This article continues my thoughts (and probably overlaps some) on Thinking Skills.
Truth vs. Reason
What do we mean when we say we want our children to have/develop “thinking skills”? For most Christians, I would think we mean we want our children to be able to discern right from wrong, and be able to apply that and communicate it persuasively. That is, to be able to figure out, on their own (after being trained), what is the right answer or conclusion and then act on that, whether that means making a personal life decision, or coming to a correct solution to a math problem. This is what the Bible calls having Understanding and Wisdom.
I would venture to say that is not necessarily what the world we are living in means by “thinking skills.” In general definition, probably; in application, doubtful. As the Word tells us, “The wisdom of man is foolishness to God.” Man’s wisdom is based upon the reasoning of the mind. And we know that the mind can very easily be deceived.
In a recent conversation with our college-attending daughter, she told me that there is a class on “Critical Thinking” at the college (local community college, not Christian). There are no right or wrong answers. The professor only grades the student’s papers based on how their answers were thought out. Did they follow a “logical” thought process to come to this conclusion? If so, they get a good grade, regardless of their conclusion. This is not to say that there aren’t some secular materials out there that really want people to learn to come to the right conclusion. But our world has embraced a humanistic, evolutionist philosophy that “right” is situational and individual.
This class seems to me the ultimate in situational relativism, and the epitome of “There is a way that seems right to man, but the end there of is death.” The saddist part of all is that this isn’t just natural, uneducated man arriving at his own conclusions, but that this is being taught as “higher learning.” This is college level thinking skills.
As Christians, we know that what is right is not based upon our own individual thought processes and conclusions. What our minds think and what seems to be reasonable and logical to us, no matter how much thought and “logical reasoning” goes into it, is not right unless it aligns with God’s absolute Truth. There is no Truth apart from God. He tells us that the “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy brings discernment.” It is through knowing and having respectful fear of Him and His absolute and unchanging ways that we learn to discern what is right and what is wrong. Yes, Virginia, there is a right and wrong, and you don’t determine what that is. You can only learn to discern what it is.
Understanding, that the Bible speaks of as “discernment”, comes from “exercising our senses” by meditating on God’s Word (Joshua 1:8) to give us knowledge of the Holy (Pro. 9:10). It is the ability to arrive at and communicate Truth. What the world considers “logical thinking”, yet coming up with its own individual answers, is not what I think any of us desire for our children. Rather, we would have them desire Truth, seek for Truth, know how to find Truth, recognize Truth, and communicate Truth.
For an education of Freedom and Simplicity™, I believe our focus needs to be on teaching our children how to discern Truth, by teaching them the fear of the Lord and how to meditate on His Word to “know the Holy”, rather than on trusting his mind to be the valid source of reason because he learned some “thinking skills”. It is when he knows the Truth that he will be set Free, and when he is able to convey the Truth to others that they can be set Free. The logic and reason of man will never bring Freedom to man, but the Truth always will.
