Children's Logic and Human Freedom

My daughter recently and randomly quipped with airtight logic, "God made people, and people made cars, so God made cars."

Lady Truth being Unveiled by Reason

Firstly, as a father I couldn't have been more proud, you know, my daughter putting together these premises to construct a syllogism.  Secondly, as a staunch defender of free-will and human responsibility, my eyes dilated and focus narrowed as I launched into an intense philosophical rebuttal - with a 4 and 5 year old.  When I reached the end of my exordium, and began my enumeration (15 seconds later), I was on the verge of losing my audience.  So, being the savvy rhetoric teacher I am in my dreams, I did what all desperate dads (and speakers) do, I asserted my point with an appeal to authority.

Translated to adult-speak, I said, "If people make bombs, and God makes people, did God make bombs?"  (I translated the word "bombs" for you, dear reader, instead of the much more philosophical and universal term I used for my daughters - "bad things".)

With my question served, my daughters digested, and in the ensuing conversation understood the basic idea that God is not the author of evil, rather, we cause good and evil by our free choice. Though I believe the "free-will answer" the best philosophical answer to the problem of evil, this post is not about that simple topic.  My brother will have to provide that...no pressure Alex.  That aside, free choice is one of the mysteries of life. Yet my children, in their children minds and childlike faith (something we should strive for), understood the basic idea that God created free-beings and the truth that He cannot do evil.   What big ideas in such little people!  What mysteries, though remaining mysteries, grasped by such small statured person!  Upon reflection on my conviction of man's freedom to choose good or evil, applications began whizzing through my mind.  The particular applications that flew past my window at break-neck speeds ranged from my philosophy of education, ideas of parenting, political views, to the reason I'm a Catholic not a Calvinist.  With this post, not wishing to bite of more than I can chew, I'd like to offer a few applications relating to my philosophy of education.

In my Liberating Education articles, I tried to offer a starting point for an exploration of education.  In Part 2, I essentially attempted to communicate my view of education as humanistic.  Though this term is often used in scathing criticism in Christian circles I've been part of, opposed to the Humanist Manifestos rooted in an atheistic secularism, such as John Dewey's, I use the term in an Erasmusian sense, in the spirit of Christian Humanism.  I would, in fact, call myself a Christian or Religious Humanist. What I mean by humanistic, is that my view of life, for myself and culture, is about bettering the human being, improving his ability to first recognize good, and then to choose it; and therefore, being humanistic means reckoning with the fact that all the good or evil we do is never done in isolation.  That aside, my daughter with her bright blue eyes and innocence, reminded me how important it is to see that we can cause good or evil.  Though I am convinced the deep mystery of human freedom will ultimately remain a mystery, as with most mysteries, the power hidden within lifts our hearts to contemplate higher things.  Truly, it is our freedom to choose good or evil that is our greatest power!  We can create cures to ravaging diseases or create oppressive governments to enslave the weak.  We can paint pictures that raise the human spirit or pictures that lead to addictions and societal destruction.  A wise-old man with a white beard past his waist once said, "It is not our abilities that make us who we are, it is our choices."

In terms of education, and by education I mean a way of life not "school", is it not the chief aim to form our wills, that is free our wills, to choose the good consistently?  But what kind of formation does our will need?  There is not other answer than the Truth; and the faculty that apprehends Truth is our intellect.  Therefore, our will needs to be directed to the good by the intellect.  Here we have arrived at the heart of a liberal arts education, and consequently, my philosophy of education.  In other words, my philosophy of education is a training in recognizing the Truth and therefore forming the will to choose the Good.

The challenge that I immediately run into in teaching 7-12th graders, even with great families that I have served over the years, is the many varying ideas of freedom dancing about their heads.  What is the truth about freedom?  Freedom is typically thought of as freedom from someone or something,not entirely untrue, but half the truth is as valuable as a lie.  Another view of freedom that bombards us in our media and universities, is the freedom from political oppression, racism, sexism, and religion.  The classical or traditional view, which I believe to be the true view, is that freedom is freedom from, first, ourselves and our own warring desires, but it doesn't stop there, it is in order to be a master of oneself to have a freedom to act in accordance with the truth, in other words, to CHOOSE what is good.   The lecture I posted by Robert George discusses this idea in more depth. The youth-culture view of freedom consists of being freed from rules to do what they desire, so from the outset, they are suspicious and skeptical of authorities, because this view of freedom places authorities in the way of the youth's quest for freedom, so called.

What, then, is the way out of this bog of confusion?  At the risk of sounding cliche, it is through the love of the truth as a teacher, and the love of the youth as a person.  Scripture says, "Love covers a multitude of sins."  This is what is on the inside of my wedding ring, 1 Peter 4:8, and I believe it to be central to my life: as a man, husband, father, and teacher.  As a teacher, I think loving the youth as they are, as human persons and mysteries, with virtually limitless potential has been the key to my praxis as a teacher.  Concretely, the vision of a classical education, rooted in a view of human nature and freedom as outlined above, best fits with my strong belief of loving truth and loving people.  I believe this way of life, that is education, is the best hope for the renewal of culture.  This is not to say one kind of classical schooling is superior to another, as a liberal arts education isn't a TECHNIQUE, something I wanted to stress in my articles, and am forever stressing in a confused culture that wants an immediate pill to swallow to relieve the problem.

Classical education is not a pill to solve a short term problem.  It is not new technique to get ahead in society, to keep up with the Joneses, to get more money for college, though it may help with all of these.  Classical education is above all rooted in a view of human nature, and it's end is the perfection of human nature.  As a Catholic, I call this Divine Beatitude, that is to see God as he is, to be brought into the very life of the Triune God.  This is the ultimate destiny of Man.  The human being has the freedom of will to bring about good or evil, and those in their most radical forms; and we all have this potential.   This is the bedrock of my philosophy of education because it is of my life.   It is a view that looks at the person as the most important thing in the universe (see quotes below and Psalm 8).  The most important, the most precious, and the most mysterious.  For, classical education's most noble aim is to bend the mind's eye to the Truth, where fixed upon it, the mysteriously powerful freedom we all have to choose, will habitually choose the Good and Beautiful.

+In Mexico

Viva Cristo Rey de la paz en mi corazón, en mi casa, en mi patria y en todo el mundo!

One of my favorite pictures of Lewis!

I offer these lengthy quotes by C.S. Lewis who I thank God for every word he wrote.  I hope it provides you with the inspiration it does me every time I read it.

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which,if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilites, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - These are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”


"Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object present to your senses."

Both quotations are taken from The Weight of Glory.