Wolterstorff on Education at the Teacher's College

Beginning on Thursday, January 20, the Canadian Reformed Teacher’s College will be hosting some information evenings on Educational Philosophy of Nicholas Wolterstorff. I have a vested interest in these proceedings, having written a Master’s Thesis on Wolterstorff’s epistemology. It will be interesting to get into another aspect of his thought, for he has written on quite a number of subjects; aesthetics, political theory, liturgy, and epistemology.

But the most important element is that he does this all from a Reformed Christian background. While this is not usually immediately evident in his writings, he has expressed this himself on a number of occasions. And this means that he can write from a perspective of a Christian, and not have to apologize or defend the faith through which he views the world.

This comes out in one of his works, which I own, but do not have in my house at the moment, having lent it out. Anyways, the book is entitled Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks, published in 1995. What he does in this book, when he discusses Inspiration of the Scriptures and other Speech-Acts that God has performed, is just to begin the book by speaking about God. He does not attempt to ‘prove’ that God exists to do the speaking, he does not try to show the validity of belief in God, and then go on from there. No, he merely begins the book by discussing a speech-act that God had performed, and moving into the discussion from there. Nowhere in the book does he ever get into the discussion of the existence of God. It is assumed.

Of course, he had laid much of the groundwork for this in other, earlier works when he countered the Evidentialist and Foundationalist objections to belief in God. But these works are, in my recollection, nowhere mentioned or alluded to in Divine Discourse. He feels secure enough in his Christian scholarship to perform it as a Christian without having to defend that perspective.

I am looking forward to having such scholarship discussed in the Canadian Reformed circles. Having studied philosophy for 6 years (and hopefully more to come) I have often heard the warnings of the danger of philosophy for Christians. And while there are dangers, there are also great rewards, like having the opportunity to study in depth a Christian philosopher whose depth of thought and depth of belief compliment each other very nicely.

Hopefully these evening seminars will introduce excellent Christian scholarship and philosophical thought to a number of Canadian Reformed, for such scholarship is wasted without discussion and thought.