, to properly apply language appropriate to our response to things is one of the highest goals of education.

Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 26, referring to Nichomachean Ethics 1104b

The ordering of affections according to Augustine pursues the educational aims articulated by Aristotle. This is why we place before students great works of literature, art and music. We are also presenting to them great events from history or paying close attention to the world of nature around us. It is not only the great works, but likewise those worthy of disapproval.

In the Republic, the well-nurtured youth is one ‘who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her.’

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 27, referring to Republic 402a

Plato’s educational schema has us training the heart before training the head. Distaste and delight when properly learned lead the way for reason to be well situated in the person. The malnourished souls of teachers and pupils alike at Experiment House make it a barren place, distinctly contrasted with Jill and Eustace discover once the locked door on the grounds of Experiment House are jarred open.

They had expected to see the grey, heathery slope of the moor going up and up to join the dull autumn sky. Instead, a blaze of sunshine met them. It poured through the doorway as the light of a June day pours into a garage when you open the door. It made the drops of water on the grass glitter like beads and showed up the dirtiness of Jill’s tear-stained face. And the sunlight was coming from what certainly did look like a different world—what they could see of it. They saw smooth turf, smoother and brighter than Jill had ever seen before, and blue sky, and, darting to and fro, things so bright that they might have been jewels or huge butterflies.

C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, 9

Both Heart and Mind: The Renewal of Values in Education

Schools have perennially been easy prey for social critiques. We can find many instances within generations of British literature ranging from Shakespeare and Milton to Austen and Dickens. This is because the effort to learn is distasteful when divorced from our natural curiosity and because education divorced from values is bland and lifeless.

The British schooling tradition is in many ways the classical model we have inherited in our educational renewal movement. Oxford and Cambridge became the standard model for liberal arts universities coming out of the Middle Ages. Every generation struggles to reform and renew education in part because we can never fully get it right. This is actually the strength of the classical tradition. It holds within it all the tools required to solve the problems and challenges that come from the classical tradition.

The power of Lewis’s critique holds all the more true in light of the expansion of technological power and the continued erosion of values in society. If Lewis was concerned about Men without Chests, perhaps we are facing Men with Mechanical Chests. Throwing more money and technology at an educational system that has divorced itself from values will only exacerbate our current dystopia. Just as Jill and Eustace glimpsed Narnia after breaking through the locked door, perhaps we can glimpse the green pastures of the renewal of values in education.

Once Jill and Eustace entered the world of Aslan they find themselves on the precipice of an enormous cliff overlooking the land of Narnia. Eustace falls over the cliff, but is saved by the breath of Aslan. Jill remains on the heights, seeing Aslan for the first time. There she is told four Signs that must be remembered that will guide them on their quest. Aslan instructs her to repeat the four Signs (and I would be remiss not to point out that even Aslan uses narration). Her mission is not only to remember and fulfill these Signs, but she must also convey them to Eustace. Their ultimate goal is to rescue Prince Rilian from the clutches of the Emerald Witch. If we have properly put on our mythological thinking caps, it is clear that Jill and Eustace must rescue social order in the form of the young prince from the embodiment of malicious chaos.

So we see how the renewal of society occurs at the instruction of Aslan. The Signs given to Jill are basic instructions. They are functionally like the Ten Commandments, even though they are not laws, so to speak. But within the narrative they provide direction not only to the advancement of the plot, but they serve to motivate the wills of our two protagonists. In this way we can see that Aslan’s instructions are not just esoteric, intellectual knowledge. This is more like practical wisdom, rules the children can live by as they fulfill their quest. As they abide by these rules, they are corrected when they go astray and confirmed when they go aright. This is what we would expect of wisdom and knowledge leading to the renewal of society.

It would be all too easy to stretch the elements of the story too far. However, I think Lewis demonstrates in the narrative of The Silver Chair the point he makes theoretically in The Abolition of Man. When we are guided by objective values, society will have men and women capable of bearing the responsibility to renew society. When we jettison objective values, our men and women will be incapacitated, leading to the demise of society. And so with this in mind, as we anticipate the renewal of the school year, let us be mindful of objective values. Let us ponder anew the virtues – both cardinal and theological – that are guiding lights for our students. May we train them up in their affections so that they know to like and dislike what they ought and to accord to every object that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it.

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Previous articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets

Part 4: Jesus as Prophetic Trainer

Part 5: Internalizing the Prophetic Message

Laying a Foundation in Classical Rhetoric

Aristotle’s The Art of Rhetoric is a starting point for my students as they begin working on their senior theses. We read Aristotle to understand the central tenets of rhetoric that helps to ground their work upon solid principles. Let’s take a look a few central ideas in Aristotle. Rhetoric consists in persuasion – not for the sake of mere persuasion, but to arrive at truth, goodness or justice – in the public sphere. The production of opposing arguments allows an audience to consider the best decision or course of action. Aristotle writes:

“Furthermore, we need the capacity effectively to urge contradictory positions, as also with syllogism, not so that we may adopt either of the two (it is quite wrong to persuade men to evil), but that we should be aware how the case stands and be able, if our adversary deploys his arguments unjustly, to refute them. So, while none of the other sciences produces opposing arguments, this is done only by dialectic and rhetoric, being both concerned in the same way with opposition.”

Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric (trans. Lawson-Tancred; Penguin, 1991), p. 69 (1355a)

A well-trained student, then, needs to be able to consider multiple, even contradictory, positions on any number of topics. Aristotle demonstrates that this skills acquired through the study of rhetoric transcend the other domains of knowledge, making these skills applicable in fields such as theology, history or science. There is a tension here, then, in teaching truth to our students. We want them to acquire knowledge of truth, goodness and justice. But there are multiple opinions and perspectives on what is true, good and just. Not only that, there is considerable debate on how truth, goodness and justice should be applied in society. This is why educators should carefully avoid approaching teaching as a dissemination of dogma. Instead, effective teaching enables students to consider the many facets and angles of what is true, good and just. Students should be challenged to demonstrate how they arrived at an answer and not just produce the “correct” answer. They should be able to identify opposing arguments and consider where the two sides might be correct and in error. This comes through discussion, dialogue and debate.

There are numerous common elements to persuasive speech that efficiently and effectively enable the rhetorician to communicate his or her perspective on the truth persuasively. Aristotle elaborates, “Scientific explanations belong to education, and, since this is impossible in this case, proofs and arguments must be contrived from commonplaces.” (ibid.) What he means here is that when we have our moment to speak into the marketplace of ideas, we are not given years upon years to develop our audiences understanding of multiple topics and the proofs we are deriving from them. We can give our audience all they need to know in the few minutes we have at hand. We cannot fully educate our audience. Instead, we have a few moments to provide some proofs and arguments to support our perspective. Aristotle references the common topics that help define and shape the necessary support for one’s perspective.

Residing as we are in the information age where we are glutted by an abundance of evidence, the use of common topics to define and exemplify what we want to communicate about what is true, good and just is essential. Finding good examples, analogies or comparisons helps support the point one is making. There is so much to sift through on the internet and in libraries. Yet, it really only takes a few pieces of evidence to establish your point. We really cannot arrive at a comprehensive knowledge of all that is out there on any given topic. This is true even for professional experts, let alone we who must be generalists in most every subject.

Persuasion not only occurs through the words spoken, but also through the character of the speaker and the disposition of the audience. Aristotle writes: “Of those proofs that are furnished through the speech there three kinds. Some reside in the character of the speaker, some in a certain disposition of the audience and some in the speech itself.” (Art of Rhetoric, p. 74; 1356a) We can summarize this with the words ethos, pathos and logos. Our choice of words matters, as well as the inflection and tone we use. But equally important is whether the rhetorician is perceived as a truthful, good and just individual. Character and competence matter in the way we present ourselves. We can say all the right things, but if we are perceived as flawed, the words will ring hollow.

One concern that Aristotle addresses is the ability to persuade the fickle audience with showy sophistry. An audience can get riled up by emotional appeals. Knowing this can be an advantage to the rhetorician, since we can inject humor, passion and anger into our speech. But the emotion of an audience can also be unreliable. To this end, we must also be aware that our opponent can also rile up the audience. Therefore, we need to be all the more careful in the way we present ourselves and in assuring that our speech is well grounded in good evidence and argumentation.

In practical terms, here are some objectives for teachers to consider in middle and high school. Students should become aware of their audience as well as reflect on their own character and competence as a writer/rhetorician. You can read more about this in my article on… Beyond just learning the structure of the ten-sentence paragraph and the five-paragraph essay, students should learn the basics of the common topics (definition, comparison, circumstance, relationship, testimony), becoming familiar with how to use these common topics to expand upon basic essay structures. Ultimately, students should learn how to write with clarity, efficiency, and vibrance. There’s a tension here, since we want to throw more words in to clarify our thoughts, but efficiency pushes us to reduce the number of words. Vibrance or eloquence challenges us to find interesting words and phrases to express our thoughts, but this can interfere with either clarity or efficiency.

Paul and Augustine on Rhetoric

As we consider the value of rhetoric, it is helpful to draw upon a biblical and theological evaluation of rhetoric. There are aspects of rhetoric that require refinement in light of a critique of what we might call empty rhetoric. Looking at Paul and then later Augustine, we will find a cautious but pointed appropriation of rhetoric.

In First Corinthians, Paul provides an extended consideration of his rhetorical strategy in chapters 2-4. As he opens his argument, he tells the Corinthians:

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

1 Corinthians 2:1-2

The concept of lofty speech connects us to the notion of empty rhetoric. Paul is careful not to use a form of rhetoric that is overly ornate and manipulative. It is clear, though, that Paul had a well-formed rhetorical strategy. He continues:

“And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

1 Corinthians 2:3-5

Picture for yourself the nervous public speaker or the student who speaks in front of the school for the first time. This is the rhetorical ethos Paul chose in his proclamation to the Corinthians. He based this strategy on his reasoning that if there were too much Paul in his proclamation, it would diminish the full realization of the power of God thereby undermining the faith of his audience. Despite his rhetorical strategy, the Corinthians still fell prey to their human inclination by saying “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos” (1 Cor 3:4). It is for this reason that Paul elaborates his rhetorical strategy, to continue to undermine the Corinthians confidence in human speech so that they can grow in godly wisdom.

Sophistry has no place in prophetic proclamation, and yet there is a role for rhetoric that is centered on conveying the truth from above. Paul writes, “Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.” (2 Cor 2:6). A mature faith is a philosophical faith, one that loves divine wisdom. Paul seems to be aligned with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in their condemnation of the sophistic school of rhetoric. In his Nichomachian Ethics, Aristotle writes, “The boaster is the opposite of the truth teller.” (1127b; ἀντικεῖσθαι δ᾽ ὁ ἀλαζὼν φαίνεται τῷ ἀληθευτικῷ) Compare this with Paul’s thoughts on boasting, “For our boast (καύχησις) is this: the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.” (2 Cor 1:12) For Paul it is important to “boast (καυχάσθω) in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:31), by which he seems to mean presenting the gospel with rhetorical skill. (Note how Paul uses a different word for boasting than Aristotle, framing this kind of boast more positively.) And yet this must be done with simplicity and sincerity. Here we see an anti-sophistry alignment between Paul and Aristotle.

A similar sentiment can be found in Augustine’s Confessions. He recounts his desire to become a great public orator prior to his coming to faith. Augustine writes:

“This was the society in which at a vulnerable age I was to study the textbooks on eloquence. I wanted to distinguish myself as an orator for the damnable and conceited purpose, namely delight in human vanity. Following the usual curriculum I had already come across a book by a certain Cicero. . . The book changed my feelings. It altered my prayers, Lord, to be towards you yourself. It gave me different values and priorities. Suddenly every vain hope became empty to me, and I longed for the immortality of wisdom with an incredible ardour in my heart. I began to rise up to return to you. For I did not read the book for a sharpening of my style. . . I was impressed not by the book’s refining effect on my style and literary expression but by the content.”

Augustine, Confessions (trans. Chadwick; Oxford, 1991), p. 39

From Augustine’s reflections we can see how vain and empty style works contrary to the genuine search for truth. His shift away from empty rhetoric coincided with and ultimately led to his turn to the Lord. Rhetoric properly understood, then, becomes a vehicle for divine truth to be conveyed.

From Paul and Augustine, we can conclude that training in rhetorical skill enables students to cultivate their prophetic voices. To that end, we as teachers can share the conviction that rhetoric is not about empty or vain style. Instead, we are providing tools to help our students find optimal modes for expressing the message God has placed upon their hearts.

Wisdom and Witness

In his book (Re)thinking Worldview, Mark Bertrand suggests an approach to engaging our culture that is worthy of consideration. He develops an understanding of wisdom that moves Christians from being consumers of culture to people who become discerning critics of the influences of culture. To be a discerning individual, one must have the thinking tools to engage the world for oneself. You can’t just download someone else’s thoughts and think that you’ve been discerning. Critical thinking means that you can extrapolate what is good and worthy in our culture from that which is evil or unworthy. Bertrand writes:

“Discernment is not about flipping a yes/no switch or pigeonholing other people. It is about individual judgment based on knowledge – knowledge of self, knowledge of the world, knowledge of God, and knowledge of the think being judged. Given that, you can see that it is as difficult to be discerning for someone else as it is to think for another. First and foremost, attend to the beam in your own eye.”

J. Mark Bertrand, (Re)Thinking Worldview (Crossway, 2009), p. 151

This comports with what I mentioned in my previous post about internalizing the message God has revealed. A chief objective we have as educators is to enable our students to become wise through their own independent operation. We cannot merely express a set of doctrine and expect our students to have the kind of discernment Bertrand describes. Logic, discussion and debate are some of the tools available to us in training our students in critical thinking.

Bertrand’s goal, however, is not just to make a bunch of cultural critics, and it’s here that I find Bertrand to be so helpful. He reconsiders what it means to have a viable witness in today’s world. We are not only consumers of culture, but also contributors to culture, and Bertrand wants to move us along a pathway from consumption to critique and ultimately contribution. He writes:

“Witness isn’t a method or technique. It’s the sum total of our expression, what we say and what we don’t, what we do, who we help, and who we harm. Our actions and reactions, taken as a whole, constitute a message to the world we live in.”

Bertrand, (Re)Thinking Worldview, p. 182

I like thinking about the prophetic voice as an act of expression. Obviously there is a verbal aspect to articulating our witness in language, which is why we need training in rhetorical skill. But we also express the prophetic voice in our actions. Aristotle would agree inasmuch as the ethos of the rhetorician is established in the good and just actions that contribute to his or her character.

The vision of our educational renewal movement seeks to counter the progressivist agenda of reducing education to a series of outputs, namely college acceptance and job placement. We often frame our educational objectives around equipping our students to be lifelong learners and to live good lives. These are worthy objectives to which can be added this notion that Bertrand articulates about witness as “someone making truthful, positive attempts to shape the culture.” (p. 187). Living good lives and aspiring to lifelong learning are great as long as what we mean is not grounded in consumption. We learn and live in order to contribute something to this world.

Not Throwing Away Our Shot

Preparing students to encounter and engage our world is part of our mandate as teachers. As I think about training the prophetic voice, we are drawing on ancient wisdom to equip our students to meet the challenges of today. There is a technical training component to the art of rhetoric we must have in view. But there is also an imaginative and creative aspect that enables students to take their learning in new and undiscovered directions.

There are very specific challenges we face today for which our students need both the technical and creative skills to address. They won’t be able to solve some of our cultural problems if we approach their learning in the standard lecture, test, forget method. When we train with a holistic approach by nourishing their souls with God’s revealed Word, by creating dynamic learning environments where they can encounter God’s active presence, and by enabling them to engage in today’s current issues through discussion and debate, our students will be able to take their shot at speaking into our culture when the opportunity presents itself.

Training the prophetic voice is as important now as ever. Our students have the opportunity to meet the challenges of our day and to use some of the new formats available to them. Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer hint at this in their book Winsome Persuasion:

“Rhetoric is not merely sitting alone in a room and thinking of arguments – accompanies by strong emotions – to support your position or cause. Rather, it is thinking through how to present those emotions and arguments to a particular audience through the use of symbols. Symbols can be any ‘mark, sign, sound, or gesture that communicates meaning based on social agreement,’ such as music, paintings, films, advertisements, televisions shows, and Facebook or Instagram photos.”

Tim Muehlhoff & Richard Langer, Winsome Persuasion (InterVarsity, 2017), p. 25 (quoting Harrick, The History and Theory of Rhetoric).

We can add to this list blog posts, podcasts and Broadway shows. The point is that rhetoric is not just an academic exercise. It is an art that enable people to speak with their prophetic voice into the world around them.

I conclude with a consideration of a very modern mode of symbolic rhetoric, the Broadway hit Hamilton. It struck a chord in recent years because it operated as a vehicle for Lin-Manuel Miranda to express some of his deeply held convictions through an unexpected mix of musical genres. He created something new out of materials available to him, some of which were rather old. One of those old things was the character of Alexander Hamilton. In the show we see the brash, self-educated Hamilton entering the scene as an intellectually astute and forward-thinking revolutionary. For me the most poignant moment comes when he is writing the Federalist Papers. The rest of the cast sings about how he writes “day and night like you’re running out of time.” It is through his rhetorical production that Hamilton became a central figure in shaping the constitutional form of government. This momentous episode in the plot sees Hamilton take on more and more responsibility eventually being asked to take a position in the Washington administration. The piece concludes with Hamilton repeating the refrain “I am not throwing away my shot.”

This episode pictures for me the potential every student has to learn deeply so that they are able to take their shot when their moment comes to speak with a prophetic voice in our world. Hopefully this series on training the prophetic voice has provided for you some inspiration to equip your students for lives of active witness. Along the way there have been some practical methods that I hope have helped you in the craft of teaching. Now may the God of all grace enable us as teachers to use our own prophetic voices, but more especially to raise up a new generation of prophetic voices.

Previous articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets

Part 4: Jesus as Prophetic Trainer

Part 5: Internalizing the Prophetic Message

The post Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 6: Classical Rhetoric for the Modern World appeared first on .