Christian universities can produce wise people, not just trained workers

WACO—Christian universities offer the possibility of an education that leads students to attain wisdom, not just prepare for a vocation, speakers told an international symposium at Baylor University.

Michael Beaty, chair of the philosophy department at Baylor University, addresses the subject of educating for wisdom. (PHOTO/Sarah Baker/Baylor University)

Educating for Wisdom in the 21st Century, an event sponsored by Baylor's Institute for Faith and Learning, drew more than 120 presenters from across the globe. Scholars from more than 60 institutions and a broad range of disciplines examined how to instill wisdom through higher education.

During a panel discussion and question-and-answer session by university presidents, Baylor University President Ken Starr called for a return to the idea of educating for wisdom.

"We come from dust and to dust we shall return, but in the meantime, we've been created by this higher power, in the image of this higher power," he said. Scientists of this past generation truly are beginning to understand the "phenomenal gift" of the mind and its "extraordinary horsepower," he emphasized.

"What a gift we've been given," Starr said. Christian scholarship "allows us to strike a true course … a way of trying to find true north."

During one of the dozens of presentations and discussions, Baylor University philosophers discussed higher education's "crisis in the humanities"—less funding, less staffing and less interest in such courses as philosophy, literature and languages. The crisis may have a solution within Christian humanism, they said.

Panelists (left to right) Ken Starr, president of Baylor University; Robert J. Spitzer, president of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith; and Philip Ryken, president of Wheaton College, discuss what it means to educate for wisdom in a 21st century university. (PHOTO/Robert Rogers/Baylor University)

The humanities are vital because they probe universal questions about the meaning of life, the nature of human happiness, whether and to what extent suffering can be redeemed and the bearing of the existence of God on the meaning of life, said Douglas Henry, associate professor of philosophy in Baylor University's Honors College.

"Christian humanists … cherish the humanities not only on cultural and intellectual grounds, but on moral and spiritual grounds as well," Henry said.

Over the last four decades, as universities have forged partnerships with corporations to stay afloat economically, "the natural sciences, as well as schools of pharmacy and medicine, have been the big winners," said Michael Beaty, professor and chair of Baylor's philosophy department.

"As state and federal politicians deliberate about what programs to cut from state and federal budgets, no doubt we in the humanities will worry that our politicians may decide that the public can no longer afford to invest in the humanities," Beaty said. "Some comment that the humanities don't pay for themselves."

But the crisis is more than a fiscal one, and more than flagging morale among humanities faculty as the humanities appear under siege in some universities, especially public ones, he said.

The man or woman on the street may believe the primary aim of a university is to serve the public good by increasing the state's economic, physical or social wellbeing, Beaty said. "They may support schools of engineering, business, education or law and strong programs in the natural sciences but be skeptical about the value of arts and letters or the humanities."

Douglas Henry, associate professor of philosophy in the Baylor University Honors College, talks about educating for wisdom in the 21st century university. (PHOTO/Sarah Baker/Baylor University)

But higher education should involve more than developing career skills, the philosophers said.

Henry suggested one reason for the crisis is some humanities teachers no longer expect to find insight when they ask difficult questions about life and death, good and evil.

"Humanists of this sort have little alternative to despair," Henry said.

Others address deep questions with arrogance or irreverence.

But the tradition of Christian humanism offers a different approach, combining humility with hope —the view that "even if we are mere dust and ashes, we are inspirited with the breath of God," Henry said.

That kind of humility can be seen in Scripture, he said, quoting Philippians 2:6-8. It says although Jesus "was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

If one is created by God, the natural urge is to "wonder, seek, learn, stretch, strain, long, yearn and doggedly work for the greatness of which human lives are susceptible," Henry said.

"Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God who takes a human form, shows us life at its utmost," he said. "Because of Jesus, magnanimity—greatness of soul—is expected of us. No less is humility appropriate to our circumstances, for we are God's creatures and we live in a fallen world."

With the theological virtue of hope in view, Henry said, "Good scholars, be they in the humanities or elsewhere, look to Jesus for their bearings in everything. And if Christian humanists keep Jesus well in focus, the crisis that elsewhere leads in the directions of despair and presumption will not overtake us."