1.2 – Why Do We Study? (14 min video)

Transcript

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– Well, welcome to the second lecture of this year-long study of antiquity. And I hope that you’re patient because it’s gonna be a little while before we actually dig into the history of the world. That will be in the second week. I always take this first week just as a method of orientation to know why are we doing what we’re doing? So that’s really the question of why do we study history? But if you have already taken a look at today’s lecture title, you probably understand that we’re not really answering that question, we’re not answering that question yet. That’s because if we want to understand the question why we study history, we need to understand the question why do we actually do this whole thing called school?

Why do we actually have education? Why do we devote so much time to it? Is it merely about grades and degrees and getting certain jobs with certain pay? If it is, then I really don’t wanna be a teacher. If it is, I would find this all kind of pointless and would just wanna find the fastest way to get my degree and be done with everything.

Because really, when we ask the question, why school, we’re asking a bigger question. We’re really asking the question, why life? Or in other words, what’s the purpose of life? I think it’s helpful when we read a character like Stratford Caldecott, who’s an excellent writer on education and the value of education from a Christian worldview. When Stratford Caldecott, who passed away a few years ago, when he tries to evaluate our own culture and what we value today, he said this.

He said, “We are often reduced “to being consumers and producers. “We produce merely in order to consume.” I mean that for many people, the whole purpose of life is just to live and just to produce in order to consume. Just to essentially pursue the next meal, the next day, the next pleasure, whatever it may be. But of course, it’s the Westminster’s shorter catechism that gives us a much better answer as to what the purpose of life actually is. When in the very first question, it gives the answer that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. In other words, the entire purpose of life, and yes, the purpose of school, is to actually know God, to actually worship Him, and to actually delight in Him, to actually enjoy Him, and by consequence, to delight and enjoy what He has made and what He has done.

In other words, education is something is much more than just the pragmatic value of pursuing a certain discipline so we can get a certain job.

In fact, Shaffer Calicott said this, he said, “The fragmentation of education and disciplines teaches us that the world is made of bits we can use and consume as we choose.” In other words, I hope you’re not watching this series right now simply so you can go out and make a certain amount of money. In fact, you probably are watching this series because you’ve been told you have to watch this series. Well, I hope you actually enjoy watching this series. I guess the point is this. Everything I’m gonna teach you, these are not things you necessarily have to know to survive in the world or to make money. The things I’m going to teach you, the things I try to pass on to my students are things I hope that make you recognize What an amazing world it is that we have.

What an amazing history it has. But especially the fact that that world and that history are governed by a sovereign God who actually is seeking the redemption of his creation.

And secondly, in terms of kind of like why we do this whole thing called school or why this whole thing called life, I think it’s helpful to take a look at that word, a skola, or the word ludus, which also meant school. It’s curious that both of these words in Latin and in Greek have various forms. They can both mean school, a place where you essentially learn, or you go and you actually develop skills and learn certain things. But they also very curiously both mean play, or game, or leisure, as in like time to rest. That’s because the Romans and the Greeks probably understood that school in its proper form is a privilege. It’s where we get to actually pursue knowing things and learning things and delighting in things simply for their sake alone. That’s why, for example, history and literature are part of what we call the liberal arts or the freeing arts. It’s where you get to pursue these things because they have value in and of themselves. It’s often been described as being a time for contemplation, Meaning, you can take a class like this and you get to take time simply to think on things.

That’s something that in the modern world we often don’t have the privilege of doing, but we desperately need it. That’s why Psalm 46 tells us to be still and know that God is God. James Shaw, when he talks about this whole idea, he says the problem of contemplation, the idea that we actually think on things, It’s not to create a God in our minds, it’s to discover the God who’s already there. And he says, “This discovery, it consists initially “in having at least some experience of freedom, “of a fascination and delight that has no reward but itself. “We respond to God best in the freest of our activities.” In other words, think about the things that you do on your own that no one pays you to do. But think about those things, those are your freest activities. Those are the things, especially if you have worked on any kind of craftsmanship or skill in those areas, and you are pursuing something that you want to improve in greatly, those are your freest activities.

Those are activities that hopefully would lead to some kind of rest for you, some kind of contemplation. Well, ultimately, the purpose of your subjects, all of them, is meant to be that same kind of contemplation. contemplation. But it takes a certain kind of attitude to actually get there. Third, part of the reason we pursue this whole thing called school education, is because we’re pursuing wisdom itself. You know, wisdom is something the Proverbs define as being the fear of the Lord. It’s also helpful to see what Francis Bacon says about wisdom. He was a great Renaissance era philosopher and writer. He said this about studies and education. He said crafty men, they condemn studies. Meaning guys who are trying to kind of go after their own selfish ends, they don’t like studies because it tends to show how bad they are. Simple men, men who are kind of just dumb, he says they admire studies. They’re like, “Oh, you’re really smart “’cause you know this information.” But he said wise men use them. Listen, in this class, you’re gonna get a whole lot of information, but none of it is of any worth unless you actually use it. Not all of it. No way you can use all this information. But if you actually see how God is faithful throughout culture, how there’s one great story, if you actually see the great ideas of the past, the great craftsmanship of the past, and it actually influences you for the better and to the right ends, that’s a way to actually properly use the wisdom of the past. Fourth, education has been described as having the purpose of giving the light, and especially of developing the imagination. The great Greek philosopher Socrates, he simply said it this way, he said the whole point of education, actually he said the object of education, is to teach us to love what is beautiful.

In other words, education should teach us to recognize what is beauty, which of course requires us to know what’s the standard of beauty? Of course it would be God himself. But education should be able to teach us, ah, that is beautiful and I love that, or I want to actually pursue that. Ken Myers, a modern American writer, says that education requires the nourishing of the imagination. It’s the orienting of our hearts so that we can intuit the world aright before we even begin to shape our theories. In other words, the great marvels of the past, especially the great literature of the past, it should shape your imagination. It should teach you there’s something much bigger than the culture you already know. One of my favorite authors, Arthur Kuhler-Kuch, he said this about education and really about the best things in the world. He said, “The very best things in the world, “they don’t pay for the simple reason “that they are priceless.” That’s the whole purpose of taking a history class, ultimately. Fifth, we pursue something like education really out of thanksgiving and praise. It’s interesting, J.R.R. Tolkien was asked once by a young girl what the purpose of life was. And he said this, and answered a question. He said, “It may be said that the chief purpose of life “for any one of us is to increase according to our capacity, “our knowledge of God by all the means we have, “to better know him, and to be moved by that knowledge to give him praise and thanks. In other words, he goes back to worship. It’s one of the natural responses of man to who God is. Thanksgiving and praise, not just for what he has made, but especially for who he is. Six, part of the reason we pursue these things, we do this whole thing called school, is to pass on a culture and a legacy.

Like the Latin word tradera, from which we get tradition, literally means to pass on or even to surrender, to give up what it is that we have been given or really to make sure that it keeps going.

That guy I quoted earlier, Arthur Koehler-Coach, one of my favorite authors who influenced characters such as Tolkien or such as C.S. Lewis, he said this about us. He actually was speaking to his students at the time, but he told his students, he said, “You are the heirs of a remarkable legacy.” It’s the legacy of the past, the legacy of the church especially. He said it was a legacy that is passed into your hands after no little tumult and travail. It’s a legacy that is the happy result of sacrificial human relations, no less than a stupendous human achievements. What you have, when we look at Western culture, he said was quote, “A legacy that demands of you “a lifetime of vigilance and diligence “so that you may in turn pass the fruits of Christian civilization on to succeeding generations. This is the essence of the biblical view, the covenantal view, and the classical view of education. This is the great legacy of truth, which you are now the chief beneficiaries, and this is the great legacy of truth, which you’re now called upon to give to the world. Seventh, I know I’m giving you a lot here, but this is a huge question to consider. The other reason we do this whole thing called school is because it teaches us what it means to be human. It teaches us that the things that people have cared about, the things that you care about today, are the things that people have always cared about.

The things that you’re concerned about today are the things that people have always been concerned about. Now, some of the specifics, of course, do change, based upon, say, certain technologies or certain events and things like that. But the root desires and fears of people, those don’t change. Geoffrey Calicott said this, he said, “Education is about how we become more human “and therefore more free in the truest sense of the word.” In other words, can we understand what is the great legacy of the past and can we actually find some pleasure in the great artworks, in the great passions of those who have gone before us?

And finally, part of the reason we do this whole thing called school is really to develop things like virtue and to practice service. Arthur Kulakuch, to quote him once again, said that the true business of a university or of a school, you could say, is to train liberty.

The fact that you have all this freedom, you have all of this time, to train that liberty and responsibility. “to teach a young man or woman to think for themselves, “yet so that they remember that they are a citizen “and of no mean city.” In other words, we have a responsibility to think for ourselves, we have a responsibility to pass on the incredible classics and the incredible legacy of the past, and we especially have a policy, or really, a responsibility, to use all of that in the service of others, which is what Arthur Klerkutsch called the crown of education, meaning it’s really about our calling much more than it is about any kind of employment or simply desire to produce so that we can consume.

It’s much more eternal and kingdom-minded than that.