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Learning to Become Persons — a Theological Approach to Educational Aims

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Adrian Thatcher
Adrian Thatcher
Affiliation:
College of St. Mark and St. John, Plymouth PL68 BH
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Extract

Christian theology, because of its concern with ‘all things’, is sometimes able to provide salvific insights into academic areas far removed from theological syllabuses. In this article I take one such example and show how theology can make a rich contribution to the understanding of another discipline. The example is education.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , November 1983 , pp. 521 - 533
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1983

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References

1 See e.g. Dearden, R. F., Hirst, P., Peters, R. S. (eds.), A Critique of Educational Aims, Routledge and Regan Paul, London and Boston, 1972.Google Scholar

2 The best known exponent of this view is Glenn Langford. See e.g. his Philosophy and Education, Macmillan, London, 1968, p. 60Google Scholar; ‘The Concept of Education’ in Langford, G. and O'Connor, D. J. (eds.), New Essays in the Philosophy of Education, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1973, p. 3Google Scholar; Teaching as a Profession, Manchester University Press, Manchester, p. 4.Google Scholar

3 See my ‘Education and the Concept of a Person’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, xiv, no. 1, 1980, p. 123Google Scholar. I develop here Langford's basic position that ‘learning to become a person’ expresses a conceptual truth about what education is. I want to make the concept of person a prescriptive one which provides practical guidance for educators, and Langford welcomes this as a ‘different but complementary task’ to the one he has set himself in his writings. See Langford, Glenn, ‘Reply to Adrian Thatcher’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, xiv, no. 1, 1980, p. 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 In Roman law a persona was a party to a contract. In the Roman theatre apersona was the role of an actor throughout a drama and this use is preserved in the phrase dramatis personae which is still to be found at the head of cast lists in modern theatre programmes. It was also used of the mask worn by actors.

5 When Augustine used the formula ‘one substance and three persons’ he warned that ‘three persons’ ‘… is understood only in a mystery … in order that there might be something to say when it was asked what the three are which true faith pronounces to be three.’ (De Trinitate, 4.7)

6 Text in e.g. Stevenson, J. (ed.), Creeds, Councils and Controversies, S.P.C.K., London, 1966, p. 337.Google Scholar

7 Robinson, J. A. T., The Human Face of God, S.C.M., London, 1973, p. 67.Google Scholar

8 Peacocke, A. R., Creation and the World of Science, Clarendon Press, Oxford, P. 245.Google Scholar

9 Nineham, Dennis, ‘Epilogue’, in Hick, John (ed.), The Myth of God Incarnate, S.C.M., London, 1977, p. 195.Google Scholar

10 Nineham, Dennis, ‘Jesus in the Gospels’, in Pittengcr, Norman (ed.), Christ For Us Today, S.C.M., London, p. 61.Google Scholar

11 Cupitt, Don, ‘One jesus, Many Christs’, in Sykes, S. & Clayton, J. P. (eds.), Christ, Faith and History, Cambridge University Press, 1972, p. 137.Google Scholar

12 Küng, Hans, On Being a Christian, Collins, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 129.Google Scholar

13 Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology, Volume Two, J. Nisbet, Digswell Place, 1957, p. 131Google Scholar. In following Tillich here I am not trying to evade the historical problem in Christology as Tillich was often accused of doing; I only emphasize thai for Christians being ‘in Christ’ is very much more than ‘following Christ’.

14 Greeley, Andrew, The Persistence of Religion, S.C.M., London, 1973, p. 241.Google Scholar

15 See the recent re-issue of Hick's, JohnFaith and Knowledge, Collins, Fontana, 1974 (1st edition 1957).Google Scholar

16 Wittgenstein, L., On Certainty (eds. Anscombe, G. E. M. & von Wright, G. H.), Oxford, Blackwell, 1974, para. 105.Google Scholar

17 See my ‘Education and the Concept of a Person’, art.cit., pp. 124–6.

18 I sharply disagree with Leslie Francis who seems content with this truncated view. See his ‘Theology and Education: A Research Perspective’, Scottish Journal of Theology, xxxii, no. 1, 1979, p. 62.Google Scholar

19 Schilling, H. J. K., The New Consciousness in Science and Religion, S.C.M., London, 1973, p. 30Google Scholar. The phrases are borrowed from the theologian Jaroslav Pelikan.

20 Polanyi, Michael, Personal Knowledge, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958, (1969 edn.), P. 358.Google Scholar

21 See A. R. Peacocke, op. cit., especially parts 6–8. The writings of Teilhard de Chardin are obviously relevant here.

22 Shelley, P. B., In Defence of Poetry, in Clayre, A. (ed.), Nature and Industrialization, Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 213.Google Scholar

23 op. cit., p. 214.

24 Here I follow Strawson, P. F., Individuals, Methuen, London, 1957, ch. 3.Google Scholar

25 ‘Education and the Concept of a Person’, art. cit,., pp. 124–6.

26 The Greek verb sōzein can mean ‘to heal’ or ‘to save’. The modern term ‘salve’, meaning a ‘healing ointment’, preserves the Latin salvus, ‘healed’.