The liberal arts tradition, as I understand it, is premised on the assumption that a true education requires more than the mere mastery of trade-specific data, but also the cultivation of a variety of valuable cognitive and social abilities. Among the cognitive skills a teacher in the liberal arts tradition assays to nurture are the capacity to think and learn independently, and to critically assess one’s own presuppositions, perspectives, and biases, as well as those of others (including teachers and the authors of course texts). In addition, the liberal arts tradition seeks to foster academic facility in formulating, evaluating, and expressing arguments, as well as in seeking, classifying, and organizing information. The liberal arts tradition, however, is not merely about cognitive skills, but also entails the development of certain social qualities, the most noble among them being respect, an empathetic imagination, and counter-conventional thinking (i.e., the ability to envisage how, in the words of a Buddhist text, it “might be otherwise”). Challenging students to wrestle with the viewpoints, values, and worldviews of other people is one of the most efficient ways to achieve these goals of a liberal education. RL101 does just that, and it is therefore the case that the most successful students in this course will not be those who are satisfied with learning information about the world’s religions, but rather those who also seek a sincere, thorough, and reorienting encounter with them.
The Bible - RL 202
James McGrath
Butler’s one-semester course on The Bible (RL202) has for a long time met the Division 1 core curriculum humanities requirement, and will meet the Texts and Ideas requirement under the new core curriculum. What is the purpose of this course as relates to the liberal arts, that causes it (or other courses like it) to be required of students? This question is asked most frequently by students in the professional colleges, many of whom believe the role of a university should be to prepare students with specific skills that will enable them to get specific jobs upon graduation.
Listen, however, to what CEOs from America’s top six accounting firms had to say about what they are looking for in terms of the education of their future employees: “Passing the CPA Examination should not be the goal of accounting education. The focus should be on developing analytical and conceptual thinking – versus memorizing rapidly expanding professional standards.”[1] The education that universities offer is informed by our alumni and their experience of what is actually needed in the workplace, as well as a board of trustees consisting of people currently in, or with lengthy experience in, the world of business and careers. Memorized (and quickly forgotten) data and information are not that which is crucial. Having learned how to learn, and developing skills of critical thinking, cross-cultural communication, conflict resolution, evaluation of evidence – when one has made these skills one’s own, then one is well prepared for just about any profession. The truth of the matter is that it is this breadth of education – which is the focus and indeed the definition of the liberal arts – that makes a diploma valuable, as a university diploma and not merely one from a technical or vocational college.
You probably know the famous saying, “Give a person a fish and you have fed him or her for a day; teach a person how to fish and you have fed them for life.” A liberal arts education aims at teaching students not just important general knowledge, but teaching them how to learn. The Bible provides a wonderful area in which to do precisely that. On the one hand, the Bible is of profound religious and existential importance to many students, and so if they can learn to think critically about it, then thinking critically about more mundane topics less central to their worldview will seem relatively easy and painless by comparison. The Bible is also a great place to learn to use a range of tools from various academic disciplines, since its contents can be approached via historical, archaeological, literary, social-scientific, and a vast range of other perspectives.
In any given religion classroom at Butler, there will be students representing a range of viewpoints and religious traditions. This provides a wonderful opportunity to develop critical realism, that approach to knowledge that assumes neither the ability to completely objectify that which is studied, nor a relativism claiming that any and all opinions are of equal value. Parker Palmer puts it wonderfully when he writes:
The only “objective” knowledge we possess is the knowledge that comes from a community of people looking at a subject and debating their observations within a consensual framework of procedural rules. I know of no field, from science to religion, where what we regard as objective knowledge did not emerge from long and complex communal discourse that continues to this day…
The firmest foundation of all our knowledge is the community of truth itself. This community can never offer us ultimate certainty – not because its process is flawed but because certainty is beyond the grasp of finite hearts and minds. Yet this community can do much to rescue us from ignorance, bias, and self-deception if we are willing to submit our assumptions, our observations, our theories – indeed, ourselves – to its scrutiny.[2]
The Bible (RL202) does not only provide an opportunity to learn the varied approaches to knowledge that are crucial to a liberal arts education, and to becoming a lifelong learner on a trajectory towards a successful future. It is also an opportunity to begin to develop the habit of respectful dialogue with others with whom we disagree. It is only such encounter with different viewpoints that can keep us honest. It has been said that one never truly believes something until one has listened to the arguments of the other side. The academic study of the Bible thus provides students with an opportunity to reflect on, and work out for themselves, what they truly believe.
[1] Jean C. Wyer, “Accounting Education: Change Where You Might Least Expect It,” Change Jan.-Feb. 1993, pp.15-17 [quoted in Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 1998) p.177.
[2] Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 1998) p.104.
The Book of Psalms - RL 304
Paul Valliere
In RL 304 we will study the Book of Psalms using the resources of the liberal arts. The "liberal arts" are a set of educational practices deriving from the universities of medieval Europe. The mainspring of the liberal arts is the creative tension between three distinct but mutually relevant traditions of learning:
1) classical learning, based on the literary and philosophical heritage of Greece and Rome;
2) biblical learning, based on the Hebrew and Greek scriptures and their interpretation in Jewish and Christian tradition; and
3) scientific learning, based on the systematic investigation of nature that arose in the later Middle Ages and continues through the scientific revolutions of modern times including our own.
In RL 304 we will draw continuously on the interpretation of the Psalms in Jewish and Christian tradition. We will also apply rigorous scientific methods to the book, drawing on disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, sociology and linguistics. We will also learn how the understanding of the Book of Psalms has been significantly affected by literary and philosophical values deriving from the non-biblical classical tradition.
That the Book of Psalms occupies a special place in the American cultural and collegiate tradition is suggested by the fact that the first book to be published on the territory of the future United States of America was the Book of Psalms. The Bay Psalm Book (1640) was prepared and printed in the living room of the president of Harvard College, the first institution of higher learning in America and, of course, a liberal arts college.
Hinduism: Past and Present – RL 358 Chad M. Bauman
The liberal arts tradition, as I understand it, is premised on the assumption that a true education requires more than the mere mastery of trade-specific data, but also the cultivation of a variety of valuable cognitive and social abilities. Among the cognitive skills a teacher in the liberal arts tradition assays to nurture are the capacity to think and learn independently, and to critically assess one’s own presuppositions, perspectives, and biases, as well as those of others (including teachers and the authors of course texts). In addition, the liberal arts tradition seeks to foster academic facility in formulating, evaluating, and expressing arguments, as well as in seeking, classifying, and organizing information. The liberal arts tradition, however, is not merely about cognitive skills, but also entails the development of certain social qualities, the most noble among them being respect, an empathetic imagination, and counter-conventional thinking (i.e., the ability to envisage how, in the words of a Buddhist text, it “might be otherwise”). Challenging students to wrestle with the viewpoints, values, and worldviews of other people is one of the most efficient ways to achieve these goals of a liberal education. RL358 exposes students to one of these worldviews in a sustained fashion. If it is successful, the course will do more than just purvey information about Hinduism, but will also facilitate a sincere, thorough, and reorienting encounter with the Hindu tradition and those who adhere to it.