In this, the final installment of my three-part article series, I will continue to argue that the Bible should correct the habits of thinking that Hillsdale’s liberal arts education inculcates in its students. In part two, I argued that the liberal arts principle that human action can limit sin contradicts the Bible’s teaching on this matter. In part three, I will argue that the liberal arts instill a problematic assumption about the nature of man and the ends for which he was created that affects how students view their relationship with God. The liberal arts teach that the nature of man is primarily rational; the student who accepts this idea will believe that he is most pleasing to God when he lives rationally.
The liberal arts assume that man’s defining characteristic is his reason, that he is primarily rational. In The Republic, for example, Plato holds that the goal of life is to order the soul so that the rational part rules over the spirited and erotic parts. Some Christians assert that before the Fall in Genesis, man’s soul was perfectly ordered and working in harmony, but after the Fall the soul became disordered so that reason no longer ruled over passion. A primary goal of Hillsdale is to develop and train the soul so reason can rule over passion for the good of society.
The biblical account holds that man relates to God through spirit, not the intellect. God did not create man to be strong, powerful, and independent. Man was made to be in a relationship with Him–dependent, faithful, and obedient. According to the Bible, man is a spiritual being. The spirit is so important, in fact, that without it man cannot understand or relate to God. Jesus insists that man must be reborn of the spirit: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ‘Ye must be born again’” (John 3:5-6). He says in John 6:63 that his words are spirit and life: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are sons of God”; humans have a spirit and, through faith, receive the Holy Spirit, which is “the mind of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:16)—the Holy Spirit is Christ’s very thoughts and self within us.
Further, in John 16:13-14, Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as a counselor who leads people to truth and reveals the Word: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” Christ is “the Word made flesh,” which means that the Spirit will guide Christians into the truth of the Word “with unveiled eyes”. Similarly, Isaiah 30:20-21 anticipate the new covenant, which will allow faithful believers to receive the Holy Spirit as their ultimate teacher: “Yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore, but your eyes shall see your teachers. Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.” The Holy Spirit is the only way to “prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. This power comes not by our powers of discernment and reason but by the Spirit’s work to “transform us through the renewing of our minds,” freely and directly revealing God’s will. These passages reveal the spirit as the critical, intimate connection between man and God; it is man’s defining characteristic.