If you're trying to get into philosophy of education, specifically Christian philosophy of education, there are a couple of "big" authors to read. Charlotte Mason is one of them. Another is Nicholas Wolterstorff. The latter is less familiar to me, and probably many of you. One recent Christmas present of mine was his book of essays, Educating for Shalom. Because this book was so compatible (in my mind) with my noetic structure on Christian educational philosophy, I'd love to take you through this book in hopes of inspiring you to read it yourself!
As a reminder, here's the general outline of this post: I will . . .
- Contextualize the author's writings as a whole (bibliography)
- Bring the author's major ideas to the present day
- Comment on major sections of the book, or important chapters, depending on organization
Bibliography
Wolterstorff, a long-retired Reformed philosopher, has focused his writings on articles and books. What books has he written?
- Religion and the Schools
- On Universals
- Reason within the Bounds of Religion
- Art in Action
- Works and Worlds of Art
- Education for Responsible Action
- Until Justice and Peace Embrace
- Faith and Rationality (as co-author). This book formed part of the pre-reading I'm doing in mid-late 2024 as preparation for my forthcoming book.
- Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition (as co-author)
- Lament for a Son
- Keeping Faith: Talks for New Faculty
Besides this, of course, he wrote the book I'm discussing this week!
Wolterstorff's Major Ideas
Wolterstorff's ethnic background (Dutch-American) influences how he expresses his ideas. As the Bibliovore likes to put it, the main difference between Germans and the Dutch is that, while both express their ideas and feelings very directly, the Dutch add an element of silliness. This is evident in the quotes in the last section of this post. Before that, I want to outline two ideas he has developed (possibly) the most in his writings.
Reformed Epistemology
Wolterstorff and (Alvin) Plantinga were the main developers of this idea. Epistemology is the study of knowing or how one acquires/realizes one has knowledge. The "Reformed" piece comes from the broad Reformed tradition that both of these philosophers come from. This type of epistemology rejects evidentialism, i.e., rejects the linchpin of the (problematic) Enlightenment. It is distinguished from fideism in that it does require formal, logical rebuttals to objections to faith.
Common-Sense Philosophy
I've alluded to this branch in notes on Faith and Rationality as problematic. However, Wolterstorff takes it in a different direction, although I'm not familiar enough with his line of thought to speak to it. Originally, common-sense philosophy was a reaction (by Reid and others) to skepticism (of Hume) that distrusted the correspondence to reality of ordinary senses' experience.
Book Walk-Through
Because this is a book of essays, its organization is somewhat different from most books I've reflected on this year. I dog-eared a number of pages, so the walk-through will be of those pages and why the passages on them stood out to me. All emphases are in the original.
On pages 5-6, before discussing models of education, Wolterstorff explains the dynamic of accommodation: "It is because of this bidirectional dynamic interaction between the public piety and the diverse religions that people fail to see any gap between being a good Christian and being a good American, instead viewing the various particular religions as optional sectarian versions of the public piety." Christianity is not at its core about being a good person/citizen.
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On page 18, in his discussion of Jellema's Christian humanist model, Wolterstorff comments: "[Jellema] was fond of saying that the important thing is not so much what one thinks as the mind with which one thinks. Students must be freed from the bondage of thinking with the mind of modernity and led to think with the Christian mind. . . . It is important to realize, however, that those who have thought with the Christian mind have not had a monopoly on truth." I've been thinking a lot lately about problems with the modern mindset (as my references to Charlotte Mason, Autumn Kern, and others strongly suggest), so I appreciate the distinction here. Lest you falsely dichotomize the mind and the thought content, remember that education is a both-and enterprise.
On page 35, with characteristic Dutch impishness, in analyzing the mission of the Christian university, he writes, "I have said that the task of the Christian college must never be isolated from the mission of the church. It often strikes me, however, that [American] evangelicals do not care much for the church. They like to think of Christians, not the church. And if they do think of the church, they tend to think of it as born yesterday, and of Christians around the world as waiting for what we in the Western church have to teach them." Read the church fathers . . . and likely move to magisterial Protestantism or Anglicanism as a result. 🙃
There's a follow-up quote on page 259:
"How impoverished our lives as Christians would be if we all foreswore the learning that helps to keep alive and hand on that tradition which consists of the eucharistic and eirenic cultural activities of our forefathers and foremothers in the faith. And not only how culturally impoverished our own lives would become; how dishonoring of those forefathers and foremothers. I know, of course, that in America especially there is the impulse among Christians to forget the work of the hands and hearts and minds of those who have preceded us in the faith and, with New Testament in hand, to think and act as if the church began here this morning. To me this seems profoundly dishonoring of our forebears in the faith. That's not an argument, I realize. It's more like a shudder."
On page 106, a short quote comes repeatedly to mind as I engage with media content from evangelicals and Baptists: "In the first place, the aim of Christian learning is not to be different or distinctive but to be faithful. Let the differences fall out as they may . . . indeed, Christian scholars should be delighted when others accept their views."
On page 129, discussing Christians talking science with other scientists, he notes that "allies may be other Christians. Then again, they may not be. They may in fact find that they have other Christians in opposition." This is particularly likely in origins science, since some branches of Christianity have officially attached themselves to a particular (and untenable) theory of origins.
Returning to this thread, he notes on pp. 220-221: "[The] rise of evolutionary theory and of biblical criticism never had the devastating effect on Christian scholars working with the Kuyperian model that it did on Christian scholars working with the Enlightenment model. On the Enlightenment model, radical pluralism in the academy implies incompetence in one party or the other; not so on the Kuyperian model."
Mildly snarkily, page 223 notes that, due to history of undesired intertwinement between Christianity and non-Christian content, "the theorist proposes that Christianity be reduced in content until intertwinement is no longer capable of occurring. Admittedly, such Christianity is usually not advertised as reduced; it is advertised instead as true Christianity, as purified Christianity--as Christianity rightly understood." And, I would add, completely useless for daily corporate life.
Even more snarkily, possibly thinking of cancel culture, we see on page 238: "Even more destructive of the ethos needed for genuine dialogue is claiming the privilege of silence on the ground of suffering. Nowadays one hears one group or another insisting that its identity has been shaped by its suffering, that its suffering has been like unto no other, that those who have not experienced its suffering can never understand it, and that consequently dialogue is impossible."
Page 241, on the same broad topic (I'm currently in the middle of Lukianoff & Schlott's Canceling of the American Mind linked above), differentiates academic freedom from freedom of speech.
On page 290, responding to and reflecting on Fides et Ratio, "the hermeneutic key. I suggest that if one is to understand what the Pope is saying, one must constantly keep in mind the distinction between properly functioning human reason, and human reason as it actually functions in its fallen state." The first kind one can be confident in; the second, not so much.
A final follow-up on page 294: "To this [i.e., some Christians' reluctance to engage with reality in philosophy], the Pope's response is not that the Church repudiate philosophy, which is what so many among my fellow Protestants would say, but that the philosophers of the Church have the boldness to develop . . . 'Christian philosophy.'"
That's all, folks!
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