clark - a christian philosophy of education (1988)

8/13/2019 Clark - A Christian Philosophy of Education (1988)

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Summary of Key Points

CLARK, GORDON.A Christian Philosophy of Education. Maryland: The Trinity

Foundation, 1988.

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60-97

The Christian World-View

The end of learning is to repair the ruin of our first parents by regaining to know Godaright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him

- John Milton...theism is under no greater disadvantage than... any other system: Basic worldviews

are never demonstrated; they are chosen(p.33).

The mechanist believes that all natural phenomena can be reduced to mathematical,quantitative equations, but he never gives a mathematical demonstration of his belief.

So it is with every worldview; the first principle cannot be proved precisely because

it is first. It is the first principle that provides the basis for demonstrating subordinatepropositions(p.34)

Etymologically a skeptic is one who seeks; but philosophically a skeptic is one who

does not find. The agnostic claims not to know whether God exists or not, but he liveshis daily life according to one postulate or the other.

Pantheism and atheism are similar worldviews because both deny the existence of aCreator. The pantheist asserts that God and the world are one and the same; since he

does not intend to deny the existence of the world, he tries to deny the existence of the

Creator (p.38).

The atheist who asserts that there is no God, asserts by the same words that he holds

the whole universe in his mind; he asserts that no fact, past, present, future, near, or far,

escapes his attention, that no power, however great, can baffle or deceive him. Inrejecting God, he claims omniscience and omnipotence. In other words an atheist is

one who claims that he himself is God

The Alternative to Christian Theism

Spencer offered a rosy view of atheism which was inconsistent with its ownphilosophy. Bertrand Russell on the other hand, stated that only on the firmfoundation of unyielding despair, can the souls habitationbe safely built (p.50). His

view was a tragic but more consistent one.

Education is often acclaimed as one of the remedies to fix the ills of society, but

education by itself is not the answer. The Nazis were highly educated, and yet they

were capable of such inhuman cruelty (p.53).


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98-123

Neutrality

Liberalism has ridiculed the Christian notion of punishment. From babyhood children

must be spoiled, not spanked, or in any way repressed (p.62) In 1922, John Dewey in

Human Nature and Conduct (Part II, Section 2) encouraged youth to rebel againstparental discipline. When his philosophy was translated into penal code, courts started

to treat crime as an ill to be remedied and not an evil to be punished. The criminal isthen believed to be sick, not wicked; the problem is the community not the individual.

Even in strictly curricular affairs their [the teachers] permissiveness and their

extension of the concept of democracy beyond its proper political meaning often haveresulted in the attempt to make all pupils equal by reducing requirements to the

minimum so everybody can pass a student must not flunk, he must be promoted (p.

63).

Students should not be given control over the curriculum, they come to learn, not tocontrol (p.67) Children need self-control and parental control more than they need

self-expression.

The educational views of a teacher are influenced by theology or philosophy (p.68).

Today Christianity is attacked in secular schools; second graders are indoctrinated inthe evolutionary dogma without having the tools and means to stand up against an

elaborate attack on the theistic worldview. Teachers can deny God, creation and

providence; but the law forbids them to recommend Christianity (p.71).

A.A. Hodge predicted in 1890 that the public education system would propagate anti-

Christian beliefs and that the national education system (separated from religion,favoring neutrality) would become the most efficient instrument for the propagationof Atheism that the world has ever known. He proved to be correct (p.72). A school

system that ignores God, teaches its students to ignore God and consider Him

unimportant in human affairs. This is atheism (p.73). The most effective attacks against

Christianity are not wild interpretations, but plausible misinterpretations (p.79).

Capital punishment is given divine sanction in the Bible (Gen 9:6; Rom 13:4).

Ethics

In the secular schools, sex is often treated as mere biology, thus it is reduced to thesame level of animal sex, but treating this particular subject as a-moral, is in the

Christian view immoral.

In Sweden, the sex education was introduced by socialists and the school curriculumwas forced to define sexual deviations not as diseases or abnormalities but as fully

legitimate methods of satisfying the sexual urges. As a result, Sweden had become the

most licentious nation in Europe (p.101)


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124-228

Secular morality is traced to ancient Greece, but western morality until WWII is tracedback to the Jews who had the purest moral code of the pre-Christian era (p.104). Thus,

Christian ethics and theology cannot be understood apart from the OT (p.105).

Pagan ethics always considered morality as essentially an affair among men. On the

contrary in the Bible main is first of all related to God, and then secondarily andmediately he is related to other men (p.106)

In the Christian world, responsibility implies a superior personal power.

Responsibility is based on the Sovereignty of God; and only in a system where the

world, the human race, and everything else are theistically explained, can responsibility

be a serious element in human life (p.107)

The Christian Philosophy of Education

The first point in Christian Education is the authority of the Bible (p.124).

Our persuasion should not consist in a purely naturalistic view of persuasion for bothrevelation and persuasion are supernatural. Persuasion is the supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit (p.129).

Man might have had a duality of the image of God, half of which was lost because of

sin. The image of God therefore is reason. Without reason there can be no morality or

righteousness (p.135). In this case, it can be asserted that the image of God is mans

mind, not his body for God doesnt have a body. Sin does not eradicate theimage/mind, but it causes it to malfunction (p.136).

John Dewey insisted that logic has already changed and will continue to change. Ifnow this be the case, our traditional logic is but a passing evolutionary moment, our

theories, dependent on this logic, are temporary reactions, parochial social habits, and

Freudian rationalizations; and therefore the evolutionary theory, produced by these

biological urges, cannot be true (p.138)

God has given scholastic aptitude to some and to others mechanical ability. What is

required is that each should use faithfully what he has received (p.141)

Economic and mental equality never existed and never will. All men are created equal

in the sense that justice should be impartially administered. Education, like art, can

never be democratic; both are inherently aristocratic. Some students simply cannotlearn. Try as they may, they cannot grasp the significance of the material.

Artistic ability is one thing a precious gift from God (Beethoven, Rembrandt). Theintellectual understanding of art and music, their functions in society, their relation to

religion and morality, is another thing a still more precious gift from God. The

former is skill; the latter is a subject of education (p.142).


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248-249

Christian principles prescribe a strong liberal arts curriculum (p.166)Vocational curriculum tries to turn men into machine. A liberal arts curriculum aims to

prevent him from becoming one. The fingers may not be trained, but the mind is. The

student does not learn to do, he learns to understand. Like Spinoza, he may have to

grind lenses for a living but he will spend his evening thinking and writing booksthat will influence mankind for centuries.

Pacifism is inconsistent with the Bible. Capital punishment is biblical: the power of the

sword belongs to the state. Liberals object to executing murderers, and approve of

murdering innocent unborn infants (p.184).

The specialist knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything

about nothing (e.g. the scientist)

The generalist knows less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about

everything (e.g. the philosopher) (p.195)

The operation of Christian schools should be based on the supremacy of moral and

spiritual values. It should not be materialistic in its philosophy and purely vocational inits contents. Christian education does not prepare for any one type in particular, but for

any and all kinds in general. Its lessons are applicable to all life, not just some life

(p.203).

God established his covenant with Abraham but also with his seed. Paul tells us in

Galatians that the NT dispensation is the revival and fulfillment of the Abrahamic

covenant. Salvation is not a natural inheritance from father to son, but God worksthrough families. For these reasons Presbyterians administer baptism to infants, just as

the Hebrews circumcised their sons, to show their formal inclusion in the covenant(p.208)

The Primacy of Theory

Theory without practice is dead and practice without theory is blind. Doctrine is

intellectual, and Christians are generally anti-intellectual. Doctrine is ivory tower

philosophy, and Christians usually scorn ivory towers. It is a fundamental, theoreticalmistake of the practical men to think that they can be merely practical, for practice is

always the practice of some theory.

Other Books from Gordon Clark

1. Behaviorism and Christianity2. Logic3. The Philosophy of Science and Belief in God4. Selections from Hellenistic Philosophy


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5. Gods Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics6. Logical Criticisms of Textual Criticism7. What do Presbyterians Believe?8. Language & Theology

clark - a christian philosophy of education (1988)

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