Created to be a Burden

In Radical Disciple, John Stott says God designed us to be burdens to each other. If so, then Paul’s admonition to bear each others burdens (Galatians 6:2) not only involves helping each other with the burdens we have to carry due to our sin; it also requires assisting each other in carrying the loads we have that result from our finitude. In that case, it seems that the best way we can prepare for eternity is to become as adept at the art of burden-bearing as we can - since this skill will be central in the eternal Kingdom community.

Religion, Science, & Unfalsifiability

Recently an interlocutor of mine claimed that religious beliefs, unlike scientific beliefs, are unfalsifiable. But beliefs of these two sorts don’t differ in this way. There is evidence for and evidence against both types of beliefs. So both kinds are at least theoretically verifiable and falsifiable. Moreover, when believers persist in maintaining beliefs in either category in the face of counterevidence, they often do so because they have adequate grounds for those beliefs and insufficient reason to think the contrary evidence is decisive. In these cases, though the beliefs are practically unfalsified, it doesn’t follow that they are theoretically unfalsifiable. 

Teaching, Learning, and Humility

I'm reading What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain and Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America by Mark R. Schwehn. Bain says the best teachers have the humility to assume that when students aren't learning well, the teacher is at least partly to blame. Schwehn says students need the humility to presume that others have the wisdom and authority to teach them. So humility is a virtue required of both teachers and students in order for learning to take place. As a teacher, Jesus modeled humility and urged his disciples to imitate his example.

Theological Knowledge & Faith-Learning Integration

Many conservative Christian colleges and universities fail to regard Christian theology as a source of knowledge. A number of these institutions make the integration of faith and learning a central curricular and pedagogical goal. But it is hard to see how theology could be integrated with the sciences if theology doesn’t yield knowledge. I assume the sort of integration desired by such institutions is theoretical, and that such theoretical integration is possible only between disciplines that yield knowledge. If these assumptions are correct, then these conservative Christian colleges and universities are failing to satisfy one of their main educational objectives.

What is Experiential Learning?

Experiential learning is learning based on direct experience. What makes something an experience is that it is a psychological state generated by sensation or introspection (rather than by intuition or reason). What makes an experience direct is that it is not mediated by a linguistic or pictorial representation of something experienced (as in the case of books or photographs). What makes a direct experience a source of learning is that the person who has had the experience engages in active reflection on the experience in such a way as to acquire understanding or knowledge on the basis of the experience.

How the Best Teachers Motivate Students

In What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain says the most effective teachers motivate students to learn by inviting them rather than by commanding them. He says these professors act more like “someone inviting colleagues to dinner” than like “a bailiff summoning someone to court” (p. 37). This means instructors emphasize what the course promises to do for students rather than what students have to do for the course. These teachers encourage students to participate for the sake of enjoying learning, and they do not discourage them from taking risks out of the fear of receiving a bad grade.

Augustine on the Divine Origin of the Bible

In The City of God, Augustine argues Christians are justified in believing the Bible is God’s word because of the agreement of the human authors of Scripture. He contrasts this consensus with the disagreements between the philosophers. Whereas there is concord among those God chose to speak on his behalf, there is discord among those who employed reason alone to determine the truth about reality. Augustine also says there are just enough biblical authors to make it reasonable to think their agreement is due to God’s speaking through them without there being so many as to make their contribution superfluous.