What’s Really Real?
The Word of God, passing like a beam of white light through the prism of time spreads out into fifteen aspects of human experience: numerical, spatial, kinematic, physical, biotic and so on as shown in the diagram.
This was the explanation of the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyweerd and I find it to be a helpful way of understanding reality in the light of the Bible.
As a prism reveals the range of colours contained in light so the variety of human experience is shown to come from one source, the Word of God. “He spoke and it came to be,” Psalm 33v9.
God is the ultimate reality; the source of all reality and my life is a unified combination of different aspects.
Life is all of a piece.
I find this wonderfully comforting. The Word of God constitutes the total reality in which I find myself.
Each aspect of reality can be made into a study of its own, we see in the diagram that these are the subjects we study at school and university. Our approach to schooling should not be fragmented. Cross-curricular learning in our Scottish schools is the very best pedagogy! It reflects the oneness of the source of reality. (For more on this see: Greene, A. (1998): Reclaiming the future of Christian Education: Purposeful Design Publications: Colorado Springs.)
I’m praying that through the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, Christian teachers, pupils and parents will have a growing awareness of God’s involvement in our ordinary experience moment by moment.
Some of our colleagues are working to incorporate LGBT themes into ordinary teaching and learning. “For example, when learning about poetry and prose, pupils may read texts from LGBT authors and poets, or that have an LGBT related theme to them. For example, pupils may learn about the recently uncovered Poem 49 of the Maitland Quarto Manuscript, a same-sex love poem written in the Scots language. This learning could be within the context of interpreting older poetry, understanding and reproducing Scots, and identifying effective practice in writing poetry.” (https://www.tie.scot/info)
As teachers we don’t promote one view over another but we should expose the children in our care to different views, critique each view and teach respect of the people who hold a different view from us.
I wonder if, even while we are rejoicing that the Word of God constitutes the total reality in which we find ourselves, we are slow to incorporate Christian themes into the teaching and learning in our classroom. Worth pondering?
Do get in touch to discuss this further and do explore our website for ways in which you can honour God, the ultimate reality, in your lessons.
Megan Patterson
Vice-Chair, CVE Scotland
[All blogs on our website are the personal view of the writer and do not necessarily represent a position taken by CVE Scotland.]
