Lectures

The Spiritual Warfare of Our TimesFrom Comenius and Descartes to Our Post-Truth Era John Amos Comenius and René Descartes led the “Modern” West in two opposite directions: Godly Wisdom vs. Humanist Knowledge. Nevertheless, because of the Bible’s impact, both of them sought truth: Both thinkers wrote their books during and after the Thirty-Year Religious Wars (1818-1848). Descartes won many followers because the wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants prepared some people to think that both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism may be wrong. Some class-conscious European elites did not like Comenius’ emphasis on educating everyone. They preferred Descartes’ bias in favor of an elitist education. Descartes attracted some Christian intellectuals because he seemed to be defending Christian ideas of soul, God and morality by logic alone. This planted the seeds of what became modern Liberal Theology. It put the human mind above God’s word. This made John Amos Comenius cautious about the dangers of Descartes’ philosophy. European thinkers such as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud destroyed Descartes’ confidence that human reason can know the truth without God’s revelation. Hume demonstrated that Descartes had failed to prove that he exists as a thinking self. Kant proved that the human mind can never know reality (noumena) as it is in itself. The mind imposes its pre-existing categories upon everything. Therefore, at best, it can only know the Phenomena—filtered reality as it appears to us. Comenius was seeking godly wisdom. Descartes was seeking man-made truth. Humanism’s failure to know truth birthed today’s pessimistic Postmodern education. Postmodern philosophers know that by himself (without divine revelation), a finite man can never know the truth. That compelled French thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre to embrace existential Absurdity, Meaningless and Amoral Fragmentation of Truth. Postmodern education was forced into replacing Truth (metanarrative) with privatized narratives. Several French intellectuals contributed to replacing “Modern” education with “Postmodern.” Among the most influential were: 1.           Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) 2.           Michel Foucault (1926-1984) 3.           Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) 1. “Truth” and Education “Modern” education, biblical as well as Humanistic (secular), was grounded in the belief that objective truth and wisdom exist. Human beings are given the gift of mind to seek and find wisdom through God’s revelation, human reason, science, and humble, disciplined, private and corporate inquiry. Knowledge grows through sharing information and skills. Generations stand on the shoulders of their elders. Postmodern education, by contrast, rejects universal wisdom and objective truth. It dismisses “truth” as a social construct, a product of specific historical contexts. It distrusts existing knowledge as an attempt to manipulate and dominate others. Parents want power over their children and teachers over their students. Postmodernism perceives “Knowledge” as something private. Therefore, it has to be plural—many narratives, not one—taught by parents or teachers. Making knowledge individualistic and a product of a culture makes it fragmented, not unified. Narratives told by individuals and communities ought to compete. Postmodernism permits no common Light that nations can follow. 2. Purpose of Education The purpose of Modern education was to unite rational, free individuals into a harmonious and progressive intellectual community. It was assumed that a people who shared a common understanding of the world—e.g., truth, wisdom, goodness and nobility must prevail—would contribute to the progress of the whole society. Education will produce enlightened citizenship that shares a worldview. This will enable them to master disciplines of their choice and apply their insights for everyone’s welfare. Postmodern education rejects that Modern vision of education. Instead of building on existing wisdom, it prefers critique. Critiquing the past is more important than mastery in a field that could enrich everyone. Postmodern rejection of Truth and Wisdom undermines consensus and shared progress. It delights in deconstructing dominant narratives, institutions, norms and traditions. Postmodernism turns Education into a battleground for resistance and private identity affirmation. It suspects intellectual unity as a hidden attempt to grab power. 3. Role of Reason and Science Modern education, born in a biblical milieu, saw reason as a capacity God gave to human beings to govern His world as His children. It viewed science as a special way of exploring the natural world. The Bible’s logo-centric worldview enabled the Modern Age to look for logical coherence, evidence, and methodological rigor as crucial ingredients in the knowledge of Truth. Postmodern education, in contrast, questions the neutrality of reason and science. Because modern science developed in the West, out of a worldview derived from the Bible, some postmodernists question it as a culturally controlled practice. They place scientific knowledge alongside other “ways of knowing,” such as lived experience or private, identity-based perspectives. 4. Curriculum and Knowledge In Modern education, the curriculum was organized around disciplines such as mathematics, history, physics, philosophy that had internal standards of truth and excellence. Following a biblical tradition, Modern education valued Canonical texts or “Great Books” for their enduring insights. Postmodern education fragments the curriculum. It looks at all classical canons with suspicion. It criticizes them as exclusionary. It shifts the emphasis from what is taught to whose viewpoint is being taught. 5. Is Teaching a Gift and a Call? Following the Bible’s idea that teachers were God’s gift to society, Modern education saw the teacher as an authority in his field. He/she was responsible for transmitting knowledge. The student needed to cultivate peculiar virtues—not blind belief but intellectual clarity, rigor,  courage to question, as well as humility before facts and evidence. Postmodern education questions parents’ and teachers’ authority. It has lowered the teachers’ status to that of a facilitator. Authority is suspected to be problematic. Like all hierarchical relationships, a teacher’s authority is also attacked for seeking domination. 6. The Student – A Learner or a Knower? Modern education viewed students as apprentices. They needed encouragement, inspiration, discipline, formation, as well as correction. Freedom was self-mastery or governance. Postmodern education views students primarily as knowers of their own experience. It tends to put personal identity and subjective perspective above