Mentally Alive: Is it Automatic or Habitual?

        Blog Prompt: Does attending a Christian college automatically do the work of applying Noll’s life of the mind (p. 7, see quote below) concept for you? If so, how so, and is that a good thing? If not, how not, and how do you apply these concepts if your Christian institution is not doing it for you?

         “By an evangelical ‘life of the mind’ I mean more the effort to think like a Christian—to think within a specifically Christian framework—across the whole spectrum of modern learning….Academic disciplines provide modern categories for the life of the mind, but the point is not simply whether evangelicals can learn how to succeed in the modern academy. The much more important matter is what it means to think like a Christian about the nature and works of the physical world, the character of human social structures like government and the economy, the meaning of the past, the nature of artistic creation, and the circumstances attending our perception of the world outside ourselves. Failure to exercise the mind for Christ in these areas has become acute in the twentieth century. That failure is the scandal of the evangelical mind.”

 ~Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, page 7

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Attending a Christian college no more automatically makes me active in the “life of the mind” than a person standing in a garage will automatically become a car or a student sleeping in a stable will automatically become a horse.

It would be easy to come to a Christian college and succeed in the academic pursuits without ever choosing to pursue the life of the mind. Many students do exactly that. No, a university cannot force its students to exercise the life of the mind.

A college can, however, encourage its students toward lively minds. I do feel that JBU has been doing this effectively in many cases. In fact, through its discussion of education, calling, and living a good life, the Honors Orientation class strives to provide just such a starting point and framework for the exploration and intellectual discovery that Noll describes. Likewise, each Gateway class is required to read a book, Why College Matters to God, by Rick Ostrander, which describes the framework of Creation, Fall and Redemption that Christians can use to approach the world around them. By requiring students to explore and apply their Christian faith not only to matters of theology and Biblical study, but also to science, liberal arts, and career-oriented studies, Christian higher education institutions can further encourage their students toward the life of the mind. All this instruction alone is not enough, however. It takes a student who wants to develop the life of the mind, a student who seeks to understand and apply her faith, to truly succeed. Without the student’s desire to develop these habits, all the efforts of the college will be fruitless.

As a student, my job is to pursue an active mind in all areas: scientifically, spiritually, creatively, and globally. I can do this by choosing to apply what I am learning across disciplines, to take the guidance offered me by my professors in my classes, seeking to know God better through what I am studying, and paying attention to the world around me. It is my responsibility, not my college’s, to make sure that I am thriving mentally. While a school can provide a framework—and at JBU I believe this framework is strong and existent—it is my choice to take advantage of it.

By learning and having and active mind, I can in turn have a deeper, fuller relationship with my Savior and Lord. My understanding of His creation and pursuit of his wisdom in all areas, not just religious pursuits, can draw me closer to Him.

Questions:

 How does the below scripture (1 Corinthians 1:18-25) interface with Noll’s claims about Evangelical intellectualism? How do we approach the world’s wisdom with the knowledge that God’s foolishness is wiser? Can, as the passage indicates, intellectualism get in the way of knowing God fully? How is intellectualism different from the “life of the mind”?

1 Corinthians 1: 18-25:

¹⁸ For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”^[c]

²⁰ Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ²² Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Good For The Sake Of....Itself?

What makes something good? How interesting that we are talking about the concept of intrinsic good in Honors Orientation this week, because I had a discussion in Sunday school about whether anything humans do without God has any “goodness” in it at all. I still don’t know exactly what I think about that, but it was certainly a stimulating discussion.

I digress, however. After reading the chapter “Is Thinking Good for Its Own Sake,” for Honors Orientation, I now understand intrinsic goodness as anything that is good for its own sake. That is, it does not require outcomes or results to make it good. It is good all by itself. It’s not that intrinsic goodness doesn’t bring about good results. It does! But it would be considered good without its results, not just because of them.

~My list of “good” things (in no particular order):

1)                  God (because any list I make he ought to be automatically at the top)

2)                  Prayer, intercession, and worship of God

3)                  Singing with all ones might (even if it doesn’t sound good)

4)                  Peaceful silence

5)                  Joy

6)                  Love (by this I mean all 4 Greek concepts of love: agape, philia, storge, eros)

7)                  Freedom

8)                  Roses, daisies, irises, flowers in general….ok fine…nature in general

9)                  Long walks

10)               Friendship

11)               Contentment

12)               Deepening understanding and increasing learning

13)               Life and health

14)               Rest

15)               Listening

16)               God-created beauty

17)               Questing (yes, this is a DragonKeeper Chronicles reference)

18)               Faithful obedience

19)               Wisdom

20)               Chocolate J (I love you Gabrielle!)

21)               Mercy and compassion

22)               Family

23)               Smiles and laughter

24)               Rejoicing in the wonder of who God has created me to be

25)               The ability to read, speak, write, and reason

26)               Experiencing the wide world around me

27)               Accomplishing goals

28)               Conversation and communication, understanding one another

29)               Creative thinking

30)               Sunshine, sunrises, sunsets, cloudy days, starlight nights

31)               Words

32)               Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and…..(I’ll waltz off singing with The Sound of Music now)

Now, many other things are good also. It is these things—this intrinsic goodness—that allows us to do what the author referred to as “living largely.” This means living in an un-constricted, as-many-good-things-as-possible way, with the overall goal of glorifying God. This is the good life. 

             ~A moment where I experienced intrinsic goodness:

Last night I went to Vespers for the first time. I left most of my friends in Walker and jogged across campus to Jones Recital Hall because I was going to late (what else is new?). By the time I reached the building, I was cold and out of breath. I slipped into the hall as quietly as possible (which unfortunately was not quiet at all because the door clanged behind me and I whacked my knee on the end of the aisle trying to get into my seat) and gently slid into the third or fourth row from the front. I was still breathing heavily, which felt almost irreverent because everyone else seemed so calm and patient as they waited for the service to begin. When Vespers began, we sang a few songs, listened to Scripture read aloud, meditated on what we heard, and prayed for ourselves, others, and the world. In those moments, I began to relax. This was time to pause, think, enjoy the silence, and talk to God.

Thinking back now, I don’t think I have had that much silence in weeks. Even when I am alone in my dorm there is constant ambient noise or I am listening to my music. What a striking contrast! At Vespers, I was left alone with my God and my own thoughts for several minutes straight. Ah, friends, it was a wonderful feeling. I felt stress falling off me as if I was a snake shedding my old skin. This is my example of experiencing intrinsic good. The peace, silence, reflection, worship of God, God’s presence, Scripture, fellowship with other believers, and reverence was good for its own sake, but also had incredibly beneficial results. This is good.

Educational Approaches: Freedom and Oppression

“La conscience et le monde sont donnés d’un même coup: extérieur par essence à la conscience, le monde est, par essence relatif à elle.” (Consciousness and the world are given in the same stroke: external in nature to consciousness, the world is, in essence relative to it.) ~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

     In the excerpt from Pedagogy of the Oppressed that I read for Honors Orientation this week, Paulo Freire argues that the existence of the world as we know it is dependent on the fact that we know it. What differentiates our earth, our world, from any other planet in the galaxy is the fact that it is populated by beings who think and understand, thus giving the earth meaning.

     Freire tells the story of a Chilean man who was talking with an educated anthropologist about culture. The man said, “Now I see that without man there is no world.” The anthropologist asked him to clarify, wondering if all the men on the planet died, but the animals, trees, and so on remained on the earth, if that would still be a world? “Oh no,” the Chilean peasant said. Because “there would be no one to say: ‘This is a world’.”

     If you know me at all, you know that I like ideas. This idea of the existence of a world as dependent on human beings and their understanding of that world is so interesting to me. Oh, I know, it’s philosophical, and a little bit out there, but bear with me. God said, “Let there be light, and there was light” (Gen. 1:3). Until God—a thinking, understanding, knowing being—said “this is a world,” the earth was formless and empty. It was his partially his knowledge and most definitely his power to create that caused an otherwise empty ball of nothingness to become a perfect place for his creation to live—a world.

     But what does it take to know something? Before reading this chapter, I may have given you some answer about knowledge being related to learning, memorizing, and being taught by a teacher or read in a book. All of these things are still true, but Freire makes some interesting arguments in this chapter concerning the way students are taught and the effect the method of education has on students’ knowledge and understanding of the material. His arguments made me think about what it means to really educate and learn, especially in a classroom situation.

     Freire sets forth two educational models: “banking” and “problem-posing.” In the banking concept of education, knowledge is mute and unchanging and is to be imparted by all-knowing teachers into the empty, open minds of students, who memorize and regurgitate this knowledge and are evaluated on the excellence of their regurgitation. Problem-posing is a much more fluid educational concept, consisting of students and teachers cooperating to discuss problems and issues posed by the teacher for the students’ interactive discussion. Both teacher and student are open to learning new insights about the subject; they are challenged by and directly involved with the problem. Problem-posing education considers more than just the subject, but the subject in relation to people and the world.

     Reader, have you tasted and partaken in each of these teaching methods? Let me give a few examples.

     One of the things that I like the most about some of my classes here at JBU is that I, as a student, am extremely involved in the classroom learning process. I am not there with an empty mind waiting for my professor to pour all of his knowledge into my head. Instead, I am given texts to read before class and then asked to discuss what I learned from the text with my fellow classmates and my professor. We all learn from each other. I still recognize and respect the superior knowledge and understanding of my professor, but at the same time, I am being asked to personally engage with the often challenging texts and come to my own conclusions with his guidance.  His knowledge is still being imparted, and I am still expected to store that knowledge and be able to effectively access it later, but I am directly involved in the learning process in these classes, and I love it.

     Even as a homeschooled student, I still had the opportunity to engage the topics I was learning, because most of my education centered on reading and understanding books. I was expected to understand, interpret, and store the knowledge I acquired. I engaged issues and learned from them, mostly by teaching myself from good books.

     Both these classroom situations, where problem-posing is the dominant educational method, lead to freedom through knowledge, according to Freire.

     But come with me into a different classroom. Here the teacher stands before a group of bored, dispassionate students. We are expected to listen to what he says, because later we will be expected to regurgitate the facts deposited into our heads onto a piece of paper that claims to assess our knowledge. This classroom experience is an example of the banking approach to education. I still acquired knowledge in this classroom, but I would argue that for me, this method was not nearly as engaging or as effective as the afore-mentioned scenario. In the “banking” classroom, I only remembered what I had to. That knowledge was disposable; I learned it, did what I needed to with it (passed a test), and then it had served its purpose and could be left by the wayside to make room for new information. The knowledge never became part of me and the way I perceive the world around me.

     In this type classroom situation, no one, teacher or student, really cares much about whether the student actually engages the subject, wrestles with it, and learns from it, as long as they are able to accurately parrot back what they have learned on a test. This sort of domineering control over students’ learning is what, Freire argues, leads to oppression, hence the title of his book.

     On one hand, there is nothing new here. Theories about education have abounded over the years, and these are not the only two ways to approach it. But, at the same time, this reading has asked me to think about a subject that I hadn’t really engaged before. What is the power of knowledge and education? How does the way a subject is taught affect the students? Can education lead to freedom or oppression? How does my time here at JBU fit into that? Once again I’ve been made to think, and that’s a good thing.