Abstract
This study investigates the educational philosophy of John Calvin. Whereas many consider Calvin to be a rationalist, the article explores Calvin's educational philosophy in his Institutes as primarily concerned with teaching toward the will, thus, extending Calvin's theology to his pedagogy. To affect the will, Calvin employs unique pedagogical strategies and by recovering these ancient practices, modern educators can more deeply and holistically impact student formation in the classroom.
Imagine yourself inside a lecture hall with your favorite educator. He or she teaches with elegance, wit, and intelligence. When you walk out of the hall, how are you affected? Of course, the educator passes on information. Surely, you leave more informed. There is intellectual stimulation. However, the human knower is not a mechanical machine. Mankind consists of more than “brains on a stick” or “brain receptacles” as Smith (2009, p. 32) has termed it. You leave this sacred place not solely with more knowledge; the information impacts the student on a deeper level. Good teachers do not hold up passive ideas to pontificate; rather, they communicate lovely ideas to be accepted and cherished. In this way, education involves something that resonates not only with the mind but also with the will. Knowledge encompasses valuing an idea rather than merely speculating about it.
John Calvin is undergoing somewhat of a revival as evidenced by the “New Calvinism” movement (Biema, 2009) and Marilynne Robinson's “campaign of revisionism” Robinson (2015, p. 4). In this essay, I’ll extend Robinson's campaign to the educational philosophy of Calvin. Rather than a crusty and stale intellectualism, Calvin employs a robust anthropology and educational strategy. He acknowledges the complexity of human personhood. While he primarily teaches the intellect, the aim of his pedagogy is to affect the will. The will is foundational for the task of education and for authentic knowledge. In so doing, this take on Calvin opens lines of dialogue between classically reformed educators and more broadly Protestant interlocutors. In other words, one must not ascribe to “Calvinism” to glean insights into the educational task.
This paper will have three parts. First, it will establish Calvin's historical contemporaries and the reigning understanding of education in his day, as well as his reputation today. Second, the paper will shift to see how Calvin develops his philosophy of the human person as it relates to knowledge and education. The final section will introduce how Calvin's understanding of personhood and knowledge results in a re-orientation to the task of education. For the purpose of devoting focus to developing pedagogical implications, I have delimited this article's primary source material to Calvin's Institutes. Further study that engages a broader corpus would be a fruitful and worthwhile endeavor but not possible within the parameters of this article.
The Historical Backdrop
In his historical situation, Calvin offered something unique to the educational enterprise. He discusses “the philosophers” (Aristotle and Plato) at length in his Institutes to set up a contrast with the traditional understanding of knowledge. Also, in looking back at Calvin, he is unfairly lumped in with a headier view of education than he suggests in his writings. Through a brief sketch of this historical backdrop, I will show Calvin in a truer light than how many modern readers interpret him.
The Paradigm of the Day: Intellect Directs the Will
Calvin (2008) follows Aristotle and Plato who divide the soul into two parts: the intellect (intellectus) and the will (voluntas) (pp. 110–111). However, Calvin opposes Plato and Aristotle regarding the function of the elements of the soul. The ancient philosophers define the will as that power “to choose and follow what intellect declares to be good, to reject and shun what it declares to be bad” (Calvin, 2008, p. 111). One may remember Plato's charioteer: the charioteer (reason) reigns in the wild horses of will and appetite. Therefore, for these more ancient philosophers, the intellect holds supreme sway in knowledge. Through reason, one can attain a virtuous life as the intellect directs the will and lower bodily appetites.
Calvin (2008) later revisits this theme and argues from the “philosophers,” as in Plato and Aristotle. He writes: they (the philosophers) maintain that the intellect is endued with reason, the best guide to a virtuous and happy life, provided it duly avails itself of its excellence, and exerts the power with which it is naturally endued…the mind is led away to error and delusion, is of such a nature, that is can be tamed and gradually subdued by the power of reason (p. 158).
Reason, therefore, is quintessential for virtuous education. Arguing from this understanding, Calvin (2008) continues: “Thus, in short, all philosophers maintain, that human reason is sufficient for right government; that the will, which is inferior to it, may indeed be solicited to evil by sense, but having a free choice, there is nothing to prevent it from following reason as its guide in all things” (p. 159). If this is true, then the will takes a secondary seat in education to the intellect. While some may view Calvin as a rationalist, he sets himself opposed to a purely reasonable educational task as the reader will discern in the following section.
Philosophically, this heady emphasis is the position of the scholastic educator. This type of education has an unswerving commitment to the powers and capability of reason. In many educational institutions and curriculum, the intellect is assumed as the key to change. As a result, the teacher's job is to inform the mind. A brief glance at Bloom's taxonomy builds on this intellectual process: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The affections are absent from the learning process; indeed, the affections must be avoided in learning objectives, because one cannot measure them. In our modern world, education is committed to intellectual achievement through which cognition develops. If the mind matures, the person grows. It is as if the affections may be prone to distortion or manipulation, but one's thought-life is free from corruption.
Reformed Reputation
There have been several critiques leveled against the Reformation in recent years. One of the most serious is that the Reformation is responsible for the emergence of the Enlightenment (Taylor, 2007; Bruce, 2011; Gregory, 2012). Among the cacophony of voices, Brad Gregory is perhaps most incisive in his work The Unintended Reformation. In essence, his thesis is that the Reformation led to the chaos of modernity. According to Gregory, the Reformation paved the way to prioritize the individual, reject tradition, fragment the church, neglect communal ties, and, most relevant to this discussion, intellectualize faith. Whereas the Catholic church was embodied and traditioned, the Protestant church became “excarnated” (Taylor, 2007, p. 772) and overly emphasized the mind. In the Catholic church, the main event was the sacrament; in the Protestant perversion, the main event is the sermon.
While these critiques have some merit in the emergence of scholasticism in education, Gregory offers a simplistic solution to a complicated phenomenon. To lay all the blame on the Reformation is to ignore the already chaotic nature of medieval Catholicism, the emergence of literacy independent of Martin Luther and other Reformers, the increasing ability to travel, the independence of the modern nation-state, and the growing marketplace of consumer choice. All of these are factors in the development of modern world but to lay blame on the Reformation for all of them is superficial.
I will describe Calvin's philosophy of education as it relates to the critique of intellectualizing the faith which is attributed to him. Calvin was not concerned with merely informing the mind with true doctrine; his desire was to reach down into the will. Though the sermon became a main component of the liturgy, the goal was not merely a more informed laity; the goal was for a more informed laity to love God, and to love God, one must know Him. Therefore, Calvin is not as “modern” as the above interlocuters seem to assume.
Toward a Calvinistic Education
John Calvin presents something unique to the educational landscape of his day. By retrieving his understanding of knowledge, he can also offer us something restorative and transformative today. Calvin's main concern is helping and strengthening the church. Therefore, utilizing Calvin will have a direct application to ecclesial contexts and educational ministries in the church. The gathered Christian community in worship is the prime audience of Calin's writing. However, one could also apply these insights into more formal classroom or academic settings, as well. First, in contrast to the “philosophers” of earlier, John Calvin re-arranges the soul as will-centered rather than intellect-centered. Furthermore, Calvin places both intellect and will as under the curse of sin. Therefore, a distinctive Christian education has the goal to affect the will, is dependent upon grace, and views all knowledge as Christocentric.
Calvin on the Soul and Its Captivity
Calvin's central aim in education is the will, or voluntas. In Latin, there are three words that could be translated “will” in the Institutes: arbitrium, electio, voluntas. Most regularly, the former two words are translated “choice,” while the former is translated “will.” Helm (2004) helps to distinguish the intricacies of each Latin word in the following passage in the Institutes: Now we must examine the will (voluntas), upon which freedom of decision (arbitri libertas) especially depends; for we have already seen that choice (electioneer) belongs to the sphere of the will rather than to that of the understanding…. But that we may not suppose this doctrine have anything to do with the uprightness of the human will (voluntas), let us observe that the power of free choice (liber arbitri) is not to be sought in such an appetite, which arise from inclination of nature rather than from deliberation of mind. (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 174), quoted on (p. 179).
Not only does this clarify the different Latin words, but it argues for the primacy of the voluntas in choice and understanding. The voluntas functioned as the fulcrum by which knowledge turned.
Calvin calls the will “the affection of the intellect” (2008, p.111). Helm goes on to explain explains Calvin's understanding of the will as follows: “Voluntas has to do with the deep-seated ‘set’ of the will, its basic orientation, for Calvin its basic orientation either to the service of God or in rebellion against him” (2004, p. 160). Therefore, for Calvin, the intellect does not direct the will in knowledge; rather, the will directs the intellect—and both are corrupt and distorted by sin. Though as natural gifts to man in creation, the soul—intellect and will—are no longer trustworthy. In the Fall, these gifts were not destroyed; however, they were gravely damaged. The fall crippled the soundness of human reason; it shackled the human will firmly to irrational impulses. The will no longer desires what is rational and good.
As a result, the voluntas is not free, because it is oriented to serve the creature rather than the Creator. Humanity has free choice (electio), but they use their free choice in disordered ways. Under the curse of sin, humanity loses the ability to choose with wisdom and righteousness. By nature, all of humankind is born with a disposition toward sin. Calvin (2012) affirms this bondage of the will: Therefore, as long as he continues in his own nature, he cannot will and act except in an evil way. Indeed we deny that it is in his power to abandon his wickedness and turn to the good. Since, then, he can of himself be nothing but evil, we determine that there is necessity in his case (p. 78).
Evil binds humanity. Moreover, the captivity bleeds beyond the distortion of our thinking and our reasoning. Much more encompassing, our loves are disordered. “Our minds are so blinded that they cannot perceive the truth, and all our senses are so corrupt that we wickedly rob God of his glory” (Calvin, 2008, p. 213). On the one hand, there is an intellectual component: our minds cannot perceive truth; but on the other hand, there is a moral component: we rob God of glory. We worship and love the wrong things. As Calvin (2008) is popularly quoted, “The human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols” (p. 59). Humanity is born with a primal disordered desire, and a primal propensity to enjoy in the flesh what God calls evil. Sin makes us not only bad but blind. Sin extends to every faculty of the human experience. Students do not merely err in what they think, but they desire twisted things. And if desire is off, then they will seek to justify their ignorance by their reason. As such, human corruption is comprehensive.
With the holistic understanding of personhood and the fall, knowledge is not a mere intellectual pursuit. Zachman (2006) concurs: “Ultimately, Calvin thinks our resistance to the gospel comes from our refusal to apply the gospel to our own use, so that we might profit from it, because our affections are all contrary to it” (p. 161). In this comment, Zachman points to the primacy of affections. Our loves are disordered, which affects rational capabilities. Therefore, sin destroys our capacity to know. Our understanding of self is distorted and manipulated by the sin we crave. When a person thinks they are thinking correctly by autonomous reason, they are thinking most destructively. In this state, learners cannot reason their way out of flawed desire.
Sin has wide-ranging effects, particularly in the matter of human knowing. Calvin (2008) is clear: True! He has a mind capable of understanding, though incapable of attaining to heavenly and spiritual wisdom… though he cannot reach the true knowledge of God…Let it stand, therefore, as an indubitable truth, which no engines can shake, that the mind is so entirely alienated from the righteousness of God that he cannot conceive, desire, or design any thing but what is wicked, distorted, foul, impure, and iniquitous; that his heart is so thoroughly envenomed by sin that it can breathe out nothing but corruption and rottenness; that if some men occasionally make a show of goodness, their mind is ever interwoven with hypocrisy and deceit, their soul inwardly bound with the fetters of wickedness (p. 211).
Humanity perverts and distorts the truth. Though we can attain some comprehension and understanding of reality, we are unable to attain true knowledge because of false desires. A person can conceive and imagine righteousness; however, they are limited in carrying it out. Here, Calvin's (2008) understanding of sensus divinitatis is clarifying: there is a sense of the divine in every man and woman. To manifest his perfections in the whole structure of the universe, and daily place himself in our view, that we cannot open our eyes without being compelled to behold him. His essence, indeed, is incomprehensible, utterly transcending human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse…both the heavens and the earth present us with innumerable proofs, not only those more recondite proofs which astronomy, medicine, and all the natural sciences, are designed to illustrate, but proofs which force themselves on the notice of the most illiterate peasant…the same is true in regard to the human frame” (p. 16).
But even with a sense or intellectual comprehension of the divine, it is not true knowledge without the will being captivated by it. In short, knowledge of God is universal, and so is corruption. For more reading on the sensus divinitatis and sins effect see (Helm, 2008, pp. 87–107) and (Jones, 1996, pp. 387–403). Moral problems exist in the will, and to the will Calvin goes. Humankind cannot rightly know without rightly loving.
Some readers may challenge this view by insisting that Calvin is referring to religious knowledge of God. But for Calvin, all knowledge is religious knowledge. Indeed, Calvin (2008) condemns the whole mind when he argues, “the human mind receives a humbling blow when all the thoughts which proceed from it are derided as foolish, frivolous, perverse, and insane” (p. 178). The structure of The Institutes bears witness to this: All knowing about humanity and all knowing about God is interrelated. Knowledge is not as simple as many rationalists may insist. If all truth is God's truth, then knowing God as a referent is central to knowing any truth claim. For Calvin, all truth is religious truth.
Therefore, neutral knowledge, along with a neutral education, is a myth. (See Hauerwas, 2007). True knowledge, as well as true doctrine, must be seen and perceived. That is, true knowledge consists of both intellectual assent and affectional appreciation. This means one can come to correct conclusions without ever being affected in the right way. An elementary example may prove helpful. One can know 2 + 2 = 4 but also believe in a chaotic universe governed by chance. This disordered orientation fails to see the beauty and order of the God who brings a solution (order) out of various numbers (chaos). Furthermore, one can believe this basic fact without attributing this order to the God of the Bible. In short, one can know the fact but not see the Christ-directedness of such a fact.
Moreover, if education is not directed at the right ends, it is not true knowledge. To be pointed in the correct orientation, one must know God since all true things find their fulfillment in God as the Creator of all. This does not mean that education has a cognitive absence, but there is a cognitive limit. All truth is fused with directional commitments. Two plus two is not a neutral fact; facts are laden with value. These insights exist in harmony with modern educational reflections like Palmer (1993), Smith (2009), and Meek (2011).
A Distinct Education
Calvin provides a distinct educational vision based on his goals, understanding of human personhood, and sin. First, as should be evident, Calvin's education focused on the will rather than intellect. Second, there is need for divine grace no matter how smart the student or how good the teacher. Thirdly, all knowledge is Christocentric.
Focus on the Will
Calvin aimed his teaching toward the heart—the place of affection and desire and choice. In other words, he taught with the will in mind. The intellect is important. It is how humankind considers, thinks, rationalizes, and organizes. But this emphasis is not Calvin's core aim. On the affectional aspect of Calvin's epistemology, philosopher and theologian Frame (2015) comments, “Calvin does not define the knowledge of God as intellectual assent to the proposition that God exists. Certainly, such assent is indispensable in his view. But he insists that knowledge of God does not exist without ‘reverence and love’ for him” (p. 172). Reverence and love operate by and in the will. The impacted will is how people change, learn, and grow. A fitting visual example of this idea is Philippe de Champaigne's portrait of Augustine. In it, veritas (truth) is like the sun, flaming from upper righthand side of the painting. It goes through the brain and to the heart, which Augustine has in his hand. Truth goes through the head foundationally, but the goal is to make it to the heart where the will is seated. On the sheer number of references to Augustine throughout the Institutes, one can place Calvin firmly within the Augustinian epistemic tradition.
Holistic knowing encompasses more than correctly firing neurons and storing information. On the one hand, information and intellectual comprehension are vital for knowledge. On the other hand, logic is limited. Pure reasoning ability is insufficient. True knowledge, as Calvin points out, is rooted in the heart. On this point, Calvin is persistent: The knowledge of God consists not in frigid speculation, but carries worship along with it (Calvin, 2008, p. 61).
Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue, but of the life; is not apprehended by the intellect and memory merely, like other branches of learning; but is received only when it possesses the whole soul, and finds its seat and habitation in the inmost recesses of the heart (Calvin, 2008, p. 447).
And it tends to prove the vanity of the human intellect, that it is so completely in the dark as to matters which it is of the highest importance to know (Calvin, 2008, p. 380).
For Calvin, true knowing consists in true reality being known and loved. Therefore, a movement must occur which brings brute statements to the level of desire, which is seated in the will. “The next thing necessary is, that when the mind has imbibed be transferred into the heart. The word is not received in faith when it merely flutters in the brain, but when it has taken deep root in the heart and become an invincible bulwark to withstand and repel the assaults of temptation” (Calvin, 2008, p. 379). Again, Calvin is insistent about a heart or soul education. (See also Smith, 2009, pp. 46–62).
Here is a modest definition of education according to Calvin: restoring the mind and soul of God to the mind and soul of man. This cyclical knowledge (of God and self) rooted Calvin's own theological work. For Calvin, education goes beyond thinking thoughts after God and goes deeper into the soul of man. If creation is made in God's image with a sense of the divine, then education is to cultivate and restore those languishing longings. Calvin may be most clear in book two of his Institutes (2008): “There is one consideration which ought at once to put an end to the debate, i.e., that assent itself… is more a matter of the heart than the head, of the affection than of the intellect” (p. 360). Thus, the will of man is the center of Calvin's epistemology. He found this to be self-evident to any student of Scripture: “Anyone moderately versant in Scripture will understand by himself, without being reminded by others, that when he has to do with God, nothing is gained without beginning the internal affections of the heart” (Calvin, 2008, p. 395). Though the mind plays a role in love, the will is central. A distinctively Christian education has its goal as love rather than knowledge.
This fact—human knowing focused on the will—can be seen in all of Calvin's educational pursuits—from his sermons, to catechisms, to his writings. For both sermons and teachings, he employed a consistent pattern. First, he presented the meaning and intention of a text; then he emphasized the meaning should be retained in the memory and impressed on the hearts of the hearers; and finally, he sought to apply this meaning to the congregation. However, this practice has not so much to do with their actions as with the affection of their hearts, “so that they feel the power of the realities being set forth by (the author) and expounded and applied by Calvin” (Zachman, 2006, p. 149). In sum, this is the whole purpose of Zachman (2006) concurs: The knowledge to which Calvin directs his readers…is one that the ultimately rooted in the awareness of the grace and goodness of God in the heart, leading us to cleave to God in Christ from the inmost affection of the heart. As Calvin himself articulates, ‘For the purpose of the Scripture is not to feed us with vain and superfluous things, but to edify us for our salvation; that is to say, to make us perceive God's goodness that we might be joined to him, and that this might be our happiness’ (p. 158).
The goal for Calvin's teaching was true affection rooted in Christ. Knowing must go deeper than the head and into the voluntas.
The Necessity of Grace
Since all mankind is “destitute both of sound knowledge and true virtue” (Calvin, 2008, p. 148) learners need something far more than reason to emerge from this situation. If the will is desperately sick and corrupted, then for the will to rightly know and love authentic knowledge, God must intervene to affect the voluntas. Grace is needed.
This is the heart of a distinctively Christian life and education: people need grace. Mankind cannot truly know anything—that is, a person cannot attain authentic knowledge—without God doing something to change what the soul desires. The corruption of man's nature extends to far more than mere intellect. Our thoughts must be changed, but much more importantly, our affections, our will, and our worship must reorient to a new direction. McGoldrick (2010) argues, “Cerebral knowledge of Scripture in and of itself is inadequate when pursued apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit” (p. 130). In other words, God needs to act for humans to know.
To be free to attain true knowledge, the sinful soul must be mended. Calvin (2008) writes, “All this being admitted, it will be beyond dispute, that free will does not enable any man to perform good works, unless he is assisted by grace; indeed, the special grace which the elect alone receives through regeneration” (p. 161). In other words, to perform good works include good knowing. For both, special grace is needed, “because error never can be eradicated from the heart of man until the true knowledge of God has been implanted in it” (2008, p. 24). The Spirit of God bestows this grace: And thus, indeed, it is only when the human intellect is irradiated by the light of the Holy Spirit that it begins to have a taste of those things which pertain to the kingdom of God; previously it was too stupid and senseless to have any relish for them… In this matter we are all naturally blind; and hence the word cannot penetrate our mind unless the Spirit, that internal teacher, by his enlightening power make an entrance for it (Calvin, 2008, p. 444).
This is the essence of new spiritual taste. Calvin (2008) continues, “No man is a Christian who does not feel some special love for righteousness” (p. 444). And later in the same chapter, Calvin writes, “that the spiritual commencement of a good life is when the internal affections are sincerely devoted to God, in the cultivation of holiness and justice” (p. 447). Calvin focused on correctly desiring and worshipping before correct reasoning. True knowledge exceeded the head and worked its way to the will: A simple external manifestation of the word ought to be amply sufficient to produce faith, did not our blindness and perverseness prevent. But such is the proneness of our mind to vanity, that it can never adhere to the truth of God, and such its dullness, that it is always blind even in his light. Hence without the illumination of the Spirit the word have no effect; and hence also it is obvious that faith is something higher than human understanding… Here the Schoolmen go completely astray, dwelling entirely in their consideration of faith, on the bare simple assent of the understanding, and altogether overlooking confidence and security of heart. Faith is the special gift of God in both ways—in purifying the mind so as to give it a relish for divine truth, and afterward in establishing it therein (Calvin, 2008, p. 337).
In Calvin's words, God creates a “relish” for divine truth. Many men assent to theoretical facts. For the Christian knower, theoretical knowledge must be transferred to practical knowledge, i.e., obedience. To obey—to live a virtuous life—is not a heady affair. Rather, the will must be informed to love and worship properly. The voluntas must be motivated toward good desires. This motivation is a work of the Spirit of God.
Theocentric Knowledge
Since the will is central to education, and a right education depends on grace, therefore, the goal of knowledge is an encounter with God, for He is the only one with enough power to change the sinful predicament of the student. If it is true that Christ is in all things and through him all things exist and hold together (Col 1:16–17), then all knowledge is partial if not connected to Christ. As one author points out (Zachman, 2006), the goal for Calvin is “to bring its readers to the point where they may encounter, ponder, consider, and contemplate the nature and force of each reality defined and explained by Calvin, so that they might experience and feel that force for themselves” (p. 154). As such, Calvin's teaching centered around a goal. It was neither learner or method or teacher centered. For Calvin, “this goal, reduced to simplest terms was nothing other or less than the reflection of God's glory” (De Jong, 1967, p. 193). The glory of God shines in subjects beyond theological dogma. The whole world is a theater of God's glory if we have eyes to see it.
Pedagogical Re-Orientation
With the philosophical shift discussed, the last part of this paper will shift to consider practical and pedagogical implementations in considering an education toward the will. Calvin did not bypass the mind but extended education beyond rationality. So much of educational practice, in and outside the church, amounts to “Let me explain it to you”—as if an explanation will result in understanding and transformation. But if education is about reorienting desires, then explanations will never suffice. One's voluntas—disposition, “affection of the intellect”—is oriented away from truth. Since explanations may inform but will never transform, there are distinct re-orientations that can shepherd the will along with explanation.
As argued above, by focusing on the will, the aim of education is Christological—that is, understanding re-orientates the will toward Christ. For this goal, God takes initiative. However, is there any means of grace whereby God may intervene? Are there any ways a student can labor in faith as the Spirit works to illumine the mind and to enflame the will? Calvin teaches the student using three pedagogies: a call to repentance, consistent exhortation and rebuke, and watchful contemplation.
Repentance
Founding reformer, Luther (2002) began his famous 95 theses with this: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance” (p. 1). Calvin, the doctrinal organizer of the Reformation, likewise has repentance at the center of his theology. Following divine agency, repentance and faith is the way a person enters into relationship with God. Theologian Frame (2015) confirms, “So for Calvin, the path to knowing God does not proceed through rational demonstration, as in Aquinas, but through repentance and faith” (p. 172). In other words, the start of authentic knowledge is repentance. Education is not a matter of thinking in different ways. It is a matter of turning a different way. Accordingly, this means true knowledge is a voluntas activity.
Calvin recognized repentance as when the mind is convicted and when the heart is enlightened. He states, “Repentance is preached in the name of Christ, when men learn, through the doctrines of the Gospel, that all their thoughts, affections, and pursuits, are corrupt and vicious…” (Calvin, 2008, p. 398). Later, Calvin (2008) distinguishes this movement as the first thing necessary for the flourishing life. “First, then, in seeking the convenience or tranquility of the present life, Scripture calls ourselves, and all we have, to the disposal of the Lord, to give him up the affections of the heart, that he may tame and subdue them” (p. 454). John Calvin suggests that learners give God our affections along with our thoughts. As such, learners ought to acknowledge that some of their thoughts need corrections and some of their affections need taming.
Therefore, the prerequisite posture of repentance is humility. Repentance may seem like a religious rather than educational term, and in most ways, it is. But the common phenomena of changing one's mind means that one's mind is opened to being changed. As such, repentance means that educators cultivate a sensitivity toward other ideas and perspectives, because Christian educators know that no one is beyond transformation or change. Renewal and repentance are always possible.
The need for humility, and thus, repentance, however, is not a one-time event. Sanctification is not accomplished in this lifetime. Our sinful nature continues to live on beyond initial repentance. Calvin was honest about the painfully slow process. He (Calvin, 2008) writes, This renewal, indeed, is not accomplished in a moment, a day, or a year, but by uninterrupted, sometimes even by slow progress God abolishes the remains of carnal corruption in his elect, cleanses them from pollution, and consecrates them as his temples, restoring all their inclinations to real purity, so that during their whole lives they may practice repentance, and know that death is the only termination to this warfare… God assigns repentance as the goal toward which they must keep running during the whole course of their lives (p. 391).
Therefore, continual repentance is the goal of the student—to think the mind and feel with the heart of Christ. As mentioned, this attitude requires epistemic humility on the part of the learner. In Calvin's own words, repentance is the aim of life: “So if we stand in Christ, we must aim at repentance, cultivate it during our whole lives, and continue it to the last. Christ came to call sinners, but to call them to repentance” (2008, p. 398). Sinful nature clings closely, but the start of Christian life and learning is realizing we have been wrong, and we may be wrong. Thus, we are open to repentance and correction along life's way.
Likewise, Parker Palmer writes that learning “means to be drawn into personal responsiveness and accountability to each other and the world of which we are a part (1993, p. 15). Part of repentance is learning in a community where this personal responsiveness and accountability takes place. Something as simple as small group activities or class discussions can be fodder for repentance as others challenge perspective and understanding. It is difficult to repent alone; we are prone to think we are correct. The most conducive atmosphere for repentance is a radical togetherness in the quest for truth that communal classrooms can foster.
Exhortation
Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you;
reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser
teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning” (Prov 9.7-9).
Secondly, Calvin uses exhortation as a means or teaching and learning. He was not satisfied with general teaching or “resorting to… things we do not know, but also to be stirred up to do our duty and to be wakened when we are slack and slothful by good and holy warnings, and to be rebuked if there be any stubbornness and malice in us” (Calvin, 1973, p. 618). If teaching by factual transformation is all we need, then hearing is all we need to be reformed and changed. However, based on sin's agency, cognitive understanding will not suffice.
In short, exhortation exposes shortcoming. Calvin (2008) himself confirms this reality: “Then, because we need not doctrine merely, but exhortation also, the servant of God will derive this further advantage from the Law: by frequently meditating upon it, he will be excited to obedience, and confirmed in it, and so drawn away from the slippery paths of sin” (p. 225). It is not enough to know murder is sin, or sexual immorality is bad. These facts, though important, are not primary. For intellectual assent to become knowledge rooted in the will, Calvin exhorts his pupils to pursue righteousness. In this endeavor, Calvin aims to shape followers more than he aims to inform thinkers. Wisdom, this practical knowledge to act out, is the goal. One example of how exhortation can work in the classroom is careful design of assignments. Creating an assignment geared toward application of concepts with the goal of service to the community or virtue development can help concretize the knowledge they learn in the classroom. By so doing, students are exhorted to move beyond intellectual knowledge into what this knowledge could mean for their life. Another example would be peer-editing assignments, or the teacher closely reading and offering feedback for a future assignment to be modified. This painful experience, (like peer-review!) can help expose weaknesses and errors. Allen (1997) provides the helpful diagnostic of looking at weakness as he writes, “Careful examination of any failure and inadequate performance also teaches humility” (p. 103). Though the current culture teaches toward strengths and tends to ignore weakness, a teacher's role is to creatively and winsomely expose weaknesses in a way that builds up and strengthens rather than tears down. Maturity depends on such work.
Furthermore, part of the educational process is submission. Johnson (2015) invites educators to consider this: “if the Scriptures teach that knowing well requires apprenticeship, then our ability to see beyond the presenting symptoms of life is proportional to the degree that we submit to our trainer's instruction” (p. 103). Likewise, Hart (2005) adds, “The pertinent question, the decision which we have to make, is not whether we will submit to such voices, but rather which voices we will submit to, and at what points and under what conditions we feel able or obliged to challenge what they are saying to us” (p. 177). While the authority and submission dynamics in a teacher-student are complex and need to be carefully scrutinized, at the heart of the matter is just that: who will we listen to? Whether the teacher corrects a student, the student corrects a teacher, or a student corrects a student, there is correction and exhortation taking place, and thus, submission to the truth that no individual possesses.
As seen in the Proverbs passage above, a student's response to rebuke is indicative of the heart's posture. Educators need to have the student's best interest in mind, and when educators exhort, a wise student will learn to love the correction. A prideful student will hate it. Thus, humility is needed in exhortation as in repentance. A humble disposition results in an increase in learning. Because students are open to change (repentance), they are open to correction (exhortation). Correction is best administered by a faithful apprentice, which is one reason why the moral life of an educator is important. There's something deeply relational about knowing, and love for another best primes us to receive the correction that truth provides. (see Meek, 2011, pp. 234–247). Love motivates the will to change. Dialogue, story-telling, deep listening, and pilgrimages to sites of social renewal or injustices can all cultivate an exhortative education.
Contemplation and Meditation
Zachman (2006) identifies three methods used by Calvin in his teaching—dialectical, rhetorical, and contemplative (pp. 100–102). The first two elements are common. In a dialectical model, Calvin defines the words he uses. He transfers information, aiming at the intellect. The rhetorical moment focuses on the force the dialectical model entails. He describes the definition he provides in the first step. Finally, “the contemplative moment is when Calvin instructs his readers to consider for themselves the force of the reality he has defined and described” (Zachman, 2006, p. 172). On this point, Calvin has much to teach us.
Because creation is a theater of God's glory, it worth being seen and contemplated. Contemplation allows what we think to affect how we feel. It is one way to move from “what does this mean?” to “what does this mean for me?” The educator is not merely defining and describing reality. Truth has a subjective element—one must personally encounter and accept the truth. In contemplation, Calvin is not just asking hearers to consider or think or reason; he is asking them to be affected with the truth of what they are contemplating. Calvin (2008) verifies this idea in application. “The best way to apply Scripture is to bring it to bear on our inmost thoughts, where we deliberate within ourselves concerning all that we hide from others, and even seek to hide from God” (p. 172). In other words, contemplation exposes the secret spots of the heart that still clings to error. Or as Palmer (1993) suggests, “If my temptation in study is to be a mere observer of other people's spiritual lives, prayer and contemplation draw me into becoming a participant, seeking a truth toward which others can point me but one I can finally only touch and taste for myself” (p. 18). Contemplation is a way to get out of my own personal consciousness and into a mystery beyond myself.
Since our desires are for vain things and our minds are occupied with vain thoughts, Calvin motivates the learner to contemplate God. In fact, this may be the best way to correct error and connect knowledge to its Christocentric reality. Mortal thoughts easily distract a learner. Calvin (2008) observes, “But as the greater part of mankind, enslaved by error, walk blindfolded in this glorious theater, he exclaims that it is a rare and singular wisdom to meditate carefully on these works of God, which many, who seem most sharp-sighted in other respects, behold without profit” (p. 21). We do not know and cannot see, because our desires are for meaningless things. Contemplation is an avenue for God to expose our sinful desires. In short, contemplation is a means to uproot error—to think carefully, critically, and meaningfully about our will and affection.
While by almost every regard, those attracted to Calvin will generally lean conservative in educational philosophy and practice. But here in contemplation, we find overlap with recent movements in contemplative pedagogy. (See contemplativemind.org). Modern educators can go back to ancient sources to receive help in educational practice starting with an unlikely partner of John Calvin.
This contemplative stare invites a greater intimacy with one's subject. Rather than maintain “academic distance” and “mastering” concepts, contemplation invites students to lovingly look at a concept or subject—like a botanist in a lab studying a plant, or a Bible scholar returning to the text again and again, or a psychologist spending time with a patient and asking lots of questions. By repetition and returning, the learner begins to see new things. Often, novelty does not come from moving on to new subjects after a brief glance but coming back to see the same thing in a different way. The student will be rewarded for patience, time, and discipline rather than a mass of new information. Practices for cultivating such contemplative knowledge include journaling, silence, centering, and walking.
Conclusion
John Calvin's teaching recognized the priority of the will for knowledge. Since the soul is bound by sin, humanity is in a desperate predicament. Man's autonomous reason cannot attain pure knowledge. Thoughts are misguided; desires distort true reality. Hence, God must do something about human error. In regeneration through the Spirit, God gives men not just new thoughts, but new desires. With rightly ordered desires, a student can attain true knowledge. Calvin (1973) writes, To be brief, we must be sure of the infinite good that is done to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, in order that we may be ravished in love with our God and inflamed with a right affection to obey him, and keep ourselves strictly in awe of him, to honor him with all our thoughts, with all our affections, and with all our hearts (p. 295).
Calvin points out the supremacy of Jesus Christ in the act of knowing, as well as the priority given to “inflamed right affection.” When our affections are rightly directed, then we can rightly know. Before true knowing, the will must be oriented to goodness.
The educator is never merely teaching students about truth by abstraction. Rather, they are training lovers to follow the truth. Or, as Augustine (1972) before Calvin wrote, “Knowledge is only valuable when charity informs it” (p. 366). Repentance re-orientates our natural distortion; exhortation encourages willful obedience; and contemplation unmasks manipulation. By these habits, and with God's grace, the human knower can attain comprehensive authentic knowledge, as it is established in the will.
