Ideals of Christian Education

These are some preliminary thoughts of mine on Christian education.

There appear to be three levels, roughly speaking, on which Christian education operates; technical/moral, philosophical, and theological. The highest form of study is the study pertaining directly to God, theology, which by its nature includes a knowledge of oneself and one's neighbor in relation to God. In that effort there are two sources of information; revealed and natural. The first is that which is provided by revelation, most particularly accessed by Scripture. This is also accessed by holy tradition, through the illumination that the saints have received from God to speak. Tradition finds expression in three forms; exegesis of Scripture, Liturgical action and prayer, and treatises on various subjects, either polemical or instructive. Revelation is also experienced in mystical experience, the heights of which are open only by God's grace, which is most open to those living a life in obedience to the Lord's commandments. The second source, the natural knowledge, is reliant on the primary. The light of revelation is what the believer sees by and understands the natural by. Knowledge of things, i.e. the world as we experience it, is part of knowing God because it is the study of His creations and also of their conditions as we know them. Many of the things we observe in nature, in addition, have analogous relationships to ourselves as human beings, or to facets of what we experience of the Lord. This is why we don't find it unreasonable to apply metaphor and simile to ourselves and to God. These devices are obviously lacking in completeness, but enable us to see at least in part. We also thereby, seeing the finitude and dis-integration of things recognize their limitations, and by this we also arrive at a knowledge of God as totally other; i.e. outside and beyond the world of flux and limitation. These are the two celebrated categories of theology; cataphatic and apophatic, or positive and negative theology respectively. Of these however neither forms the goal or the primary object of theology. They are ways of explaining what we begin to know by divine illumination. This illumination is perceived in the faculty of the soul known as mind, nous, or intellectus, in English, Greek, and Latin respectively. The perception is prior to, and more important than, our ability to discuss it discursively. It is the direct experience of God which is vital to salvation and the blessed life, after all, not the ability to discuss it or write a book about it. This why the Church Fathers had a specific vocation, and are a category of sanctity, while saints in general present the faithful Christian with a wider array of holiness.

This highest form is, as was mentioned when discussing mysticism, is achieved only by means of the lowest. Technical training enters in to this discussion only briefly, but it relates to God's command to Adam that he should work. This preceded the Fall, as the first-made man was commanded to subdue the earth, to cultivate, and to be fruitful and multiply. After the Fall our work becomes less pleasing to us, we now win our bread by the sweat of our brow. Yet still we find fulfillment only when we obey the commandment (or at least I shall here assume this is so, as idleness seems to make human beings despondent). Likewise the Apostle Paul tells the Christians that they are to work if they are to eat, and he himself took up the craft of tent making to provide an example. So technical training to earn our living is part of fulfilling God's commandments. Likewise, all moral precepts in the commandments serve this function. By technical and moral I do not mean vulgar, crude, or pedantic. I mean that living well, and knowing how this is done, are the first and most important steps to Christian education and life. The majority will in fact stay in this position. They will learn a small amount of higher material that supplements good living by providing content for it. None of the precepts necessary for the blessed life and salvation exist outside this category, and all our available through normal education in trades and by close attendance to the reading of scripture and to the movements and words of liturgy, and the internalization of both through prayer.

Above this, but still related by having to do with the inner principles of living life and with the things of the world, is the level of philosophy. This pertains to what is termed in Greek "outside wisdom". Namely this pertains to human observation on the relation of things visible and invisible; categories as disparate as zoology and mathematics, political economy and logic fall under this domain. It is, at its best, the examined life of Aristotle and Boethius. It is our contemplation and ordering of the great mass of sense data we receive. Many of our observations in this field may be flawed, and even our methods towards discovering them may prove inadequate. Yet nonetheless philosophy provides humanity with vital insights, and any insight which pertains to the truth is perforce compatible with Christianity, which is the Truth. This was realized quite early on by St. Justin Martyr, and has remained a relative constant in the Church's interactions with the "outside wisdom". Further, Origen, Augustine, Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Basil the Great, John Damascene, and many others besides have noted the usefulness of learning about and reflection on things for the contemplation of God.

To varying degrees all three levels of education are open to all. Truly "intellectual" vocations will have more to do with philosophy than any others, but this by no means makes the technical and moral irrelevant. In fact failure to live well will make any philosopher untrustworthy. It is because of his high quality of life that Socrates was so influential, for if he spoke the way he did while living disgracefully he would have been easy to ignore. It would have been impossible for him to act as "gadfly" to complacent Athenian society were it not for his virtue. 

Likewise one does not need the training of philosophy in order for theological depths to be opened to one. One needs a moral life, a life of obedience to God and service to neighbor and God's grace for the depths of theology to be revealed. The Lord is loving and merciful and it is to the pure of heart, the meek, and those hungry and thirsty for righteousness that He reveals Himself. It is not to the wise of this world, but rather those who have taken on the yoke of God's foolishness. The might of Egypt at the time of the Exodus was such that none can conceive of its defeat; yet is was by the downtrodden Hebrews that Egypt was humbled. This story has cosmic significance. The hardness of Pharoah's heart throughout the divine Moses's entreaties and the many plagues God visited upon Egypt shows the same attitude which exists in the worldly wise of every generation. It is by the humble that God has chosen to reveal His power, and by choosing the humble He shows the certitude of His action and loving providence, which is open to all should they choose. Alternatively we might choose to harden our hearts and see how that ends for us. It is a road broad and well traveled, and we will walk it with Pharoah and Judas, and we bring many others with us on it.

Excursus on Godly foolishness aside, I think I have made it clear that the technical and moral education is the surest path to theology. How is philosophy useful at all? As the discussion on theology above implies, there are subtleties in this discussion. Particularly, because purity of heart is difficult, seeing God then too is also difficult, unless we are helped from on high. This help often comes by both the entreaties, and by the works, of the saints and by Godly inspired Scripture. They are indications on the way to our heavenly homeland. But in order to explain and point the way to the Almighty, we have need of clarity and discipline, along with a detailed knowledge of things and conditions in the world as we find it in order to direct others in a succinct way. 

I have said that these forms of education are open to each individual to varying degrees, accordingly both as they will and as they are given the strength by God. Philosophic knowledge then, while not exclusively the purview of those with intellectual vocations, is peculiar to those vocations. The work of intellectuals, properly speaking, is to serve their brothers and sisters by preparing themselves, through moral work surely, but also by philosophic contemplation and learning, to be open to God's grace and to point others to the sure path of the blessed life. That life is attained by the two loves; of God and of neighbor as self. The latter is referent to the former, as in loving God we love that which He loves. To point to these two, and to the ways in which we ourselves can do both of these commandments better, is the work of the Christian teacher.

So the ideal of Christian education is to give to each what they are capable of receiving of the three levels of Christian education. More to the point, it is to indicate and exhort towards these. The power to truly take on that education lies exclusively in the hands of the pupil. Yet by providing the tools to attain, most especially to the applied knowledge of Christian living, sacred and secular, but also to those philosophic tools and theological knowledge as enshrined in Scripture and Holy Tradition. 

To sum up: the goal of Christian education is first living oriented to the commandments and the end of the blessed life of communion with God and neighbor. Second, it is to the attainment of as much contemplative knowledge of things, philosophy, and of God, theology, as is open to the student. These latter serve as augments to blessed living by giving a clearer understanding of how to do the commandments and by giving an indication to our beloved, the Lord God, who is known and worshiped in Trinity.

The above reflection is what I have discerned thus far concerning Christian education and its goals, and is a work in progress. Likely I shall return to these themes repeatedly and refine them. My views have been formed most extensively by Pseudo-Dionysus, Augustine, John Damascene, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, particularly the description of the latter's school curriculum by Gregory the Wonderworker. 

Readings pertaining to this topic are: Augustine's De Magistro and De Doctrina Christiana, Pseudo-Dionysus's Mystical Theology, John Damascene's Fount of Knowledge (particularly the prefatory letter, chs. 1-2 of the Dialectica, and the Exact Exposition), and Gregory the Wonderworker's Origen the Teacher.