“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.'”
Posted in In line with Scripture
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” – Psalm 14: 1
I just started at Massey University as a full-time student (taking three papers this semester). The main motivation was to receive the mature student’s allowance, which along with family support is our main income. Let me tell you, doing the reading required for my classes as well as editing KEYSTONE and TEACH is a bit more than I had anticipated.
However, the first day in our Philosophy of Education class, the professor, Dr John Clark, wanting to let us know where he is coming from stated: “I am a materialist. I have no time for gods or souls or metaphysics.” I appreciated him doing that. However, I now am concerned that I am not going to get any value for the fees I paid to attend that course. Why? Because, where the Bible says the FOOL says in his HEART “There is no God,” this professor said it out loud!
But after three weeks of it, I have found that all my other lecturers and the theorists whose writings I have to read, are all of the same ilk. Bronfenbrenner and Vygotsky are busy constructing theories of human development. Because they believe we are really only animals that walk on two legs and possess sophisticated language skills, we develop according to our biology, our environment and the socio-historical contexts in which we live. The God of the universe does not get a look in! Hirst, Lloyd, Langford et a1 may try to divide knowledge into subjects or integrate them into fields, but first they have to overcome the hurdles of “Why do this anyway?”, “What is the purpose of education?”, “What constitutes an educated person?”, “What, in fact, constitutes a person ?”….and they do not get over these hurdles because they do not have a comprehensive integrated philosophy of life. Once again, God, the Author of life, the Omniscient One Who has revealed to us mortals pure truth in the Bible, is totally ignored or assumed to be irrelevant! In other words, they offer their pickings, what they have concluded as a result of many years of thinking about it. It is like letting someone else fill your plate at a smorgasbord: some of the stuff looks good, some looks terrible, and altogether it is rather unappealing.
This is especially so for us Christians, on whom our God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has had mercy. He has revealed to us the comprehensive truth about this whole universe, from the reasons for evil and death, to the meaning of pain, to the purpose of it all:
He has revealed these things to us in the Bible. We know who we are. We know why we are here. We know where we are going. Yet none of my professors can answer any of these questions!
As a further Scripture says. “Knowledge puffs up …” (I Corinthians 8:l). It is so easy to gain so much book knowledge as to put to shame many of your peers. It really isn’t that difficult, in fact. We can instruct our children so as to appear to be geniuses. Just get them to learn to count to ten in four languages, memorize four or five salvation verses with references, learn the first line of the periodic table, and all the bones of the body, and be able to name and place all the capitals of all the countries of Europe on a blank map. That would take maybe two weeks to learn if you had no other projects going. People would be amazed! But what do they really know? What wisdom has been imparted as a result of this learning?
We home schoolers must beware of imparting facts as if they were separate from the Creator of all facts. We must beware of our children gaining knowledge apart from the Biblical framework which tells us all knowledge is for the specific reasons of:
1) Bringing glory to God by revealing the wonders of His creation (I Corinthians 10:31);
2 ) Extending His sovereignty over every square inch of His creation through our stewardship in Christian dominion over it (Genesis 1:28):
3) Bringing the lost rebels of His creation, our fellow human beings, created in His image, back into fellowship with Him through the message and the ministry of reconciliation through the Cross of Christ (II Corinthians 5:17-20).
God has given us at least these three reasons for learning, for becoming educated, for engaging in home schooling. This is something you can sink your teeth into; this encompasses all subjects of the curriculum and every other field of endeavour as well; this will keep you going all your life; this makes the state’s reasons for educating, “To produce good citizens who can get worthwhile and fulfilling jobs and help make the world a better place to live”, look like a bad joke.
Because me know God, and that He is totally Sovereign over every atom in the universe, and because we know what He is going to do in the future, we Christian home schoolers take the education of our children very seriously … it is educating both for time and for eternity. My professors at Massey CANNOT take education as seriously as we do, for they do not have the eternal aspect in their thinking. I delight in the knowledge that virtually all of us Christian home schoolers can say along with the Psalmist:
“I have more understanding than all my teachers (at Massey), for Your testimonies are my meditation. “ –Psalm 119:99
From Keystone Magazine
March 1997 , Vol. III No.2
P O Box 9064
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email: craig@hef.org.nz