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SECTION VI


 CONCEPTS AND THE CHILD

Theory

 

On p. 205 of the Report,  we find a deposition so sui generis that it would seem a pity not to render it in full: it concerns School Forms one and two.  Our excerpt is from the start of the second paragraph of this statement -

Piaget says that the onset of abstract thinking occurs at about the mental age of eleven years.  Goldman suggests that abstract thinking takes longer to develop in the area of religion, and that it begins to emerge around age thirteen...


The reverence which almost seems to occur in the area of Piaget is of note; but the use of the name cannot defend error in our special field of application.  Brenda Cohen, in her sometimes perspicacious and often useful work,  Educational Thought ,  notes serious objections to any facile use of this approach, in view of the limitations of its construction*30 . Indeed,  apart from questions of the rate at which different child stages are reached and passed, the comprehensiveness of the rate for which stylisation is attempted, and the cultural, intellectual and ideational environment which occurs in the area of research,  there are also  the matters not only of the presuppositions and personality of the teachers, but of the desiderata which are methodologically in fashion or imposed.  Thus a teacher of one set of values may indeed be inventive in seeking their implementation as soon as possible; and the child discerning the passion of the teacher, if feeling well served,  may well co-operate - if only in a sense of wide-eyed wonder and curiosity, to ascertain what it is that so excites the teacher.

The obvious fact that children brought up in practical - say hunting - environments may set a high store of value on the practical and skilful components of the breadwinners, and take action both conscious and unconscious to further the advance to the process observed: this cannot safely be ignored.  A mind may be imbued with such a sense of importance in some sphere, that real attempts are made - and that from both sides, that of the parent and of the child,  the teacher and the taught - to bridge any gap.  It seems to this writer (not least in terms of varied experience in highly diversified teaching milieux and specifically those involving religion - but not only this), that this saliently helps to explain the extraordinarily diverse teaching responses encountered.

Thus in one environment where it is fashionable to be obtuse, and intellectual effort may need a long 'warming up' process; whilst in another, where the rewards or fruits of scholarship are recognised or even prized, such a preliminary excitation of respect for this area may be partly or almost entirely unnecessary.  Indeed, the case is possible in which an articulation of 'the obvious' could be counterproductive.  Again, where 'religious knowledge', as in Tasmania in the early sixties, was not only an externally examinable subject able to contribute credit for 'Schools Board' examinations; but was in extraordinary measure Biblically based and a matter, to a large extent, of actual knowledge as distinct from the attitudinal orientation of the Report Religion - there was a real avenue to an excitation of interest.  This was so great that extra classes, and even a tolerance of the teacher's efforts at adaptation to the age group, were both in order.  The impact of authoritative Biblical teaching and examinable knowledge served to bring on results both academic and personal.

It is in the latter regard that the point is most relevant.  Thus a course with an apologetics embodying points as sophisticated as a simple criticism of Kant's inconsistency appeared able to be ingested,  digested and dealt with competently.  This was, in this writer's experience, not a theoretical but a practical datum of intense significance;  and the pleasing examination results could not be ignored even empirically.  It could be done, because it was done.  Actuality argues possibility! However, one could readily envisage a technically agnostically oriented milieu in which the initial adjustment to the very worth-whileness of either Biblical study or of its utility in examination would be so high, as to be a major teaching obstacle.
 
 

Matters of Practice

Again in the U. S.  tradition, nationally and culturally of large religious components in major elements of national history and in major political figures; one where church-going is a major national operation,  with major commercial correlates and theological diversification such as to render the Australian scene by contrast, all but static - there is subtle difference again.  Here one found, in youth work, an astonishing, an extraordinary zealous application, acuteness, mental oscillation on subtle concepts in one group instance.  Nor was this entirely alone.  Now this particularity may serve the better to point our own concept of high diversification of conceptualisation, and that in religion in particular, relative to childhood and youth. They VARY ENORMOUSLY in what they DO dependent on WHO and HOW and in what BACKGROUND and INTRUSIVE FOREGROUND, and in what STYLE OF STIMULUS and EXAMPLE they see and experience. Concepts, like muscles, can become fitting when the NEED is there, the desire, the vision, the enticement, the feeling, the intuition. It is like asking, How fast will this car go ?

The answer would include so many considerations of gear, and driver, and slope of road and weather conditions. You might have an idea about the utter maximum, but it is another matter how quickly it may be reached.

  • The U.S. youth work one has in mind, involved youth of an especially high income group, in an area of immense social prestige. Here parents were articulate, often political, and frequently in highly placed life positions.  True, then, there was a complex of conditions; true also there was a combination which led to results of a character widely divergent from some others elsewhere.  Again, there was another variant.  This group was intensely interested personally in the material presented, and the concept of it was either
    • 1) acceptance; or
    • ii) marvelling quasi-mockery; or
    • iii) absorbed estimation, largely, as one would assess it.*31

This again brings in the point that where the conditions for action at this level of the Biblical God are met, He may be expected to operate in a further dimension.  It is useless to explore this here further, since it is not our assumption that our readers agree on this point, and this work is not, per se,  an apologetic. (For the latter,  see the writer's Reason for Faith*31a - which is.)

It would be worse then secular, however, to ignore this point; for a refusal to consider elements because of simple disregard is methodologically untenable.  It tends to crush imagination and limit by some tradition or fashion, replacing the more perceptive mobility of watchful alertness.

Hence let us look further at primary data. Again, in New Zealand, one has found it possible with evident relish on the part of the children - as far as this teacher could construe - to impart elementary apologetics to children around the age of nine.  Let us then consider this.

The concepts involved:

  • cause and effect (one does not think Kant figured... );
  • matter, mind and personality;
  • authority and freedom;
  • Scripture and God;
  • Christ and sin;
  • and  definitions of the last named. It may also have involved
  • sacrifice and divine satisfaction, but with considerable likelihood, the former.
  • The language naturally may not wholly have mirrored the above; but
  • the concepts were placed together in
  • a way involving an empathy with the mind of the child;
  • curiosity was probably appealed to; and the often noticed
  • LONGING of the child for an answer to the vague sense of meaning and direction,
  • for definiteness and concreteness in the often lightly employed term 'God' -
  • was apparently satisfied.


It gave no small motivation to the child to attend; its fulfilment was like the attainment of a hill on a hike; admittedly. It involved effort;  but the fascination of the quest made of difficulty something that was an obstruction - but not an impasse.

Statistical results formed without so much as an alert awareness of these dimensions are more likely to be a commentary on the milieu - personal, mental, spiritual, cultural, national, even political, verbal, parental and so on - of the teacher and his pupils,  than on the child taken as an abstraction!  It in for this reason that one prefers the tested results of teaching to the suggested criteria of limited statistics, taken on limiting conceptual bases.  What is done, can be done; and what can be analysed. should be so - and that thoroughly - if we are to be impressed with material which is not mere practical expression of unnamed initial conditions, not scrutinised, and of powers not activated.
 

In the case of one pupil in a non-school situation, the Shorter Catechism, (among the Westminster Standards of the 17th century, Presbyterian document) was taught in a younger-age format, still quite systematic, at the three-year old stage. Not only was material learned by heart, but with such understanding that queries could be made and developments achieved, so that a later question might be anticipated to some extent by the three year old.

Yet we read: "Piaget says that the onset of abstract thinking occurs at about the mental age of eleven years." The disproportion is vast.

At four, the come child could develop theological system, probing and pursing; at five years,  mental gymnastics in theology could be stimulating and even, when being presented or in interchange,  interesting mentally to the teacher.  On the secular side, mathematics was taught in terms of decimals at five, and percentages at the same year (or perhaps 6), as well as fractions,  increasingly difficult in type up to the age of six.  Tables ware taught by explicit formulae, so that the eleven times tables for example were taught, imbibed with understanding on a discerned formula, reproduced and uttered in a measured two minutes for the whole operation.

True, this formula approach at least was not completed to twelve times table till near the end of 6 years; though individual initiative carried the matter well past the 12 times table - and that table in particular was taken rather earlier.

It is essential to realise that in this case the dynamic, the thrust, and probably the initiative for the whole program was DERIVED FROM THE CHILD.  So far from waiting until 11 years in order to become abstract, the child was extremely abstract at 5 years, and extremely systematic with theology at the same age, moving into eschatological sequence AT HIS OWN INSTANCE in the first part of the 7th year.  In all this, both in mathematics and in theology, understanding was rarely if ever bypassed - even to the paint that considerable concern could be evinced, on two occasions in mathematics, because no help was given for an answer, when the terms of reference were first thoroughly understood.  These obstructions were however conquered by the child.

From the very way in which this is phrased, it is apparent that, in this instance, attainment in understanding has been put well above that in memory; but efficiency in operation was also given emphasis.

Why this case history?  Because the abstraction attributed to Piaget is ludicrous, rather than slightly humorous in this case.  Is this child approximately 367% above average in abstract thought?  It would seem unlikely.  But the provisions may be unusual, the individual motivation is unusual, the methods alas, for this advanced didactic age, seem highly unusual.

The results then relate highly to such considerations.  These matters moreover correlate closely with the other international data earlier supplied here.
 

 

Review

Now one of these considerations is the teacher.  One of the criteria, in the relevant regard, for the teacher is the ATTITUDE.

 In general, the variables may relate:

i)  to learning.

ii)  to truth - if it is not attainable, there is obviously less ground for zest;

iii) to performance.

Thus if competition becomes a philosophic or political code-word betokening that which is not desired; and if by a small-looking step, high mental thrust is but little desired lest personality be debased by arduous labour, in concentrated and even consecrated delight and dynamic - then performance may suffer.  Indeed, with aboriginal students, it has been found that very considerable brightness may come on occasion, but that there may be latent a sense, in some parents, of lack of desire for learning the white man's education, or resentment for the society to which it bears a relationship; and this, especially when stimulated by racist passions, such as may be invoked by some, can obscure the clarity of thought.

It can even become a matter of PRINCIPLE NOT to be too keen; and certainly not to advance with any assiduity. To what extent the parental attitude sometimes met in the older aborigines, is exported to the child is variable; but where domestic crises flow, there it is difficult to secure the concentrated continuity which is so germane to growth. Nevertheless, one instance is known to the author, where children removed from a parental milieu, to that of a very different aboriginal set of relatives, resulted in such changes in appearance, attitude and keenness in disposition in a few months, as scarcely seemed to allow one to recognise the children at all.

Thus can be exerted, the invidious impact of disachievement philosophy* 32, whether with English or aboriginal background - there is considerable similarity, but not identity in the cases, irrespective of race, for naturally culture has its own input. It may be 'understood' by the pupils all too well, that this achievement is not really necessary, or even that it is insalubrious in some subtle sense.

iv) to the subject - if this is a 'bare' or not personally apprehended with passion or relish, or even  a sense of masterful realism, by the teacher; or if this is not communicated in any case to the student, then the pupil may not envisage mastery; and may tend to exist instead of living in the mental, moral or spiritual world to a lesser or greater degree.

v) to past performance - If 'idiots' who 'understood nothing' were in charge in the endlessly visible 'bad old days',  so that less than outstanding modern exemplars may seem to the students,  to be all there is, then  one can understand a certain juvenile dyspepsia, when face to face with  all too limited prospects ... and so on.

To a significant extent, what is expected, other things equal, may be attained. In addition, realistically, the teacher who can attune to what is the nature of the child (not some connotational model) may hope, like a mechanic, for far more, yes far more!

True,  a child may not wish to co-operate


for his/her own, or
for the teacher's fault - and in the child's own case, this may be direct or partly derivative, through offence and a possible willingness to respond negatively to it ( it is idle and loose to assume either the one or the other a priori); or
because he is ideologically averse: but if the child wills, more is possible. If the child has conception or vision or is induced to seek, or responds with depth to a reaching of depth, then far more is possible, rather like the case of easier steering with new tyres in a car: for resistance is less, and contouring is apt for reality.

Some psychiatric opinion of late has tended to stress the unused, latent or unobserved prowess of the infant, his/her perceptions and discernments,  and interesting experiments - with buttons to press - have been executed to show the extent to which unexpected correlations may be made. The point here is that there are dimensions not always stressed, and variables often disregarded; and there are theories about what a child CAN and CANNOT do which bear as much resemblance to reality, as theories about the volume behaviour of gases, which omit the consideration of pressure.
 

Extension

Let us however turn to a very different situation. The scene changes to a Class in a Victorian country school, about 12 years ago.  The topic is Religious Instruction.  The age group, by memory, was around 10 years.  In this particular case, religious work was done in what in some respects were a useful compendium, curriculum-wise, allowing a teacher to inform and stimulate the children.  The work given was not entirely abstract, not by any means. But concepts, and their correlation were engaged in as a matter of integrity in the subject matter; system and a broad coverage with personal relevance was presented.  The result, as in a case already noted, was definite stimulus.

There was much pleasure seemingly on the part of the teacher and taught; a definite sense of attainment, of parting clouds, or an end to attitudes and injunctions ungrounded in a clear perspective -  a sort of sweat and relaxation program. At the end,  one girl was authorised to speak, apparently on behalf of the Class.  She expressed gratitude that her religious knowledge teacher had shown a 'better way'. It was a moving scene.

And this?  Did one take the nascent, rural conceptual ability and watch its delicate exposure?  Not at all; it was assumed the children could conceive when taken gently and surely; could appreciate system which was pertinent, real, true, and confirmed within; and they did. Theoretical considerations on the part of some educational scientists, envisaging a harassingly limiting scenario, were helpfully not allowed to form chains for the teacher. After all, the work had to be done, not theory adulated.

Inter alia, this brings us to a further fascinating consideration relative to conceptualisation and children, our present sub-topic, as we consider the abhorrent and in part, inept approach of the Report Religion here.

On p.205, it is written:  'The majority of students entering secondary school are still concrete in their thinking.  They have little capacity for sustained,  abstract understanding or propositional thinking.'
This is set in the former more junior context, in particular, and the Report approach in general.  Like the modern trend in adult theology, which has little to do with educational technique but much to do with philosophic preference, this education is not propositionally inclined: an interesting ... coincidence?

We have, however, already looked at thin facet.  Another must now arrest us.
 
 

Abstraction and the Christian Faith

In any case: IS It true - to be particular - that the Christian faith (what we,  for distinctive connotational  clarity term,  Biblical Christian-theism, or Biblical Christianity) -  that this PURPORTS to be dealing In a field essentially abstract?

Now abstraction there surely is, in theology and in mathematics - enough, at least, to exercise the mind of a three year old in one case. We must not minimise it. Surely, in that case, the broad steps were dealt with before more finesse arrived - this had to wait a year or two; but not always, it seems.  No,  there is some conceptual involvement - as observed,  this can in a measure, resemble the demands of  mathematics.

With another child, this time a five and later a six year old, one has also had some efforts in similar fields.  In this case, the great ease of abstract conception was not present.  It took labour in mathematics, and it still does; in reading, and - to a lesser extent it still does.  But results begin.  Confidence comes.  High priority is discerned.  Strong motivation begins, if softly, to appear. The point however, upon this background, is this: more reference - not gross reference - in this case, was made to concrete objects.  If the thing is available when needed, the matter can be increased in understood system JUST BECAUSE IT 1S NOT SOLELY ABSTRACT.

The links, where the chain seems weak, may be found ... even exhibited.

Now then, what is the application?  Simply this: If the God of the Bible be real, living, has made man in His communication medium, and can relate - and that with acute aptitude; then it would follow that the relevant Christian concepts are not mere concepts.  This is obviously, categorically a primary consideration in teaching.  If in the mathematics ,it were the case that the object was NOT available, clearly the kind of abstraction needed would be significant. If it is capable of being made available, however, the abstraction though real, in not so demanding.  In practice, the difference can be crucial at some age levels.

If then God be real - the belief of the writer, but the point is not dependent on this consideration - obviously a reference to Him like the reference to a grandmother during vacation, or to a loved one after the long absence during a war,  becomes something far less abstract. Essentially, it is not simply an exercise in abstract thought, in that case, though abstract thought may, in a particular item, be Involved.

The dynamic of the didactic technique changes considerably, according to the fact in this matter.  If the teacher can perceive that points made have an inward attestation in some students, and if some students notice the same thing about others (as occurred in the U.S. case mentioned) ; if conscience can confirm; if the Spirit of God should instruct whilst the very words of instruction are given humanly; if the material seems to articulate what had been dimly felt; if the words of the Bible find an enduring and non-receding target, and this,  even if the impact is not entirely comfortable: then, obviously the teaching situation has a dynamic, and the teacher an assistance which it would be obtuse to ignore, unscientific*33 to neglect and inefficient to discount.

The Report Religion however in not at all of this kind; so that it would be inconsistent if it took such things into practical account; and in this respect, though not relative to its own substantial religious commitment, it is not inconsistent. Its reticence on abstract thought mirrors the field of enquiry as it conceives it, one of symbols, concerning which not very much vital practicality intrinsically appears.

To the extent the God of the Bible is alive end active, therefore, the Report technique has to be disjoined from vital dynamic. It Is clearly not possible to work efficaciously in a vacuum, and not to be informed on vital dimensions of the case; but where such a posture as that of the Report Religion is taken, it is also not possible to avoid this.  The thoughtful reader may descry that the writer in not in favour of a secular agency involving itself in the deep, experiential areas of religion.  It is however, perforce, ill-equipped for it, at least for this attempt at secularism - in being systematically disenabled from resolving what is vital.  To be sure, it is as has been shown, a self-inflicted wound; but these are not the less wounds, after the cut is over.

There must, as was noted in response to  the Report, ostensibly at least - be no norm.

This consideration however does reinforce the protestation that much more can be achieved with children than the Report technique suggests; categorically more; though not necessarily more if the children be adequately disoriented, disenchanted, unmotivated, disaffected, unled and uncooperative.  It is always possible to achieve disastrous results when one confidently expects them, and theoretically is assured that so it must be; or ignores vital dynamics. Moreover, this is so not only in education.

We are discussing the propensity, discernible in the Report, for actual doctrine - perhaps even dogma; and in the process, have had occasion to consider numerous issues in order to show the reality of this definiteness, as the part of the Report; and secondly to determine its nature - reasonably and with adequate circumspection.  In passing, we have also been giving attention to areas of consistency and inconsistency; for this will enable us to consider to what extent the faults are necessary to the posture.
It may also reveal unreality.

We proceed to our next topic in this 'chase' - for the Report is not at all systematic in this area of its 'faith', religiously speaking (we recall its superficial protestation, indeed, about being 'secular' in some conceivable sense).  This must now be pursued; and there is a special interest.  In this case, we ourselves may seem at first sight to be adopting a completely different attitude relative to experience, in our procedure - to that just taken.  The appearance will be illusory; but nonetheless perhaps arresting.
 
 

END-NOTES

*30

Construction.

Brenda Cohen: Educational Thought,  has been mentioned,

The specific reference is to p. 58: "Piaget's work is valid only as regards the order in which various mental skills and abilities appear, and not as regards actual ages, since tremendous variation is possible among children.  Also, Piaget's work is empirical, and behaviouristic,  so that what he claims to investigate is the order in which children do specific things,  not in which they acquire special faculties."

This criticism fits intimately with our own of the concepts purveyed in the relevant area in the Report.  Thus apart from all else, what they do will relate heavily to what they are stirred to do,. expected to do and directed (tendentially) to do - whilst what they can do is a distinct and separate concept.

Though the point is less intimately related,  it is of interest also to note the lament, if one may call it that, of David Holbrook in his English in Australia Now.  He quotes A. W. Combe in Professional Education of Teachers (1965),  who says:
 

Despite millions of dollars of man hours poured into research on the problem over the pest fifty years,  the results have continued to be frustrating and disappointing - until recently.

It now appears that our failure to find useful definitions may be due to the fact that we have been looking for answers in the wrong places.  For several generations teacher-education programs have operated from a concept of good teaching derived from a mechanistic view of behaviour characteristic of the last fifty years.  Now a new psychology has appeared on the scene which shifts our understanding of people from a mechanistic to a humanistic view.


Holbrook himself feels psychometrics in particular have not had that fertility which proponents have apparently expected, and this is understandable for one who,  apart from his own researches within that field,  such  as they may be,  feels that: "Every act of learning or thinking involves tacit dimensions and mysterious dynamics about which we know very little" (p.193). It is no surprise to find him allude (English for the Rejected,  p.22) to an interest in two different aspects of child psychology, neither of which really belongs to the psychometric kind which seems still to dominate, without much justification or success, much of educational development."

Of even greater interest is the circumstance that if he has reason for dissatisfaction with the definitive deficiencies or the psychometric, and some general problems and particular dangers such as we have raised in the accompanying text of this work,  he also has little optimism for the restless,  intuitive, rational-irrational humanism with which he is equipped,  to the extent that - in his view - "All a teacher can hope to do is to preserve a few pockets of sanity and cultural health, here and there, where it is possible to preserve a controlled environment,  where symbolism may be preserved for its proper human purposes."

The term 'rational-irrational', admittedly rich in frequency in the works of theological analysis of Dr. Cornelius Van Til (see Bibliography), is here used, though doubtless with systematic overtones, more particularly for a specific purpose.  Holbrook, in vast support of The Tacit Dimension of Polanyi, in a central concept conveyed by that title, is also in the Kantian tradition in his dichotomy.  Rightly stressing the reality of the intuitive, the riot of reductionism and the folly of superficial excesses of sadly inadequate system, he does nonetheless tend to create a typical Kantian area, deficient in precisely the Kantian way (supra and see the author's Predestination and Freewill, Appendix).

Thus, on the one hand, the tacit dimension is human, and personal and real ... and on the other, it is presented as one not really known,  and difficult.  Instead of being in a position rationally,  if humbly and realistically, to explore, he faces the usual impact of the mythological,  the so personal,  and so unobjective as  to be unattainable in his eyes.  The concepts approach the collation of a cult, a dogma, almost a dirge. He has, in the time-honoured fashion, put reason on one side, and the personal on the other; and so he sunders the realities of the area he would seem to need,  from intellection. If the personal were ipso facto, so unreasonable or insusceptible to reason, it is indeed anomalous, to say here no more, that it is in its very element when reasoning with formal precision, and isolating elements of irrelevance.

Of course, when there are inaccessible motivations, confusions and repressions, then the personal is indeed a mixed bunch; but that is precisely where the Christian faith provides the antidote, which, if rejected, indeed leaves no room for FINDING what is lost, USING what is confused or RELYING on what is astray. It is therefore comprehensible that one with Holbrook's dichotomy, when  USING reason, as a person, finds SYSTEMATIC problems with its use at that level; though obviously such an approach invalidates thought. This is one of the systematic inconsistencies and self-contradictions not only in Kant, or in this type of personalism, but in all such dichotomy which has no solution for the - agent!

The view of Holbrook, then, it is defective not merely because of the implicit and wholly Kantian inconsistency such as my own Thesis ( supra op.cit.) in detail exposes.  It is so also because of this obvious fact that you are shipwrecked in the seas of your mind when the rock of opaque and un-describable 'somethingness' erects its craggy eminence, unannounced, and averse to all alliance with an intellection that might reach to reality.

It is a sad dilemma, as well as a defective logical structure: rightly to yearn and rightly to fall.  Small wonder Holbrook,  who has strong traits of realism visible from time to time, has so pessimistic a prognosis as that quoted above ...  He would 'hope ... to preserve a few pockets of sanity.' Just so.

Where there is no solution for the thinker, the propounder, those who delete the comprehensibility and even consistency of things ultimate, then of course not merely is there a systematic irrationality self-confessed in their approach, since it is theirs, of whose touch with reality they say these things; there is every reason to have the most acute misgivings about their philosophic constructions of the child, their input being tainted by their own definition, and their premises themselves, on which they build through which they peer, being aligned destructively. MAD - mutually assured destruction,  was never desirable in the cold war; it is no more so in this one. Invalidating a priori concepts do not make for valid conclusions.

To return to the point, one has observed in practice children of 3 or 4 years perfectly capable not only of abstractions, but of stating them and setting about putting them into practice at the moral, ethical and emotional level. It all depends on their susceptibility, approach, preparation and alignment, as well as on the impact made, the stirring of their minds to life or otherwise. It is like a car: put some spirit in it and you may be surprised what it can do. Empirically, one has had such surprises! Systematically, in Christianity which specialises in just such transformations of the person, they are to be expected.
 

*31
This work was associated with reasonable personal knowledge of students, in that, whilst teaching this material, the writer was also pastor.

*31a
As noted earlier, this is largely replaced by The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, That Magnificent Rock and others in this current set, In Praise of Christ Jesus.

While the current work is not an apologetic work, it is abundantly clear as we proceed, that the consistency of rational analysis is to be found only where there is one knowable God, who, as absolute truth not dependent on human presuppositions, motivations and limitations, is able to reveal Himself. As rationality, seen at length in the two works just cited, is satisfied only in knowable truth, hence existent truth, and indeed, in absolute truth knowable, and since this must be divulged to overcome distortions and inadequacies, absolute truth known; and since irrationality that insists on telling us what is with no way of knowing it is an automatic failure; then only in the Bible is rationality satisfied, is presentation of viewpoint concerning truth justified.

Moreover, since the Bible as shown in the works noted, in fact satisfies eminently all the criteria for known truth, and every one of almost innumerable relevant tests and surpasses them with the kind of naturalness that what is of a given dimension does, when it is actual, asserting itself by being ; and since there is no way the author of what IS, which is the truth known to that Being, could lie, and so conflict with His own diction, self and performance, as if an inadequate an unfulfilled Being, limited and reactionary; and since indeed the world is full of lies to a degree almost inconceivable, in rationalisms and cant: hence there MUST be a revelation. Since He is, His being must be manifest in non-self-contradiction; and hence He must have spoken to man.

The Bible is simply the most acutely verified repository of the revelation. These things are variously, sometimes indirectly attested as we proceed in this present work; but their direct attestation is not the major thrust of it; rather the necessity of not installing what is entirely irrational in some kind of authoritarian religion, masquerading as gracious, set up by the State. It is, if you will, applied apologetics, showing how the Biblical position does not labour under the logical disabilities of what is acting as if to replace it, and is unique in rational eminence over all the logical inadequacies which would compete with it.

See The Shadow of a Mighty Rock pp. 1-70; and 88-96, in particular for a simple introduction.

*32

Philosophy.

This does not at all by implication or otherwise commend achievement without - understanding, or by wholly imposed motivation.  If the educational Zeitgeist did not seem in some danger of betrothal to such baneful philosophic concepts,  this caveat would surely seem quite unnecessary.

*33   Unscientific

An enquiring mind must he prepared to elicit and ponder 'variables' -  and to explain RESULTS, not merely provide them, or acknowledge them.