Being Human

Being human has its distinct advantages, does it not? Because we are called to have dominion over God’s creation, our human calling is different than the calling of the rest of creation. What is our human calling, and where does education fit into our human condition? Nicholas Wolterstorff, in an essay entitled, Why Doing Isn’t Everything, discusses what it is to be human. The following passage provides four insights from Wolterstorff on being human.

“To be human is to interpret not as an option but as a necessity. Reality is many different sorts, and if beliefs about the reality presented to us are to emerge, we must ourselves contribute to the interchange. Second, to be human is to imagine – to imagine how things may well be in the future in contrast to how they are in the present, and beyond that, to imagine how they could be even if they never will be that way. Third, to be human is to act and prize under the aspect of the good. “Lastly, what accompanies these foregoing capacities …is a capacity for delight and satisfaction that goes vastly beyond enjoyment of the sensory.”

Wolterstorff summarizes these views with this thoughtful summation: “to be human is to interpret the given, to imagine alternatives to the facts, to act and prize under the aspect of the good, and to find enjoyment in doing these.”

These four areas highlight our human condition. These four areas also crystallize the need for and importance of Christian education. Generally, education, teaches interpretation, fosters and directs imagination, produces and directs action, and finally instills into each student the essence of the good, the beautiful, and the joyful. A true Christian education can greatly assist in providing divine human direction – the original direction God created for His human creation.

Wolterstorff believes that “to be human is to be enculturated” and he also emphatically states that “one’s enculturation is always into some specific culture. No one is enculturated into human culture in general.” I believe that Wolterstorff is profound here. We have all been enculturated in ways that influence the way we see the entire world. When I was young, even though I was not a Christian, I still received an enculturation that had a heavy moralistic flavor to it. Unfortunately, I can not, in good conscious, acknowledge that this moral enculturation occurs in today’s society. The enculturation that our children will receive, if it is not Christian, will be one with little or no moralistic tone. It will be one that has heavy doses of self-centered and rebellious tones flavored with postmodern views of the world. Like it or not, this is the natural state of our hearts – without the Holy Spirit, and what we should expect.

As a Believer, I feel that part of my divine human calling is to provide an education that leads into the Christian culture. The Holy Spirit has intervened on behalf of those of us in Christ, and His intervention should impact our entire lives, especially since our human condition points to the fact that we will contribute to the interchange of the reality around us. Facing reality is always about questions: do we believe that enculturation takes place? And, if we do, what will be our response?