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| Cordell Schulten |
Chair of Social Behavioral Sciences Division
Faith and Learning,
Faith and Learning,
Go together like ________ and ________.
How would you fill-in those blanks? Some people who think religious belief is the enemy of inquiry might say, like "books and burning!" Would that startle you? Do book burnings conjure up images of religious fanatics attacking atheistic humanists? Does that picture make you feel a bit uncomfortable? I would hope so.
And yet, a large group of people today, especially those within the higher education community, still think that anyone who takes seriously his religious faith is closed-minded and anti-intellectual, and as such, is more apt to call down fire from heaven than to light the lamp of learning. Consequently, we who do take our faith seriously have a great challenge — to demonstrate to our colleagues-at-large that faith and learning do go together, not like "books and burning" but rather, like "love and marriage." As the old song says: "First comes one and then the other."
The question of how faith and learning go together is not new. Throughout the history of mankind, people have wrestled with reconciling what they see in the world around them by means of rational observations with what they perceive, if at all, through the eyes of faith. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews expressed it in this way: "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command..." (Hebrews 11:3 NIV). In his effort to explain the relationship between faith and learning, St. Augustine taught that "understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand."
From both Hebrews and Augustine then, it would appear that faith and learning do go together like "love and marriage" — first comes one: faith, and then the other: learning. But does that simple formulation end the discussion? Isn't there another verse to that old song about "love and marriage"? Is the second description of how the two go together equally as valid when applied to faith and learning? You remember — the line that goes "you can't have one without the other."
Is faith as dependent upon learning, as learning is dependent upon faith? The Apostle Paul seemed to say so when he wrote to the believers in Rome that "faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17 NIV). Hearing is one means of rational observation that God has given to human beings. Indeed, hearing may be regarded as the prime means of learning, whether it is by the direct hearing of the spoken word or by the indirect "hearing" of the written or symbolic word.
The psalmist further teaches us that God has revealed Himself both through the Word of nature, as "the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" and the Word of scripture that "makes wise the simple... and enlightens the eyes." (Psalm 19:1,7-8). Thus, as we look around us to the world in which we live, we learn, and that learning has the ability to lead us to faith just as much as the faith God gives us enables us to understand our world. Faith does not suppress learning. It enlivens it. Learning does not endanger faith. It encourages it.
Learning may occur without faith, but such learning will ultimately remain incomplete. Likewise, faith may be exercised with little learning, but such faith will remain immature. In the end, faith and learning go together as mutually dependent and complementary means of growing in our knowledge and understanding of God and His creation.
