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So what do we mean by Western civilization? Today we equate the \u201cWest\u201d with Europe (predominantly Western Europe), and its offspring in the New World (especially the United States). However, Western civilization goes all the way back to the ancient world, grounded in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece and Rome. At the foundation of Western civilization, the Americas were unknown and our current understanding of global politics and economics was incomprehensible. Yet all the seeds of the distinctive culture of the west were present in the ancient context.
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Important to our understanding of Western civilization are three key pillars that make it distinctive in the world: the Judeo-Christian tradition, democracy and rationality. I\u2019m using these three concepts to carry a lot of freight, so I will spend the better part of this essay developing what I mean by these. Along the way we can evaluate why learning Western civilization is so important to our educational goals today, while also addressing some misconceptions that have undermined the perceived value of an education based on Western civilization.
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Judeo-Christian Tradition
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The religious traditions flowing from the Old and New Testaments represent the monotheistic base from which Western civilization has operated. This monotheistic base won out over its polytheistic context largely because of its correlation to the logical singularity of truth itself, which we will explore further when we contemplate rationality below. This singularity of truth corresponding with divine singularity is most prominently expressed through divine revelation. The divine logos functions as an expression of truth through God\u2019s self-disclosure to the world. (Many will be able to hear echoes of Jordan Peterson’s work, which I reviewed previously<\/a>) From outside our terrestrial systems, the voice of the creator and sustainer of the universe brings a perspective unachievable from our limited and finite vantage point. The Judeo-Christian matrix of beliefs promotes certain understandings of human existence and experience that are unique to Western civilization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Genesis 1-3, we learn that humanity has divine attributes, yet is fallen in nature. All people are created in the image of God. This makes us unique creatures in the universe, because we are steeped in divine qualities within our being. Yet the story of the fall of Adam and Eve explains how chaos and corruption taints and twists that divine spark. Worse than the devil outside of us is the devil inside us all. Sin causes enmity between people and God, between individuals, between people and creation. This aspect of our nature is often reflected in literature through narrative conflict. The idea of the fall explains why life is a path of suffering. At the core of both Jewish and Christian faith is sacrifice. To atone for sin, sacrifice is necessary. In the Old Testament, the rhythm of regular sacrifice upon the altar framed the narrative of individual and corporate sin. Sacrifice eradicated evil, and thereby the people aligned themselves with a holy God. \u201cBe holy for I am holy\u201d (Lev. 11:44). The emblem of the cross is paradigmatic for Christianity because it represents a solution to the problem of sin in the form of God entering into our humanity to accomplish the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. Salvation is accomplished not through our own effort, but through someone coming from outside our closed system to do what we could not do. The infinite takes on finitude to save the finite. Both Judaism and Christianity promote essential moral values based on the holiness of God. The moral law is bestowed on the world by a moral law giver who alone is holy and capable to proclaim what is just and right. The contours of the Judeo-Christian tradition have shaped the west such that our legal traditions, our moral sensibilities and our understanding of individual rights can be tied to this heritage. It should be noted that the west is not the only locale where Christianity took root. We can trace from the earliest centuries historic churches in Ethiopia or India, for example, which maintain a living tradition today. Christianity has never been equivalent with Europe or fair-skinned culture. But for some reason Christianity took hold in the west in such a way that it fairly comprehensively became enmeshed within the narrative of the west in ways it didn\u2019t in Asia or Africa. As we witness something like the fall of Western culture, it should not be surprising, then, that biblical Christianity has grown in both Asia and Africa. Since the time of ancient Athens, the ideal of governance by members of the populace has been one of several political experiments in Western civilization, and has ultimately gained broad consensus as a hallmark of the west. The fundamental idea has been to involve as many people as possible in self-government, with the assumption that individual liberties are best protected when individuals have a voice in policy making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Enlightenment sought to ground human experience in natural laws, leading to an articulation of fundamental human rights. This promoted a shift in thinking about government. The divine right of kings was questioned in light of authoritarian or incompetent monarchies under which human rights were disregarded. One need not listen to the vox populi when one is God\u2019s sovereignly appointed authority on earth. The wars of religion (less of the people and more the monarch\u2019s religion) left a distaste for state mandated religion. If individuals were not able to speak their mind to enact reasonable changes in policy, if they were not allowed to worship based on conscience, if they were not permitted to enjoy their basic rights as human beings, then government must change. The revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries challenged the established monarchical model of government in favor of a more democratic form, with human rights as the driving force. In the American experiment of democracy, the founders quickly realized that one could exchange one form of tyranny (the authoritarian monarch) for another form in the many tyrants of unstructured democracy. Republicanism, or representational government, struck the middle ground between authoritarianism and anarchy. The enduring quality of the US Constitution reflects the depth of thought that went into the founding of the US republic. James Madison, the primary author of the constitution, relied heavily on classical texts and ideas as well as the thoughts of Bacon, Descartes and Locke. In the same years as the ratification of the Constitution, France experienced its own revolution, swinging radically from the authoritarian control of government by Louis XVI to the Reign of Terror by revolutionary republicans. Napoleon was able to step into the leadership vacuum left by these upheavals, with France only able to establish a lasting republic after years of aimless warfare. The American and French fights for democratic governments are emblematic of a centuries-long consideration of self-governance by a knowledgeable populace. Self-government was initially limited to landowning males with expansions of suffrage emerging during and after the industrial revolution. The ideal of popular sovereignty was that government would derive from the authority of the governed who participate in government primarily through voting for representatives based on their knowledgeable participation in public policy debates. People would have to hold in tension their own personal liberties and the common good to enact laws that both protected individual liberties and promoted the welfare of all. There are many forms that democracy has taken, and they have largely cohered in a mutual identity over against authoritarian and communist forms of government during and after the Cold War. Education has been at the heart of this distinctively Western understanding of government. If people are to participate in self-government, they should be well educated in order to understand the rule of law, to engage in public policy debate and to contemplate the ethical values that bear upon individual and corporate well being. The transformation of education in the aftermath of the industrial revolution to focus predominantly on technical knowledge and job skills has gone a long way toward undermining what has been the chief aims of education in enabling the citizenry to participate in self-government with knowledge and insight. The loss is felt throughout society, as the voting base is often duped by logical fallacies and emotionally charged sound bites. If the fall of the west has drawn nigh, it has occurred due to the erosion of its democratic ideals. And the erosion of democracy occurred through educational reform<\/a> that gutted it of its value as an instrument to provide a well-educated populace, able to participate meaningfully in self-government. At the very foundation of Western culture is a philosophical commitment to ground belief and truth claims in rational thought. Quite simply, rationalism is the view that human intellect is utilized to acquire and test knowledge. From the time of Aristotle, methods have been developed to hone intellect so that we can arrive at truth by way of deduction. (Jason has written extensively on Aristotle, which you can see here<\/a> and here<\/a>.) The syllogistic logic developed by Aristotle enabled thinkers to examine statements and draw conclusions deductively. The scholastics of the middle ages expounded Christian theology by using dialectic to extent philosophical and theological by way of inference based upon the authorities of scripture and the church fathers. The rebirth of classical thought during the Renaissance contradicted the scholastics\u2019 dependence on Aristotelian logic, favoring rhetorical categories of argumentation over abstract syllogistic reasoning. However, dialectic remained the fundamental vehicle for Renaissance and Reformational thought<\/a> despite humanists\u2019 aversion to scholasticism\u2019s dependence on Aristotle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the Enlightenment, Descartes challenged the empiricism of the scientific method by applying a method of doubt, or skepticism. Our senses can be inaccurate, therefore, the acquisition of knowledge must be attained through pure thought; by the application of deduction. Doubt can even be applied to our own existence. We may perceive that we doubt our own existence, but, as Descartes reasoned, something must be having the thought that we perceive as doubt. The thinker that is doing the doubting must exists, therefore I must exist. Cogito ergo sum<\/em>. This methodological skepticism, then, utilizes doubt to tear away irrational thought in order to acquire foundational or a priori<\/em> knowledge. The idea of first principles can be applied to all fields of study: mathematics, ethics, politics metaphysics, etc. Rationalism was essential to the founding of the United States, as the revolutionaries based their call for independence on basic, self-evident truths that are natural laws giving human beings certain rights. As an example, take freedom of speech. Spinoza argued that human beings have the innate ability and the natural right to think their own thoughts and to express them verbally. A government that protects free speech for everyone does not undermine its own authority. If it were to attempt to limit expression the government would actually promote rebellion, since human thought cannot be controlled externally without violating a natural law. Therefore, government ought to protect and promote freedom of speech with the one caveat that speech not lead to harmful action, since the government has authority to maintain law and order. (see Spinoza, A Theological-Political Treatise<\/em>, Part IV, 20.70-76) A tension exists, though, between the pillars of Christianity and rationality in Western culture. Rationality, by only accepting human intellect as a source of knowledge, rejects divine revelation and spiritual insight as sources of knowledge. The skepticism of Enlightenment thinkers runs counter to belief as the basis of Christian doctrine and experience. Nevertheless, Judaism and Christianity have historically lived within the tension of faith and reason. The Old Testament has frequent appeals to human intellect. The rational application of the ten commandments to all aspects of life is at the heart of OT law. The wisdom tradition champions the acquisition of knowledge: \u201cAn intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge\u201d (Prov. 18:15). The prophet Isaiah proclaims the divine message, \u201cCome let us reason together, says the Lord\u201d (Isa. 1:18). In the New Testament Jesus often utilizes reason, with examples of scriptural interpretation from the Sermon on the Mount coming to mind. Numerous times in Acts, Paul uses reason and persuasion in his preaching (see for example Acts 17:1-4). In 1 Peter, the apostle calls his readers to have a defense prepared for anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that resides within (1 Pet. 3:15). This tension between faith and reason saw the Christian church at various times draw upon the thought of Plato or Aristotle. Augustine in his Confessions<\/em> reflects at length on the harmonization of faith and reason, yet recognizes the limits of pure reason:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since we are too weak by unaided reason to find out truth, and since, because of this, we need the authority of the holy writings, I had now begun to believe that thou wouldst not, under any circumstances, have given such eminent authority to those Scriptures throughout all lands if it had not been that through them thy will may be believed in and that thou might be sought. For, as to those passages in the Scripture which had heretofore appeared incongruous and offensive to me, now that I had heard several of them expounded reasonably, I could see that they were to be resolved by the mysteries of spiritual interpretation. The authority of Scripture seemed to me all the more revered and worthy of devout belief because, although it was visible for all to read, it reserved the full majesty of its secret wisdom within its spiritual profundity.<\/p>Augustine, Confessions<\/em> 6.5<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n If reason is limited apart from faith in divine, authoritative revelation, faith is likewise enhanced by reason. Anselm\u2019s famous motto, \u201cfaith seeking understanding\u201d (fides quaerens intellectum<\/em>) articulates the view that faith can be grounded in first principles and is ultimately consistent with rational thought. Having explored to some extent the unique qualities of Western civilization, we may now be in a position to understand why it is so important to place it so prominently within our school curriculum. Students need to learn their story. The Western story is a complex story, unique and meaningful. It is not a superior civilization nor is it without its flaws. One only need consider the crusades or the slave trade to see that Western civilization has taken its wrong turns along the way. But there is genuine value in learning the deep structures of Western culture despite being flawed, and because it is flawed. Churchill\u2019s loose quotation of Santayana would seem to fit here, \u201cThose who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.\u201d However I take a more positive view. There is something precious to be learned that if lost does harm not only to individuals but also the whole society. The deep structures of Western civilization are ideally suited to train the hearts, souls and minds of students who will lead our churches and cultural institutions. When it comes to the organizing principles of Western civilization, all who have been raised in the West will find their own perspective reflected in its history. Those with a Christian perspective will want to analyze the history of Western interaction with Judeo-Christian ideas: the lineage of theological thought centered around monotheism, divine revelation and the covenantal relationship between God and man. Those who are committed to democracy and human rights as fundamental values will want to engage Western civilization to understand its development and the tensions that exist between individual rights and the good of society. Those who are committed to the flowering of rationality, including modern invention, science, humanities and the creative arts will want to mine its riches and understand it deeply. Let this be an invitation to mine the Western tradition for all it is worth. The classical Christian movement has at its core a commitment to teaching Western civilization. Even though we teach Western civ, its distinctive qualities are not always clear. As a result, many educators (even within the classical movement) question why we would teach Western civilization. Here I will lay out what I think are the three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[49],"tags":[2,97,24,98,13,14,99,58,6,96],"class_list":["post-316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classical-tradition","tag-aristotle","tag-christianity","tag-classical-education","tag-democracy","tag-ideas","tag-philosophy","tag-rationalism","tag-truth","tag-virtue","tag-western-civilization"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/a\/a1\/Florence_Cathedral.jpg\/1024px-Florence_Cathedral.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nDemocracy
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nRationality
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nA Rationale for Western Civilization
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