Reflective Wanderer

Introduction

Christian classical education challenges the modern view of the self, yet its use of the Western tradition aims to cultivate a mature and flourishing human being. It seeks to understand God’s world and align human nature with the structure of reality. In contrast, modern education treats students as material to be shaped according to progressive ends. Both systems ultimately pursue enculturation—the formation of their own vision of a complete human being. In the Western tradition, this entails mastery of language and the mathematical arts, alongside an understanding of theology and philosophy, to form individuals who can eloquently express wisdom in the service of God and who cherish goodness, truth, and beauty within their historical context.

The Modern Self

  One of the reasons for the decline of the classical model of education is a shift in the view of personality. According to Catholic philosopher and cultural critic Charles Taylor, there has been a move in the West from a mimetic to a poietic view of the self (Trueman, p. 39). The older worldview, built on a mimetic foundation, viewed the created order as something to change oneself to accommodate, whereas the newer, poietic model seeks to re-create the world to fit the individual. At the heart of both models is something that can best be described by the Greek term Paideia, representing the telos of education.

  Classical education is mimetic in nature. It forms the student in the likeness of an ideal that is consistent with an absolute standard of virtue. Since it passes on a body of knowledge, it must begin with repentance. Students must repent of their ignorance and inadequacy. Only then will they possess the humility needed to be filled with something beyond themselves. This is not a journey of self-actualization, but rather an apprenticeship in the reception of a tradition. Education, as G. K. Chesterton defines it, is the soul of a society passing between generations. For a classical liberal arts curriculum to be coherent, there must be an objective standard. If a student is to master grammar they do not need to feel how grammar works for them, but rather receive it as a discovered truth about the structure of reality. For Aristotle, grammar itself has metaphysical import (Aristotle, De. p. 25). This is at odds with the relativism of modernity. 

A poietic vision of humanity rebels at the notion of transcendent truths as the basis of education. Like “Gaius” and “Titius” of the “Green Book,” the language of objective reality has been replaced with emotivism (Lewis, Abolition, p. 4). As a publication from a teachers’ union article expressed it:

Each human being must inevitably develop or construct meaning. Learning is not a matter of merely reading, listening, and repeating what others say is true. Each of us must ‘make meaning’ or make sense of our own world (qtd. in Veith and Kern 45). 

This Nietzschean language of created meaning is at odds with the Scriptural implication that God created mankind in His own image, giving him a nature that cannot be rooted out. It is also opposed to Plato’s eternal forms and Aristotle’s universal essence. Transhumanistic in nature, its vision does not believe that truth is in the universe to be discovered; rather, it is to be invented to satisfy the plans of progressive educators. 

  The aim of all education is to create an ideal human being. Paideia was the Greek term used for this, expressing the goal of all educational and cultural engagement (Wilson, p. 11). In Ephesians 6:4, Paul commands fathers to raise their children in the paideia of God. This takes the Greek idea of enculturation and places it, for Christian educators, within a Christian worldview. The classical liberal arts presuppose the discovery of natural laws and the conveyance of these laws to students (Cicero, p.125). Progressive education has its own paideia. Its objective is to cast off traditional concepts of transcendent realities and instead inculcate values rooted in neo-Marxist views on race and gender diversity, multiculturalism, and a pluralistic standard for ethics (qtd. in Veith and Kern 89-97). Poietic modern man thinks he can create his own reality. 

The values of a Christian liberal arts education and progressive modern theory both produce a specific kind of student. Where they differ is over authority. Is the standard objectively true, or can values be created by people to serve utilitarian ends? The mimetic model presupposes the need for reality to be discovered and obeyed. In the poietic universe, however, values are invented by progressive leaders. Since human beings were created by God with a human nature or essence, it is the role of the educator to teach what is consistent with revelation.

The Liberal Arts

  Classical liberal arts education studies a revealed truth. This truth is not found within. It is objective. Aristotle did not invent logic; he merely discovered its laws (Clark, p. 112). After the spread of Christianity in the third century, Christian teachers took the discovered arts of language and mathematics from the pagans and used them in Christian service. St. Augustine speaks to this: “He [the interpreter of Scripture] must also know…the arts of grammar and rhetoric, for without these he cannot make himself understood” (Augustine, Doctrine, p. 37). These liberal arts and the “true sciences” that complete them were the educational tradition through which educated people understood the universe and were prepared for cultural leadership.

  Out of the seven liberal arts, three are linguistic: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Grammar studies the structure of language (especially Latin). It has historically been understood that a knowledge of grammar includes practice in the written word—reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary—as well as written examples—literature and history (LittleJohn/Evans, p. 89). Of course, for this objective, the very finest examples should be used. Logic teaches students how to think correctly. This skill is not as intuitive as would first be thought. Both the rules of formal and informal logic should be mastered, as well as debate in its various forms, written and otherwise. Rhetoric is the art of speaking and writing with persuasive beauty. Since the liberal arts are interrelated, various studies in art, history, literature, and science reinforce the trivium. Virgil’s Aeneid can be read looking at the structure of the text (grammar), its propositions (logic), and its beauty and force (rhetoric). The liberal arts are not a pedagogy but disciplines that need to be mastered. 

  The other four liberal arts are the quadrivium, or the mathematical arts of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The trivium is not a preparation for the quadrivium, as is sometimes alleged (i.e., Sayers), but rather they are disciplines that open the learner up to the fullness and order of the universe. That they are mathematical would be obvious to the Medieval mind, with its passion to order the universe (Lewis, Image, p. 10). Arithmetic looks at numbers, geometry and astronomy at space, and even music is deeply numerical. There are modern disciplines of math and science that could be added to this structure, like calculus, which the modern student should be familiar with. Since the so-called Age of Reason, there has been a false division between the language arts and the mathematical ones; prior to this, all the liberal arts were part of the humanities (Veith/Kern, p. 86). There is a necessary integration in all the liberal arts. 

  Above the studies of the liberal arts are the “true sciences” of philosophy and theology. They are true sciences in the older meaning of science i.e., “knowledge” (Littlejohn/Evans, p. 127). These disciplines orient the meaning of life. In this sense, true philosophy and theology are indistinguishable from each other. It also includes moral theology, laying down the path to virtue. The role of the liberal arts is to enable the fully formed student to better love and communicate truth; grammar to understand the language of it, logic to defend it, and rhetoric to persuade others of its beauty and goodness. In the quadrivium, too, knowledge of the structure of the universe grants human beings the ability to understand something of the place they occupy within it. The liberal arts have a telos, and that is found in knowledge, participation, and contemplation of goodness, truth, and beauty, ultimately found in Christ Himself (Colossians 2:3). As St. Augustine writes, “He who is teaching Christian truth must both guide the mind of the hearer by reason [logic] and also persuade him by the art of eloquence [rhetoric]” (Augustine, Doctrine p. 117). It is to this end that the liberal arts should be studied. 

  The seven liberal arts are disciplines, the mastery of which has provided Western history with orators like St. Chrysostom, logicians like Albertus Magnus, poets like Dante Alighieri, and Reformers like Philipp Melanchthon. While different applications of the trivium and quadrivium and a variety of differences in theology and philosophy litter the field, this educational standard has given great men and women the cast of mind to love truth and express it with beauty and goodness. 

Educational Objectives

  To understand a thing, one must first understand what it is for. What is the goal of a Christian liberal arts curriculum? A love for the good within one’s own historical tradition encourages Christians to grow in wisdom (Proverbs 4:7). This wisdom requires a knowledge of the world. Christians are also called to be persuasive defenders of the faith (1 Peter 3:15). Thus, Christian education demands students who are wise and eloquent. Most importantly, the path to true happiness lies in virtue (2 Peter 1:5-8) and love for God. In all stages of education, this is the greatest good that must be kept in view. 

    People are not isolated from the streams of history in which they were born. Cutting oneself off from the broader historical culture does not make someone more pure; it merely isolates their own issues and cuts off valuable perspectives from the past (Wilson, p. 133). Christianity in the West developed out of the Greco-Roman context of the first century. During the reign of Caesar Augustus, Christ was born. While Western culture is not synonymous with the kingdom of God, there is an overlap due to when and where Christ chose to set up His church. There is an anti-intellectualism within various forms of Christianity today that tries to stay away from historic philosophy and art. The student must be taught to distinguish the true from the false in his or her own tradition. Ironically, this is the surest armour against the spirit of the age, seeing the wisdom and follies of past ages. A student in the liberal arts tradition should be able to find what is good, true, and beautiful from Homer to George Herbert, and be able to distinguish it from the false and ugly that threaten to taint it, even when it comes from within.  

  Wisdom makes timely application of truth and applies it to a given situation, and eloquence knows how to express the truth with persuasive beauty. The studies in the trivium prepare students to do this. “Christianity,” writes J. Gresham Machen, “must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought. The Christian, therefore, cannot be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor” (Princeton, p. 6). For this to be accomplished, students must be armed with a knowledge of the branches of human endeavor (the liberal arts) and the ability to use them forcefully to bring Christ to bear upon them (rhetoric). The studies in the quadrivium also accomplish this end. The natural sciences display the glory of God (Psalm 8). In an age of weak evangelical compromise, leaders need to be trained in wisdom and eloquence to rebuild Christendom from the ashes of postmodernist confusion. 

  Man’s chief end is found in God (Westminster, p. 1). All men, according to Aristotle, seek happiness as the end of all their actions (Aristotle, Ethics, p. 1730). St. Augustine agrees with both, placing happiness in its true position: “To rejoice for you, in you, about you: this is the happy life” (Augustine, Confessions, p. 181). Getting students to live out their duty to God and embrace the virtues is the goal of true education. The purpose of all education for English poet John Milton is to restore what was ruined in Adam, and this is done by learning to know, love, and imitate God (Milton, p. 631). Even Plato and Aristotle realized this teleological need for the soul’s participation in God as the end of virtue and the role of education (see Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Metaphysics), but they lacked the mediator who could accomplish it. Students need to be able to integrate their education with its true end, Jesus Christ.

    For the Christian classical educator, students are to be trained to love the good within the historic context God has placed them in, while discerning good from evil with wisdom that advocates for the good with rhetorical skill for the glory of God. The various disciplines of the liberal arts are tools for the student to accomplish this great task. For this to be successful, students must learn to walk out the implications of their education with humility and godliness. 

Conclusion

  The liberal arts have freedom at their core. The term “liberal arts” comes from the Latin liber, denoting a free person. Slaves might have received training, but a liberal arts education was for a free man. This freedom enables the recipient to be a fully formed person, taking his place in the cultural leadership of the day. True freedom comes from knowing the truth and walking it out. This is against the poietic vision of human freedom, current today, values the freedom from norms and virtues. True freedom is found in the seemingly boring disciplines of the trivium and quadrivium; they provide standards by which truth and beauty can be appreciated and artistically re-created. More than that, they lay the foundation for theology and philosophy, which provide meaning for life. Armed with this meaning, students should know and love their heritage and be able to defend it while living with piety and virtue. 

Bibliography

Aristotle. De Interpretatione. Vol. 1, Princeton University Press, 1984.

—, Metaphysics. Vol. 2, Princeton University Press, 1984.

Augustine, St. Confessions. Hackett, 2019

—, On Christian Doctrine. The Liberal Arts Press, 1958.

Cicero. The Laws. Oxford, 2008. 

Clarke, Gordon. Logic. The Trinity Foundation, 2004.

Lewis, C.S. The Abolition of Man. Harper One, 1974.

—, The Discarded Image. Cambridge, 1964

Milton, John. Of Education. The Odyssey Press, 1957.

Shorter Catechism Illustrated, The. Banner of Truth, 2024

Trueman, Carl. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Crossway, 2022. 

Veith, Gene, and Andrew Kern. Classical Education. Capital Research Center, 2001.

Wilson, Douglas. The Paideia of God. Canon Press, 1999. 

Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Culture. The Princeton Theological Review, vol. 11, 1913, p. 6.

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