“I suppose there are two views about everything,” said Mark.
Mark Studdock and Bill Hingest, in C.S. Lewis’s book, That Hideous Strength, are having a conversation about what truth is. Bill asserts that although there are many things viewed to be true, there is only one truth. We live in a time where truth is seen as relative. You may have heard the phrase, ‘That may be true for you, but it is not true for me.’ Think about the implications of that. This means I determine what truth is. I get to play god and determine what is most important and what lines can be crossed. We, in classical education, reject this notion and embrace the idea that not only is there true truth, but we can know the author of it.
By sending your kids to a classical school you have signed up for us teaching your children that there is true truth. True truth. Let that phrase sink in. What does it mean that there is true truth? Is there such a thing as false truth? It seems every classical school these days has bought whole hog into the idea of the transcendentals of Truth, Goodness and Beauty and over the next three weeks, I will be writing about each one. Today we dive into truth.
In The Academy’s Portrait of a Graduate, we say that we aim to, “form whole students who understand how to decipher, to love and to seek out the True, the Good, and the Beautiful in God’s good world.” We want them to know what truth is and to be able to defend it winsomely. How do we know what truth is? We read in the 119th Psalm that, “the sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.” Truth is ordered and ordained by God and we must live and believe in a way that aligns not only our hearts but also our minds to this understanding.
Let us reflect together on the answer Bill Higest gives to Mark, “Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there’s never more than one.”
Friends, absolute truth is the very foundation of our pedagogy and the fountain out of which our teaching flows. Your students are being steeped in an understanding that there are things that are true and things that are false. Rest easy knowing their affections are being ordered to love that which is truly true and to reject that which is false, for the glory of God and the good of man.
Notes:
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