In his book, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think, Harry Blamires writes the following discourse on the idea of Truth.
The Christian mind has an overriding sense that the truth it clings to is supernaturally grounded, revealed not manufactured, imposed not chosen, authoritative, objective, and irresistible. If the Christian comes before the secular mind claiming less for Christian truth than is its due, he not only betrays the Faith, he contributes to the erosion of the Christian mind. The Christian Faith has to be defended for the right reason. Too long we have been defending it for the wrong reason, trying to win a place for it in secular esteem by claiming that it ministers to ends served by secular welfare, and that it can be turned into a personal philosophy adequate to give solace to a secular mentality through a secularist career. We have to insist that the Christian faith is something solider, harder, and tougher than even Christians like to think. Christianity is not a nice comforting story that we make up as we go along, accommodating the demands of a harsh earthly reality with the solace of a cherished reverie. It is not a cosy day-dream manufactured by each person more or less to suit his own taste. It is a matter of hard fact. We Christians appreciate its hardness just as much as those outside the Church. We are as fully aware of its difficulties as the outsiders are. We know that, in a sense, Christianity leaves us with an awful lot to swallow. No Christian, thinking christianly, divesting himself of the easy self-deceptions of secularist thinking, will pretend that Christianity is an easy faith – easy to accept, easy to explore, easy to rest in, easy to explain. It isn't. We must outdo the unbelievers in agreeing with them on that subject. We must stand at their side and look with them at this thing, the Christian Faith, and vie with them in detaching ourselves from it. "You find it difficult? So do I. You find it awkward? So do I. You find it unattractive? That's exactly how I often find it myself, especially round about 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning. You think it a thundering nuisance? In a way I quite agree with you… But it's true, you know."
Blamires provides a gripping list of qualities that define truth for Christians—he says that we think of truth as “supernaturally grounded, revealed not manufactured, imposed not chosen, authoritative, objective, and irresistible.” Such a view of the nature of truth is categorically distinct from how non-Christians view truth, and we know this from the very first quality he gives. For truth to be “supernaturally grounded” means that it grows out of the soil of the supernatural and pierces through to our natural realm. Non-Christians cannot accept the things of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:14), and therefore cannot assert that truth is supernaturally grounded.
Truth, he contends, is also revealed not manufactured, and imposed not chosen. This means that Christians submit to what God reveals as true, instead of trying to concoct truth by means of merely natural formulas. For instance, we read in Scripture that God is sovereign over all things (including all aspects of salvation; i.e. election and predestination, etc.) and that he commands all men everywhere to repent and believe of their own will. Even though some great minds have been helpful in attempting to explain this seeming contradiction, we are at ultimately a loss for how these can both be true. But Scripture says they are. And so we must submit to these revealed truths even when we cannot naturally square it.
Truth being authoritative, objective and irresistible all speak to its true-ness separate from our acceptance. We don’t make a thing true by recognizing that it is true. It is true regardless of our submission to it. That’s how Christians think about truth, and to go any other route is to end up in the moral relativism of our modern day—that one persons “truth” may not be another’s “truth.”
How all this relates to education is seen in the call which Blamires offers to all Christians in the rest of the quote. He beckons us to not gloss over the fact that there are difficult things to accept which pertain to the Christian Faith. He urges us to submit to truth even when it doesn’t feel cozy. But there is something foundational which this important summons depends upon—we cannot be thusly anchored to truth if we are not first and foremost anchored to Scripture as the sole authority for God’s revelation.
I think that there’s a sentimental notion that many Christians sense in their hearts: that they wish to hold to truth no matter the cost. This is a very good thing. Yet it is a separate and a harder thing to wish to hold to the only authoritative source of truth no matter the cost. If we capitulate on taking a stand on the source of truth, then we eventually will compromise when it comes to taking a stand for truth itself. Sadly, upholding the Bible’s sole authority over men is sometimes just as marginalized in Christian circles as it is in non-Christian environments.
And so it is that the Christian view of truth must begin with an unassailable commitment to the authority of God’s revealed Word. Alone.
Application
All I’ve written here so far is, I think, relatively easy for a Christian to swallow. The hard part is always in the putting it into practice. So here are 5 ways in which a commitment to the only authoritative source of truth for the Christian shows up in Christian education.
1. Time in the Word
I stayed over at a friend’s house one night when I was a kid, and his dad had a rule that no one ate breakfast before reading the Word. His reasoning was the same as Jesus’: “Man shall not live by bread alone.” Some would see this as legalistic. But the heart of a true Christian longs to be in the Word. We demonstrate the value we place on Scripture by how inclined we are to read it.
2. Strong Knowledge of the Word
There are some teachers that I’ve found myself being more and more drawn to over the years because they (as I like to put it) “bleed” the Bible. Any way you poke them, the Bible comes out. Those are the kind of teachers who evidence that they truly believe in the authority of the Bible.
3. Discernment from the Word
Good teachers have been said to have eyes in the back of their head. They have a radar to know when stuff’s going on. I’m inclined to think that some of the good discernment or intuition that a strong teacher possesses comes from a knowledge of Scripture that grants a sense of discernment. Identifying human nature, heart intentions, and dangerous ideas are a result of knowing the Word inside and out.
4. Evidence Biblical Characteristics
Walking through the Bible tends to result in the Bible walking through us. It changes us and equips us to walk in holiness. Teachers who submit to the authority of the Word not only evidence it in their words, but in their actions as well. They are full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
5. Pass on the “Bug”
Love for the Word, among the people of God, is contagious. Seeing one saint gripped by love for God’s Word tends to fan a flame in my own heart. Students who hear and see a teacher’s love for God’s authoritative Word may end up cultivating the very same passion and form life-long desires for Scripture that are worth more than money can buy.