Dr Greg Bahnsen - Basic Training in Education: The Myth of Neutrality (Part 2)

Well, I want to welcome you to the second of our three sessions on Christian education. I'm glad you could be with us this evening. When I spoke to you last, I tried to explain that Christian education, teaching our children every subject from the perspective of God's Word and in terms of the Christian worldview is a covenantal duty. It is part of walking with God that parents, parents recognize that their children belong to the Lord. And therefore the formation of their minds, their thinking, their lives should be within the framework of God's Word and the guidance that God's law gives us in order to keep covenant with God to be faithful in walking with Him. We need to then raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, make sure that their education reflects his glory and honors His Word. Indeed, that is the first outward expression of covenant faithfulness to God as we read of it in the book of Deuteronomy. If we believe that the Lord our God is one Lord and we're going to love him with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind, the author of Deuteronomy says, then you're going to teach your children diligently in his law and make sure that it's written on their forehead and on their hand. And when they rise up and when they go to bed at night and when they go through the doors of their house or through the gates of the city, they're going to always see things in terms of the law of God. So that was our lesson last time. Christian education as keeping covenant with God. Now, I want to pose a question as we begin our second session, though. Why is it that many Christians don't understand that having their children educated in a secular fashion is really unfaithful to God? Why is it that so many Christians, without being engaged in open, visible rebellion against God, why is it they make the mistake of having their children raised in a secular atmosphere? What is it that allows those who do love the Lord and want to be obedient to him to make that kind of mistake? And I want to suggest to you it's not the only mistake, but I think the central reason, the basic mistake that people make when they are willing to have their children educated by non Christians is the mistake or the myth of neutrality. And so tonight's lesson is on the myth of neutrality. For you see, if we have the idea that life is divided into a sacred area which is kind of narrow, that's the spiritual interest that we have, and then a secular area, which is the vast majority of life, the day to day existence that we go through most of our thoughts, most areas of life are outside of the church, therefore secular, outside of the temple of God. If we have this idea that there's a sacred secular distinction in life or in reality, then it's easy for us to think that in the secular area, Christians and non Christians, really, there is no difference for them there. They think in the same way. They have the same standards. As somebody would say, well, two plus two is four, whether you're a Christian or not a Christian. So obviously there are some areas of life where it makes no difference whatsoever. And it's okay in those areas to have my children educated by those who don't honor God. The idea is that in the secular area of reality or the secular area of our thinking, neutrality is possible. And since the teachers at the public school are supposed to be neutral in their teaching, they're supposed to be religiously neutral. It really isn't going to do any harm to have my children there. I can have my children educated and in a neutral fashion with respect to secular items like math or science, physical education, history, grammar, and on and on. And then I'll give them their sacred education, that is, their education in spiritual things at home or at Sunday school and in church. And you can ask yourself whether I'm right on this. But in my experience, I found that the reason most Christian parents don't feel guilty or troubled even about having their children in a school that is not a Christian school is because they think education is neutral, not religious education. Of course, that can't be religiously neutral. But then again, the public schools claim not to be teaching religion anyway. They're only teaching worldly subjects or things pertaining to nature, as all of us experience. They don't get into supernature, into supernatural things. They just talk about the here and now and what is common to all men, regardless of their religious beliefs. This myth of neutrality misleads God's people. To put it very simply, the notion that there can be neutrality in any area of life is unbiblical. It's easy for us to think that way. I mean, there have been times in my life where I fallen into that trap and thought that way. So I'm not at all unsympathetic to people making that mistake. But when I have thought or when other people think that there's areas of life where our religious commitments don't make any difference. We did not learn that from the Bible. We learned that from our own wisdom. We learned that from the way the world does Things, we did not pick that up from God's Word. Because if you'll now pick up God's Word, I want to look at a few texts with you tonight to see what the Bible says about this question. In Matthew 6:24, Matthew 6:24, the Lord Jesus says to us, no man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. And in this particular setting, Jesus says, you cannot serve God and money. You can't have two masters. There's no such thing in any person's life. God knows us. He's the One who made us. He understands us inside and out. He knows the psychological truth about us. And Jesus says, you just can't divide your loyalty. Ultimately, you're going to serve God, or you're going to serve money, or you're going to serve God or whatever else is in competition with God. In this particular case, what we're talking about tonight, the idea that there's other authorities for history, for literature, for science, for math, other than God. Jesus says, it can't be that way. You're either going to serve God or you're going to serve the other master. Now, you may try to run back and forth, you know, like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I'm going to serve the God of education, whatever that is, reason, logic, scientific exploration. People don't call it God. They don't carve a God of logic or reason and bow down to it. But it is an authority. And in the school system, that authority is going to be recognized or God is going to be recognized. Some people think, well, Monday through Friday, I'll serve this God. And then on Saturday I'll do all my housework and the wash. And on Sunday I'll worship the living and true God. And then on Monday through Friday, you know, Friday I'll go back to this. Well, they don't call it God, do they? But if there is an ultimate authority that dictates the way in which you're to think, the standards by which you're to evaluate things, and the way you're to live, that is as good as a God that functions as a God, and Jesus says, you can't serve two masters. Turn now to Matthew 12:30, where the myth of neutrality is exposed even more bluntly by our Lord when he says, he that is not with me is neutral with respect to me. He who has not yet made a commitment to follow me religiously has simply not made up his mind. He's neutral. That isn't what my Bible says either. I don't want you to be worried because if you're reading, I bet your Bible says, he who is not with me is what against me? Me. And that's just not politically correct. That's just not the way to talk today. If you want to have detente, if you want to have good public relations, then in our day and age, people will tell you, you've got to give people space. You know, you mustn't make them commit to this or that, black or white. You've got to say, if you're not yet committed, you may be on the fence. You're still thinking things through. But you'll notice Jesus doesn't tolerate fence sitting. He doesn't tolerate neutrality in the same way that he doesn't tolerate following two masters. He says, and if I'm not your master, it's not just that you're out there wondering now or saying, that's a moot question. I'm not going to speak to that. But you're actually against me. Of course that's the way it has to be. Because the Lord Jesus makes an absolute demand on our life. You know what the word absolute means? Unqualified. There's no contingency. There's no exception. There's no area where it doesn't apply. There's no excuse for ignoring it. Jesus makes an absolute demand that people follow him. Jesus demand is so absolute that one day when a person said, lord, I want to follow you, but first I have to go home and bury my father, Jesus said, you're not worthy of me, boy. That really, that slaps us in the face. We think, wait a minute, Jesus. There's nothing wrong with a man showing respect for his father and attending to his funeral before he comes to follow you. Jesus says, nothing takes priority over following me. Now, in my personal opinion, I'm reading between the lines here. I think if this person had come and said, jesus, even though my father needs to be buried, I want to follow you. I'll do whatever you say. Probably Jesus would have sent him home to bury his father. But to make the point that even family loyalty cannot take precedence over following Jesus immediately, wholeheartedly, Jesus says, well, then you're not worthy of me. If you think you can put me on the back burner while you attend to a social courtesy, or what people would expect you to do. Jesus makes a radical demand on people. Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. Then all these other things will be added to you. Jesus says, don't worry about money. Don't worry about what you're going to eat. Don't worry about what you're going to wear. Those are secondary matters. First and foremost, the kingdom of God and God's righteousness. So Jesus makes an absolute demand on people. It's unqualified. It applies to all areas of life. Now, when someone makes an absolute demand that requires immediate obedience and obedience across the board. And the one to whom the Lord is speaking says, well, maybe, let me think about it. He's not submitting to the absolute demand of the Lord, is he, because of the absoluteness of the demand. The point I'm making here is those who will not choose for Jesus are in fact opposed to him. They're antagonistic to him. Jesus says he, he who is not with me is against me. He's not in no man's land. He's not in some neutral territory. He's not in the realm of the uncommitted. He's committed against me. And so from a biblical perspective, the idea that we can have neutrality at any point in our life or our following of the Lord Jesus is ruled out. It's impossible. And it's on the authority of Jesus that we say that and we believe that. So if we try to apply neutrality to education, these verses we've looked at would rebuke us and say, no, you can't have your children educated in a neutral way because there's no neutrality available. Christian education is education. From a Christian perspective, everyone would expect that if your children went to a Christian school or if you were home schooling them in a Christian family, you would expect that they'd learn history and literature and science from the framework of God's word and in the perspective of the teaching of Scripture. But then people think, but if they don't go to a Christian school, then they go to a neutral school. No, if your children are not going to a Christian school, they're going to an anti Christian school. Ouch. I know that's got to come as a shocker to many people. But you see, there's no alternative if we're going to be biblical in our thinking, because Jesus doesn't allow for any in between. He says, you're either for me or you're against me. And so people who are teaching math and ignoring the Lord Jesus Christ, people who are teaching about geography or about the natural world and science, people who are teaching grammar, people who are teaching spelling, people who are teaching about literature, history or physical education, whatever it may Be if they are teaching in a way which ignores the Lord Jesus Christ and his claims, Jesus says they're against me, not neutral, not trying to be in some area where they're not committed, but they are actually following a commitment that's contrary to me. One of the reasons we say this, and I'm sure one of the reasons why the Lord laid this upon us, is because in a biblical perspective, the doctrine of creation is foundational to everything. God created the heavens and the earth. That's where the Bible begins. In the beginning. God, God created. And there is nothing that is not God which is not his work. There is nothing that is not God which is not under his control. There is nothing which is not God that is not there to serve his purposes and to bring glory to him. Therefore, when we think about mathematics, or we think about geography, or we think about history, or we think about literature or grammar or whatever it may be, anything that is not divine must then serve the divine Creator. He made it, he controls it, and it's there for his purpose. The doctrine of creation indicates to us that life is a unity. Everything is unified under the sovereign disposition and creative power of God. Everything is under God. And if everything is under God, then there can't be what we sometimes call a divided field of knowledge. A divided field of knowledge indicates that you use one principle or set of principles to understand a portion of life, but another principle or set of principles to understand the rest of life. And earlier, when I was talking about a sacred secular distinction, this is one version of the divided field of knowledge. You have secular learning, and then you have sacred learning. And so the field of knowing what's out there to be known is divided between principles that require religious instruction and principles that don't require religious instruction. But you see, the doctrine of creation rules that out, doesn't it? The doctrine of creation says life is a unity, reality is a unity, and all of it, everything that is not God, is God's work, under God's control, and is there to serve God's purposes. In that case, the school that teaches children to ignore God or to suppress God and His Word is not a neutral school. It's a school that's denying the doctrine of creation. Many times Christians, I think, have made the mistake of thinking that the controversy regarding creation and the schooling of our children is all like the Scopes trial all over evolution versus creationism. And I think that's an important issue, and it's something that Christian parents must take into account when their children are being educated. But the Doctrine of creation is far more significant than simply the debate over evolution. The doctrine of creation indicates that everything that we study in this world, everything that we know, must be related to God, because it's God's world. God is in control of history and we couldn't know anything apart from Him. And therefore the school that claims to be neutral, even if it were possible, it's not. But the school that claims to be neutral may think that this is the way of peace, this is the way of peaceful coexistence. We just won't take a position with respect to God's Word, won't take a position with respect to the Creator, won't take a position with respect to the lordship of Jesus Christ. The school that teaches children that they can put God on the shelf and be neutral with respect to his claims is surely, even if silently antagonistic to God's position as the Lord. The Lord makes an absolute demand on our lives, and that means our children must think God's thoughts after Him. They must look at the world as God's world. They can't even do math without recognizing that the rules of math reflect the mind of God. The only alternative to Christian education, therefore, is anti Christian education. Neutrality is a myth. The notion that our children can go to a school that's not committed religiously is ruled out by the Bible. Even though it may not be by our imagination, it may not be by our traditions, it may not be by popular thinking in our day. From a biblical perspective, there is no neutrality. He who is not with me is against me. Turn in your Bibles now to Ephesians, the fourth chapter, verses 17 to 20, where the apostle Paul kind of plays out or works out for us what I've been telling you about the impossibility of neutrality when it comes to our thinking, the way we understand the world, the way we conduct our lives. Paul says this. I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk. Paul says you cannot cooperate with the world, the Gentiles standing for the unbelieving world here. If you belong to the people of God, you must be faithful to God in everything you do. You must stop imitating the Gentiles in their lifestyle, in their walk, the way they conduct themselves in the world. And now listen to how he explains what's wrong with the Gentile lifestyle. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk in the vanity of their mind. The first thing that captures Paul's Attention about the way Gentiles live their lives, about their lifestyle, is that their thinking is vain, it's futile, it's empty, it's worthless, it's pointless being darkened in their understanding. Their understanding is not a place of great enlightenment, according to the Apostle Paul. Of course, in our day and age, we think people who are well educated teachers are the enlightened ones. Paul says, if you're an unbeliever, your understanding is dark, not light. It's not enlightened, it's darkened, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart. And so as Paul, he's going to go on to talk about their licentious lifestyle and their behavior. But before he gets to that, Paul has already described what the way unbelievers think, the way they understand, the way they reason. And he says, I order you in the Lord, I exhort you, don't think that way. Don't follow their patterns of evaluation and conceptualization, because there's nothing worthwhile there. From the Christian standpoint, there is, as we put it sometimes in theology, an antithesis between the thinking of God's people and the thinking of the world. A hostility, an antagonism, or in biblical terms, an enmity. At the very beginning of history, when man fell into sin, God imposed enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, between those who will belong to God through the Savior that comes by means of the woman and those who belong to the evil one. There's an enmity in the New Testament. Paul calls unbelievers enemies in their minds, in their minds, in their thinking, they are antagonistic to God. Now do all unbelievers up to that, do all unbelievers come before their class and say, I'll tell you what, I'm angry at God. I don't believe in God. I'm not going to live for God. I refuse to think God's thoughts after him. I know better than this religious book called the Bible. I can ignore it. I'm smarter than that. Do they always come before our children and kick the Bible across the floor and say, I despise the word of God. I will not honor it? No, I'm not saying that at all. That isn't what the enmity is. Some do that. I've known university professors to do that sort of thing. Just arrogantly defy the Bible, kick it around, and then say to students, if you don't like that, you better get out of this class, because that's the spirit with which we're going to approach our subject. But that's the extreme case. Most unbelievers, Well, I don't know that statistically, but I have the feeling that most unbelievers are not openly rebellious. You don't go to the third grade math classroom and find the teacher kicking the Bible around. But Paul says that math teacher, whoever he or she is, has a darkened understanding and is alienated from the life of God. The enmity between God's people and those who belong to the evil one is present in that teacher's life, that's present in that teacher's thinking and therefore present in that teacher's instruction. The only alternative to education that is Christian in character and direction is anti Christian. And the sooner we learn that, the sooner we get rid of the misleading idea that neutrality is a possibility, the better it will be for us in terms of educating our children in a faithful way. In the Old Testament, as I told you in our last lesson, the great confession of faith that Israel was to make the Shema of Israel, hear, O Israel, is that the Lord our God is one. Israel was a monotheistic religion, had a monotheistic religion. You all understand that word, monotheism. One God, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. There were not multiple gods. There was not a plurality of gods from the standpoint of Israel's religion. However, the religions round about Israel all taught a plurality of gods, polytheism rather than monotheism. They had gods for every different area of life. There was a God of agriculture, there was a God of war, a God for fields, a God for the mountains, a God for the sun, a God for rain, a God for fertility, a God for the ancestors, a God for the sea, a God for love, a God of hate. And on and on it goes. Israel's neighbors had multiple authorities when it came to life. But Israel was taught that the creator God, he alone was God. There is only one God. And the reason why it's important that God's people educate their children in a Christian way is to avoid what I'm going to call educational polytheism. The idea that in the realm of education there are a number of ultimate authorities. One ultimate authority in literature, another ultimate authority in history, another ultimate authority in math, another ultimate authority in biology, another ultimate authority in athletics, another ultimate authority in art or in industry or whatever it may be. The crisis of the modern university is precisely that that every different department's got its own way of looking at things. And the University can't bring it together. It's no longer a unique, it's a multiversity. Every department goes its own way. There is no unified world and life view available to university and college students in the secular environment of our day. Well, we must avoid this kind of polytheism. Many masters, many ultimate authorities when it comes to education. History is not a neutral field. Science is not a neutral field. Literature is not a neutral field. Math is not a neutral field. These are not places where Christian commitment is utterly irrelevant or indifferent or makes no difference whatsoever in practice. If we do not honor God ultimately when it comes to mathematics, we don't honor God when it comes to literature, history, etc. Then there's going to be some other standard by which we live and evaluate things. Some other ultimate goal will be acknowledged in each one of those areas. But if you have your Bibles, look at Colossians 2, verse 3 to see how the apostle Paul refuses to conceptualize things in that way. Paul says in Colossians 2:3, in Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. We want to run up there and help Paul. So wait a minute, Paul, you didn't mean it that way. What you meant is, in Christ all the religious treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hidden, right? You meant that Jesus is the storehouse of knowledge when it comes to theology and prayer and evangelism and salvation and worship, right? Well, we can't correct the Apostle Paul. He knew what he was talking about. And what he said is, all the treasures of wisdom, knowledge, all the treasures of knowledge about geography are deposited in Christ. All the treasures of knowledge with respect to math are deposited in Christ. Christ, therefore, cannot be treated as optional in any part of the educational curriculum. If Jesus is optional anywhere, then he's been dethroned as the Lord, as Paul understood his lordship. Because Jesus the Lord is the one that makes possible the knowledge of anything whatsoever. In Colossians 1:18, we read and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, in order that in all things he might have the preeminence. Jesus is to be worshipped on the basketball court. He has preeminence there. Jesus is to be worshipped in the chemistry lab. He has preeminence there. Jesus is to be worshipped when we do algebraic formulas on the blackboard. He's to be worshipped there. In all things. He is to have the preeminence. Anything that can be known, any matter of knowledge or wisdom, is deposited in him. Well, we can preach this pretty well, it's easy to find in the Bible. Maybe many Christians have overlooked it, but you've got to be sitting there saying, okay, Dr. Bonson, I'm willing to accept it because the Bible says this. But now, really, does it make a difference whether you're a Christian or not when it comes to all these areas? Does it make a difference, say, in mathematics, whether you're a Christian or not? And I believe it does. So I'm going to take a few moments here and try to illustrate from what's supposed to be the toughest area to illustrate this, that even in the area of mathematics, you can't do math unless you approach reality, unless you approach your thinking from a Christian perspective. After all, we all know that one plus one is two, don't we? Nothing religious there, is that right? How many of you have heard of the Eastern religion known as Hinduism? Well, Hinduism, which is one of the major religions of man, Hinduism is a radical monistic faith. And by monistic I mean that they radically, absolutely believe that everything is one, that all distinctions whereby we separate one thing from another or distinguish one thing from another are in fact our illusion. It's our way of thinking. And it's a wrong way of thinking, it's a misleading way of thinking, it's an immoral way of thinking. When I've talked to people who are sold out to the Bhagavad Gita, the religious book of the Hindus, they'll often say, see, that's the problem with the Western world. The Western world doesn't see the unity between human reality and nature. And so you rape Mother Earth and do all these terrible ecological sins, or people are selfish because they think their money is theirs and they won't share with other people. They don't realize all is one. Well, if all is one, radically, basically, if reality is all is one, then, you know, the mathematical law of one plus one is two is wrong, isn't it? And so what I'm getting at is if children are taught the law, if children are taught the laws of math and they're taught to believe that there really is a difference between this one apple and that one apple, and that the two of them together amount to two apples, that is contrary to the Hindu religion. Most people don't think that way. I mean, or they don't care about that. They say, oh, yeah, well, that's so ridiculous. You know, when people tell you that the way Hindus look at things is ridiculous, they're already living on Christian capital. What they're basically saying is, we're going to see the world in the way that the Bible reveals the world is. And we're not going to take seriously the silly stuff, this Hinduism. Under Hinduism, the truths of mathematics, the truths of arithmetic are evalu. Excuse me, Are invalidated. Because in that worldview, there is no plurality by which the laws of math can be found. And so somebody is going to probably discredit my illustration and say, well, we don't take the Hindus seriously. Okay, well, let's go the other way then. Let's not accept the Hindu idea that all is one, in which case the laws of mathematics are thrown out. Let's accept the opposite view, a radical pluralism, where everything is separate from everything else, where there is no oneness at all, where everything's different. This, of course, is the popular view in the Western world, following the philosopher of many years ago, whose name was Democritus. It's what we call in philosophy the. The view is called atomism. And atomists, those who teach that all of reality is separate and diverse from everything else, that you have many things that have to be related to each other. Atomists tend to say. And the way in which we know the world is by our sense experience. We go out and we observe the world. We experience the world, we see it, we touch it, we taste it, smell it, whatever it may be, we hear it. And so there's a radical manyness out there. There's all these different things that we experience with our senses. Well, now, if that's true, then there can't be any laws of mathematics, can there? Because of everything that you know. If everything that is real is something that you can experience and sense and is something that is particular. This tree, this car, this ant, this molecule, whatever it may be, if everything is different and separate from one another, then there are no laws of mathematics, are there? Why? Because the laws of mathematics, first, are not something that you can sense or touch, not something you can observe or hear. And the laws of mathematics are not particular either. The laws of mathematics are not a matter of this particular experience. They're rather something that's supposed to help us interpret all of our experiences. What I'm getting at here is that there's a universality to the laws of math, not a particularity to the laws of math. When we say one plus one is two, we don't mean in this case, one plus one is two. As we look at this apple and that apple, we say they add up to two apples. We say that one orange plus one orange is two oranges. As well. No matter where you are in China or the United States, no matter what you're thinking about apples or oranges, one plus one equals two. But of course, nobody has ever experienced a universal, because nobody has universal knowledge. All of our experiences are separate, discrete, individual, particular experiences here and now, types of things. So what I'm getting at is on a radical atomistic view of the world where everything is diverse, everything is different. When you have this radical plurality, you don't have the laws of math. But if you go the other way and have a radical monism like with the Hindus, you don't have the laws of math. Now, I don't want to bore you to tears here with this philosophical, abstract stuff. What I'm getting at is even something as elementary as math, you see, presupposes a way of looking at reality that can bring together both diversity and unity. And non Christian worldviews can't do that. When people do mathematics, they would be unable to make sense of doing math if they didn't approach it from a Christian perspective. Maybe I can get the point across to you in another way. Let me give you another illustration. I'm just going to ask a simple question. We're teaching math to what, third graders. Now, shouldn't the math teacher begin by asking the class, or at least assume in his or her teaching, an answer to the question, are numbers real? That's obvious. Sure. Numbers are real, right? Well, are they? What is a number? Now, if I had a blackboard here tonight, what I would do is I'd put a number up here. Like maybe I'd take the chalk and make a three. And I'd ask you now, class, is that the number three? And those who are of course wanting to get through quickly and are being shallow in their thinking would all nod their heads, say, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, that's the number three. And then I take the eraser and I'd erase the board and I'd say, guess what? There's no more number three. Because you told me that was the number three I just destroyed. I obliterated the number three. And now don't ever use three in your thinking. Don't ever refer to three anymore because there is no more three. And everybody say, oh, come on, only a philosopher would play games like that. I say, okay, maybe I'm just a philosopher playing games. Then you tell me, where is the number three? If it wasn't what I wrote on the board, the smarter ones in the class will say, that was just a name for three or a Symbol for three. Or as we might say, an instance of three ness that you put up there on the board. And I say, okay, but where is threeness? Or what if I wrote on the board 3 as you know, how to do it using Arabic numerals and then put down three in Roman numerals. And I'd say, now are these the same number? Most of you would say yes. And I'd say, well, how can they be the same? They don't look the same. Where is the sameness that we call three if the instance, if the symbol can look so different? You say, boy, third graders are going to really have a tough time with questions like that. Okay, well, maybe third graders shouldn't have to wrestle with that, but third grade teachers should. How can a third grade teacher teach math if he or she doesn't understand the reality of numbers, what numbers are, and how there can be laws of mathematics? The purpose of my lecture tonight is not to teach Christian philosophy or apologetics, but I'll give you the bottom line answer. If you don't have a Christian view of reality, you can't make sense out of math. Christians can explain that three exist even though we can't ever stub our toe on it or accidentally put it in a drawer, not be able to find it or erase it from the blackboard. Three is the way God thinks and four and three plus four is seven. And all these things that we teach as math are a reflection of God's mind. But now an unbeliever doesn't believe in God. Unbeliever doesn't have a Christian worldview. But the unbeliever wants to teach math. Can't be done. The unbeliever can't teach the laws of logic either. For the same reason the unbeliever can't explain that there are moral absolutes. Because if the unbeliever is only supposed to teach what we can experience, what we can see, what we can touch and feel, no one's ever going to find a moral absolute that you can touch or feel. So unbelievers can't teach math, they can't teach logic, they can't teach morality, and you know, they can't teach science either. That sounds funny because that's supposed to be the one area that everybody acknowledges. Well, at least unbelieving education surpasses Christian education when it comes to math, when it comes to science, when it comes to a knowledge of the natural order. Well, everything that we know in the natural order depends on the assumption that the world operates in a uniform way, that the way it operated on Tuesday is the way it's going to operate on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and so on and so on. You couldn't learn anything from the past if you didn't believe that the future would be like the past. When I teach apologetics, I often use as my example. None of us think once we've stubbed our toe at night and had that miserable experience of pain, that maybe next time it's going to be the thrill of a lifetime. We all assume if it hurt in the past, it's going to hurt in the future. So what do we do? We try not to kick that chair with our bare toe. We try not to stub our toe because we assume that the future will be like the past. All of science rests on that principle. The uniformity of nature is a popular way of discussing it. You couldn't have natural science without a belief in the uniformity of nature. And so committed is the scientific community to the uniformity of nature that when calculations are done in astronomy, for instance, and then we don't find that our observations match up to what we calculated what we would expect from our previous learning. We don't say, oh, well, of course, it's a chance world. Things are just all flubbed up today. And that's why we couldn't, you know, we couldn't find where Uranus would be today because this is a chance world. No, what happens is that the scientist who makes his calculations and doesn't have any reason to doubt their accuracy, but his projections don't turn out to be true. Says what? There's a factor I don't understand. There's something else out there, like the planet Neptune. And we calculate there must be some interference in what we expect the pattern of Uranus to be. And then, lo and behold, one day we discover that that's true. But the point is, scientists don't give up their belief in the uniformity of nature. Neither do you. You have so many times squeezed the toothpaste and had the toothpaste squirt out that when you squeeze the toothpaste and it doesn't squirt out, you don't say, well, it's a chance world, just the way things go. Sometimes you say, what? Either the cap's not off or it's hardened in there or it's empty, or something like that. All I'm getting at is you can't teach science. From the most elementary truths about toothpaste tubes to the planet, you can't teach science without believing the uniformity of nature. But you know what? Unbelievers can't account for the uniformity of nature. They have no reason to believe that nature will be uniform for them, it's a chance world. In fact, in their more brilliant moments. I said that tongue in cheek. In their more brilliant moments, they'll actually say anything can happen in history. We believe the world's random, we believe in chance. And then they do all their science on the basis that chance is not true. Now what I'm getting at here is that when it comes to education, not only is there no neutrality, but those who claim to be neutral couldn't know anything at all. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited in Christ. If you don't come to the Lord Jesus Christ and understand the world as his Word teaches it, you can't understand math, you can't justify it. You can't understand science, you can't justify it. You can't understand human living morality, you can't justify it. All the treasures of wisdom, knowledge, not just about prayer and about salvation and about going to church, but all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to part posited in Christ. There is no neutrality. That is a myth. This is the case not only in a matter like math and science, but it's all the more the case when we look at issues like the liberal arts. Because in the liberal arts we're studying man and his life. What's valuable, what the purpose of human life is, how men should live by what standards, how they should interact with each other, what the world is, how they know about the world. So that in everything that is taught, some view of man is being implied by any teacher, Christian or non Christian. Back in 1993, Roy Romer, then the governor of Colorado, was being interviewed by a Washington Post columnist about education. And I want to read this quotation from him because I think it shows a great deal, a real depth of. Of shallow thinking. He said. But before we give up on public education, he says, before we give up on it, we ought to remember what the public school system has meant to us as the meeting ground for all kinds of Americans. When you encourage separate schools for Methodists, for Catholics, for Lutherans, when you divide youngsters by race or class or by their parents view of creation, you become less like America and more like Bosnia. We ought to be careful where we go. How do you like that? Well, there's a little prejudicial emotional rhetoric used for you. You're not being good Americans. If you put your children In a Lutheran school or a Methodist school or a Roman Catholic school or whatever it may be. That's less like America, because in America, we honor all points of view in public school. What rubbish. We honor all points of school, all points of view in our schooling. If our children go to public schools. Let me tell you something. I've experienced the public school system, though I'm teaching this lesson. You have to understand that I didn't always believe this way, didn't always practice this. And up through high school, I was in the public school system. And you know what I found to be true. And I'm not saying this now from a standpoint of party loyalty, just making this up. But at the time, even when I was a young person, I said, you know, the only point of view that is not given consideration is the Christian one. We study everything. We could study communism. When I was a senior, we studied existentialism in my literature class. The professor never told us that's what he was giving us. But we studied existentialism, we studied moral relativism, we studied evolution, we studied all this garbage. But nowhere did anybody say, oh, by the way, shouldn't we say something about what the Christian view would be on this point? Never the Christian point of view. This is nonsense that if you're a true American, you want all points of view, so go to the public school. You're not going to get the Christian point of view in the public school. I want to demonstrate that in three areas, the three most important cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. Forget all of the different denominational distinctives and differences. Anybody who's a biblical Christian believes in creation, believes in fall, believes in redemption. Okay, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about those, but let's just take those three very general Christian truths in the public schools today. State education presents modern science bluntly from the standpoint that God did not create the heavens and the earth. It is taken for granted that God did not. And in fact, children are told that if you wish to believe that, you're free to do so. But that doesn't belong in the science classroom, because that's not a matter of science, it's a matter of religion. That perspective in itself is anti Christian. To say that the doctrine of creation is kind of like the religious coating to whatever the scientists can tell us is anti religious. Now, is the doctrine of creation presented side by side with the doctrine of evolution when it is taught? Where schools or school districts have tried to mandate that kind of equal treatment, the courts have Invalidated it. In Louisiana, there was an equal treatment law passed that creationism and evolutionism had to be presented side by side. The ACLU went to court to have that law invalidated. Well, so much for Governor Romer's view that. That if you want all points of view, go to the public school. No, if you want all points of view, you better go to Christian schools. Because there they'll teach you about evolution, that it's wrong, of course, but they'll teach you about it and about creation. But you're not going to get it in the public schools. The second thing that we as Christians believe is the doctrine of man's fall. Throughout recorded history, it has been taken as an assumption by most cultures, especially those influenced by Christianity, that the problems men have come from a wrong relationship with God. Because in some sense we're at enmity with God, we're in rebellion against God. To put it simply, we have sinned. But you know, that's challenged today in the public school system. Public schools will not teach that man's problem is sin. They can't. In fact, it's ruled out because that's religious. So if men have problems, their problems must be explained. What, psychologically, environmentally, it's because we've not adapted to our environment well enough, or there's economic stress upon us or this or that, whatever it may be. It may be chemical dependency, it may be that we had bad parents, it may be that we're not toilet trained. Whatever it is, man's problem is not religious. Now, am I right? That's the one point of view that you will not hear. And yet the vast majority of education, especially in the liberal arts, has to do with man's problem. That men don't get along, that they go to war with one another, they can't cooperate politically in terms of society, they can't be good neighbors, they have emotional problems, on and on. Where does all that come from? The Christian point of view is not even given mention when it comes to that sort of thing. Thing. In fact, modern psychology goes out of its way to tell us that your problem is not sin. If there's one underlying theme of secular psychology, it is you have no reason to feel guilty. It's not your fault. And so it's not just that Christian point of view on sin is ignored. It's openly defied. The counseling that is followed at the public school schools is anti Christian counseling. It doesn't say you're in sin, you need a savior, you need to submit your life to the Lord Jesus. Christ. And then what's the third doctrine of Christianity that I said? Creation, fall and redemption. Well, the public schools are supposed to help men find answers to their problems, right? How to get along better with one another, how to have a more stable society, to have more economic prosperity, how to solve mathematical problems and medical problems, and on and on and on. What is the answer to man's problem? Well, in the public schools, do you ever hear it brought up? Well, the answer to man's problem is the grace of God. God must intervene. God's got to take care of our guilt and change our hearts and give us a law and guidance to follow if we're going to be happy in this world. Every class in the curriculum from kindergarten up through college and graduate school, every class in the curriculum assumes some answer to where did we come from? What's our problem? And what's the answer to our problem? What's the solution to our problem? And in every class in the public state school system, the only point of view that will not be given possible attention is the Christian view of creation, fall and redemption. Now, my friends, I'm here to tell you tonight, neutrality is a myth. Neutrality is a myth in math. Neutrality is a myth in science. Neutrality is a myth in the liberal arts. When all is said and done, we have to make our choice. Our children are going to be taught from a Christian perspective, or they're going to be taught from an anti Christian perspective. As we said at the beginning of tonight's lesson, Jesus put it very clearly, he who is not with me is against me. And so that's why in this series of lectures, I'm trying to urge you as Christians who would be faithful to God's covenant, to show your faithfulness in making Christ the Son center of your children's education. In 2 Corinthians, the tenth chapter, the apostle Paul tells us that we are to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Every thought captive, everything we think about, whether it's about religion in the narrow sense, salvation, whether it's about ethics, whether it's about literature, man's problems there, what man's life is all about, whether it's about history and how we got into the problems we did, whether it's about politics, whether it's about industry, whether it's about our athletic endeavors, every thought Paul says, is to make captive to the obedience of Christ. Those thoughts which are not captive Christ that are not obedient to him, are dishonoring to him. And so what would you feed your children? How would you nurture them. How would you mold their thinking? Don't make the mistake of thinking the choice is between a neutral education or an education with the high octane spiritual values of the Bible. Those aren't the choices. In the end, he who is not with me is against me.