In Philippians 1:9, Paul writes
that it is his prayer for his readers that their “love may abound more and
more, with knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve what is
excellent”. This encapsulates well our goal for our students at Veritas. We
desire that they will grow in wisdom, virtue, and godliness through their years
with us, that their love for God and for others would abound. Ours is not
merely an intellectual enterprise, but one in which learning is directed toward
an end that is greater than academic achievement. As such, we must consider for
what purpose we are learning, and any limits or boundaries of that learning. The
purpose of learning is, like everything else in life, to move us closer to
loving God with all of our hearts, minds, souls and strength, and our neighbors
as ourselves. Anything else, any other motive, moves us away from that and
therefore from our true purpose.
C.S. Lewis writes in The Abolition of Man about his desire
for a kind of learning that “would not do even to minerals and vegetables what
modern science threatens to do to man himself.” He warns against the modern
approach to education that tends toward an emphasis on power and control, rather
than toward humility and gratitude. In this he is echoing a concern found in
sources as different as Augustine, John Milton, and even Mary Shelley. It is an
enduring problem because learning, like all things human, can be made to serve and
to glorify the living God or it can be bent to serve the whims of fallen man.
Too often, of course, the latter has been the case.
We find this problem frequently
described using the terms curiositas
and studiositas. Not all desire for
learning is appropriate or lawful. Curiositas, instead of meaning a healthy
wonder, was used describe a vice that desired knowledge that is novel, or an
appetite that is prideful and is intently interested in knowing for its own
sake, with possessing knowledge in a way that gives control or power to the
knower. It is intensly selfish, and while the ‘curious’ in this sense may
discover useful things, they do not acknowledge the source. There is no
gratitude for the gift or the giver. Augustine writes that the ‘curious’,
rather than loving and being thankful for knowledge, actually “hate the unknown
because they want everything to be known and thus nothing to remain unknown.”
They cannot abide the fact that, ultimately, mastery is impossible. It is
simply not possible to fully plumb the depths of the creature let alone the Creator. Creation is a constant reminder to man that
he is a limited and fallible creature. This is hateful to the ‘curious’, and so
they end with hating the creator of it all. The object of curiositas is control
and power, and its result is ultimately unbelief.
Milton also warns against the
desire for knowledge that is inappropriate, that is, not regulated by virtue.
In Paradise Lost, Adam and the angel
Raphael have a long discussion that ranges from the history of the cosmos to
the war in heaven between the faithful and fallen angels. In this discussion,
Adam learns much and the angel commends his desire to understand more about God
and his ways. But there is a potential danger that Raphael presents to the
unfallen Adam. After approving Adam’s questions about the working of the
universe, the angel gives this direction: “…the rest from man or angel the
Great Architect did wisely to conceal and not divulge his secrets to be scanned
by them who ought rather admire.” Milton says here through the angel that
people, in our desire to understand, need to be careful that this knowledge
leads us to admire God and not just to analyze (‘scanned’). To understand is to
worship. This is the essence of ‘studiositas’. It doesn’t mean what we mean by
the contemporary word studious, someone who merely has their nose in a book all
the time. The ‘studious’, in the older sense, understand that the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Studiositas looks for permanence, an eternal
perspective that inspires astonishment and joy. It is a virtue that seeks the
sublime rather than the mundane, and it leads to devotion, wonder, and
gratitude for both the creature and the Creator. The result is worship, and a
practical wisdom that both glorifies God and relieves somewhat the present suffering
of this fallen world, as an act of service.
Interestingly, the two approaches
to learning are well described in Mary Shelley’s early 19th century novel, Frankenstein.
Early in the novel the author contrasts the student (and later creator of the
novel’s ‘monster’) Frankenstein’s approach to learning to that of his future
wife (his ‘companion’ in this passage):
While my companion contemplated
with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearance of things, I
delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I
desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn hidden laws of nature,
gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest
sensations I can remember.
Frankenstein here begins a gradual
descent into an uncontrolled vice to possess “the secrets of heaven and earth”,
and he pursues this to his “utter and terrible destruction”. In this pursuit he
neglects all duty, abandons his friends and his family, and is completely
consumed with his desire to know the secrets of life-giving spirit. This
neglect, of course, is a clear sign that this activity is destructive, not
virtuous. As Frankenstein later says,
A human being in perfection ought
always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or
transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit
of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply
yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for
those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is
certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.
Of course, the opinions of a
Romantic novelist are not normative for us, but Shelley has the unhappy
Frankenstein give an important warning that we would be wise to heed, about an
unbridled, unrestrained lust for knowledge and power. At Veritas, we certainly
want students to be curious in the contemporary meaning of the term—interested
in many things and learning from a sense of wonder—and classical, Christian
education is clearly not anti-intellectual. We joyfully recognize that all wisdom
and learning flow to us as gracious gifts from the Father. But all of this, whatever
we learn, ought to be guided toward the fear of the Lord that is the beginning
of wisdom.
Knowledge is a magnificent,
astonishing gift, and accordingly, the pursuit of wisdom should be a virtuous
and godly undertaking. The purpose of learning is to grow to love God with all
of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and to love our neighbor as
ourselves. This is ‘studiousness’, the satisfying of our desire for the sublime
and the great, found only in knowing God rightly.
