Faith, Learning and Christian Higher Education

Abstract

Responding to the absence of readily available models in Australia for thinking about Christian higher education, this thesis investigates what might constitute its foundational principles and distinctive character. The thesis considers the Western Christian tradition, the history of the university, and the contemporary experience of Christian higher education in the United States to identify models for thinking about Christian higher education. It is argued that a central issue to be addressed in developing a distinctively Christian approach to scholarship is the relationship of faith and reason, an issue to which the Christian tradition offers a range of approaches. The question of faith and reason has a wider cultural significance since, it is argued, Western culture is fundamentally constituted by the relationship of Jerusalem and Athens, in which the inherent tensions do not obscure an ultimate commitment to the unity of truth. In contemporary debates over Christian higher education, the concept of faith-learning integration is a central issue. Given the variety of definitions and models proposed, the thesis considers the approaches which have been adopted in the Christian tradition. The approaches of Philo and the Church Fathers to classical learning are considered, with extended attention given to the 'faith seeking understanding' model attributed to St Augustine. Drawing upon Neoplatonism, Augustine's theory of illumination explained why true knowledge was dependent upon divine revelation. Augustine's approach also held that 'all truth is God's truth', and justified the appropriation of classical learning as analogous to the Hebrews 'spoiling Egypt' at the time of the Exodus. The Augustinian approach offers significant insight into the role of the will and the affections in knowing, and justifies belief as a reliance upon authority. While Augustine's is not the only model that might validly be termed 'Christian', and is not without its problems, it is a model which still has much to offer to Christian higher education today. The Augustinian approach has a profound historical significance since it established the epistemological framework for western Christendom throughout the middle ages. In responding to the criticism that the term 'Christian university' is an oxymoron, the thesis also considers aspects of the history of the medieval and Reformation universities, seeking to establish the extent to which it is possible for the university to be regarded as a Christian institution. It is argued that the university did not arise out of the rediscovery of Aristotelian philosophy, and that it is indeed possible to regard the university as a Christian institution for much of its history. The possibility of a Christian university today is thus not inconsistent with the history and institutional character of the university. The contributions to thinking about faith and learning and Christian higher education of Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Henry Newman are also discussed. One of the critical tasks of Christian higher education generally, and of a Christian university specifically, is the synthesis or integration of faith and learning, of which both Augustine and Thomas Aquinas were exemplars. It is argued however that, while the Thomistic approach can validly be termed 'Christian', it has been more successfully pursued in Catholic institutions than in their Protestant counterparts in which a central authority to regulate the boundaries of the domains of faith and reason is absent. A critical issue for Christian higher education today is that of secularising pressures, and thus the recent history of the secularisation of Christian higher education institutions in the United States is also considered. It is argued that the secularisation of these institutions was due particularly to the view of faith and learning which they had adopted. The study concludes that the 'worldview' approach advocated by Abraham Kuyper offers an approach to scholarship which is both resistant to secularisation, and consistent with the Christian tradition, particularly as expressed by Augustine and Calvin.