Aristotle has been “old” for two thousand years.
People will sometimes dismiss classical education as being old fashioned and out of date. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (an influential character in classical education circles) helped to establish the disciplines of logic and rhetoric…in the fourth century before Christ. By the time Jonathan Edwards was studying Aristotle in school, Aristotle had been dead for two thousand years. Now Aristotle’s been dead 2338 years. One might wonder what’s happened in the last three hundred years to strip Aristotle of his ability to teach us.
Aristotle hasn’t changed since the 18th century; we have. We are not committed to the same emphasis on the communication of values that Aristotle teaches in Nichomachean Ethics. We don’t appreciate the ancient languages that Aristotle used (and Edwards mastered), and our culture shows it. We have (evidently) abandoned the disciplines of logic and rhetoric, and we act like it.
But being an old idea doesn’t make classical education great. It’s great for a host of reasons. For instance, studying the writings of godless men like Aristotle helps to show us how God prepared the world for the first advent of His Son, politically, philosophically, religiously and otherwise. Additionally, the nature of men has not changed since Aristotle’s day, so his reasoning devices are as handy now as they were then…and they’re more novel because they’re so rarely utilized. Still more, the harmonization of Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric with the stages of children’s natural development (which Dorothy Sayers nicknamed the Poll Parrot, Pert, and Poetic stages, respectively) is also quite helpful.
But Christians today are able to read Aristotle and take his thinking still further. Aristotle believed that education was about the development of certain virtues in the pupil, but he had no authority for the articulation of those virtues, or their definitions. The best he could come up with were reasonable (and well-reasoned) speculations…from the mind of a natural man.
Enter classical Christian education.
We want for our children to identify and love the true, the good and the beautiful. And we point cheerfully to God as the Source of this classical trifecta. Aristotle could only do this theoretically with a conception about the idea of God, but we can point to Christ and His Word. And we do.
Our fathers seemed to understand some things we don’t yet, as a culture. They found great help and value in the work of Aristotle and others of the ancients. And it’s a good thing they did, or we wouldn’t be where we are. And while the world is working hard to divest our culture of its culture, we point cheerfully to Greece and Rome and Philadelphia (1776) and say, “These are our people.” They weren’t perfect, and neither are we, but God has used them and continues to do so…for His purposes.
Let’s make them proud, equipping our little ones to advance culture for Christ…in all spheres of life.