In beginning to contemplate this particular question, we should note that the question begs a prior question: What is the task of any liberal arts university, much less a Christian liberal arts university? In other words, does the particular question assume that we know and can state the task of a liberal arts university, and then that the question here is really about the qualifier “Christian”? This suggests a narrower answer, an answer that only seeks to determine what distinguishes a Christian liberal arts university from a “secular” (for want of a better term) liberal arts university.
However, it is possible to understand the question in more profound terms. In this possibility, the question is not why would Christians take an existing reality that exists in its own right—the university—and tinker with it to come up with a more or less different reality that is specifically Christian. The question is why would Christians establish any such reality resembling what we now call a university, whether or not we can answer that prior question about the task of a “secular” university.
This is a much more valuable and interesting question. We cannot actually escape the fact that we have some ideas—rudimentary at least—of what a university ought to be and do when we entertain the question of the task of a specifically Christian university. However, for the sake of inquiry as fresh as possible, we can try to entertain the question with as little as possible taken from prior concepts of a “secular” university. Then with fresh urgency and possibility we can pose the question: What is the task of a Christian liberal arts university?
Certain possible answers come fairly easily to mind that one could advance as the raison d’etre of a Christian university: the search for truth; the transmission of truth; or even, the vocational preparation of students. Each of those endeavors would be pursued of course within the context of the Christian faith. Yet, despite the limits of this essay, we can argue that those answers, each valuable to a point, are finally unsatisfactory to answer the question in more profound terms.
In brief, the emphasis on truth, on the face of it, suggests an answer too cognitive. A purely or largely cognitive approach to the task of a Christian university does not in itself adequately account for and address the nature of the human person. The human person consists of a complex that is both cognitive and affective at core. The human person engages realities uncreated and created in ways that are both cognitive and affective at once. Describing the task of a Christian university purely or largely in terms of the search for truth or the transmission of truth, albeit in a Christian faith context, casts the raison d’etre of a Christian university in terms too cognitive and hence too limited.
As for construing the task of a Christian liberal arts university in largely vocational terms, that understanding is simply too utilitarian and hence too limited, however useful it may be to a point. To be sure, existence necessarily involves work, found in many forms and fraught with many meanings. This seems basic to the nature of existence created by God and scourged by sin. Education should prepare for, support, and foster this profound aspect of human existence. Yet human life cannot and must not be subsumed by the category of work. A more fully human expression and experience of life transcends work to include such profound aspects as the moral and the aesthetic—aspects that cannot be simply reduced to or swept away by the criterion of “usefulness.” Education for true human life should prepare for, support, and foster, as far as possible, the fullness of human existence.
What can we then say in answer to the question: What is the task of a Christian liberal arts university? In the broadest terms, the question can be answered constructively in two ways. The two answers are not entirely the same, but they are certainly complementary and overlapping.
The task of a Christian liberal arts university is the exploration, development, and communication of a Christian world view. This way of framing the task emphasizes more the institution itself. It offers a fundamental perspective for envisioning, constructing, and integrating the components needed and desired to constitute a Christian university. It seeks to conceive the university in holistic terms as a grand and concerted endeavor toward a comprehensive and coherent understanding and expression—as far as possible—of a faith-grounded and faith-compassing world view.
Complementarily, we can say the task of a Christian liberal arts university is the formation of people in terms of vision, knowledge, and skills—in short, a world view and means to engage life well. This offers a holistic approach to the education or development of a person and the university’s role in that. This way of framing the task puts the emphasis more on the person—on the discreteness and integrity of the person, who then exists and acts individually and collectively. In other words, the task of a Christian university consists in the inculcation of a credible and faithful world view in students, with concomitant abilities to enter into life as far and as well as possible.
This emphasis on the task of a Christian university in terms of a world view raises as many questions as it answers. While fascinating and indeed necessary to consider, those questions would take us far beyond the scope of this brief essay. However, what can and must be said most essentially is this, that a Christian education must always seek to root in and stem from the uncreated and created realities that are the very stuff of existence. Hence, the endeavor of a Christian university toward a world view must begin and end with the being and acting of God in himself (as revealed to us) and in this knotty, creaturely existence that is our life.
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