Norms and Nobility ch 8 - The Promise of Christian Paideia

No, I didn't forget this book. It's just been busy and I haven't had the time for it. I've also been reading a couple of King Arthur books, which meant that this took a back seat.

8 - The Promise of Christian Paideia (paideia=education)

Why should anyone strive to improve himself through education and morality? The pagan Greeks could never answer this. Their best attempts at self-improvement and balance made them ego-centric, elitist and materialistic. But modern [Christian] classical education has its foundation somewhere between humanism and Christianity, creating a tension between the two. Christ embodied logos (rationality) and mythos (story/parables), which brings both together in a way that I'm skimping too much to explain well.

Greek pagans and Christian both agree that self-centeredness is a big problem. Ancient classical education strived to make students focus on something other than self, like duty and sacrifice. Ancient philosophy tried to help men focus outside the self through reason. Ancient rhetoric sought to build character through literature examples. Ancient art tried to draw man out of himself through focus on a better ideal and inspiration to live divinely. They had the right idea, but they lacked Christ to empower them and make them able to be better people through love.

Christ gave men the 'why;' the purpose for being better: in order to be perfect, like Christ. Christianity answered the questions the Greeks had been unable to reconcile, such as whether man is good or bad (the answer is that he was created good in God's image, but sinned and fell from perfection.) Man can choose to live according to God's law, but he more often chooses to be self-centered. His errors are avoidable sins rather than noble, fated tragedies that are out of his control. Christianity offered hope instead of unescapable fate.

Modern utilitarian education doesn't offer any high-striving idealistic attempt at self-improvement, or a Christian hope-based striving to be better. It offers a value-less secular model of relativism. There's no ancient complexity or Christian mystery; it's all analytical data. In trying to get away from the religious blind faith of a divine God, modern educaton replaces it with the religious blind faith of science that disconnects responsibility from what is learned/known. The student's education doesn't help him live better or be better.

But Christian classical education offers a focal point apart from self (Christ), a reason/purpose for being a better person, and an ideal to strive for (again, Christ). There's a whole-ness to it. Learning isn't an end in itself for the sake of knowledge; it's means to holiness and right living. It teaches love for God rather than egotism.

Modern education doesn't acknowledge any supernatural force; the mind and facts are all that matters. But ancients and Christians recognized something beyond the chemical/physical/material world. Christians relate it to faith and divine revelation. Faith is regarded as an aid to understanding, not a hindrance that opposes fact and intellect.

Ancients wanted the intellect to influence the will - learning truth should make people want to do the right thing. But it took Christianity to connect knowledge with will. After Christ, there were no mythological supernatural heroes because he was the perfect and ideal person -- he couldn't be topped. After him, saints were the new heroes. They were like Christ, the new hero, but not quite as ideal. They combined faith and knowledge with their will by trying to live out what they knew was right.

We can see the final results of ancient classical education in the book of Acts: in Athens by that time, the people only cared to hear the latest ideas. The focus wasn't on truth anymore. Learning had become trivial, and the people had become superstitious. Christianity gave them something worth learning, and something worth learning for. We need Christian classical education today to prevent students from becoming smug in their knowledge of data but incapable of being wise and responsible.