On Learning

On Learning 

R. A. Young

As a college student, I dedicate a lot of thought to the subject of learning. Obviously, I’m pouring a lot of time, energy, and money into what can only really be described as “learning.” So inevitably the question begins to occur to me: Am I wasting my time?

Let me take a few steps back. I was homeschooled for all but one of my K-12 years (long story). As a student, and particularly in high school, I was more devoted to learning than anyone else I knew. But most of my best learning came not from my schoolwork but from my own investigations. I was curious about things I heard from school, from church, from everyday life. I did an absurd amount of reading anything I could get my hands on. I wrote a ridiculous number of papers and stories, sadly few of which survive to this day, on a multitude of topics. I wanted to know things. I didn’t necessarily care about understanding, but that’s beside my point for the time being. 

Nowadays, in college, I have much less time for learning. Counterintuitive, yes, but it does make sense. So much of my time goes to homework and reading for classes, I have very little left to read or write for pleasure — for knowledge, for learning. So I begin to wonder. Are we all wasting our time, our effort, our money, our imagination, our curiosity?

My boyfriend, Davis, and I have had an ongoing conversation on this topic for several months now. Our verdict so far boils down to that there is a vital flaw with our education system, but that doesn’t make it a waste of time. We’ve attacked the question from quite a few angles (not all of which are worth discussing here). Our conclusion is echoed in the mantra we came up with some time ago: “Strive for excellence, strive for beauty, and, above all, strive for Christ.” This doesn’t sound like it has much to do with intellectual knowledge, but let me go on.

For one thing, there is a clear-cut distinction between knowledge and understanding and wisdom. Knowledge would be facts. I take a quiz on the inner workings of the US Government, Davis takes a quiz on major materialistic philosophers, so that we have the dates and names and facts crammed into our heads to be spouted off later. Or, theoretically at least — far more likely we’ll know the facts just long enough to take the quiz, then they’ll be gone. But I digress. Understanding is a bit deeper. Understanding is what I seek when I write papers like this one. Understanding is what I seek when I go for a walk or have a slow and accurate conversation. As for wisdom, that’s obviously higher yet. I’m afraid I have yet to understand, let alone attain, wisdom. But I can and aim to learn from wise people and sources (especially the Bible, naturally) in my actual life.

I make this distinction not to denigrate knowledge or understanding. They’re all important — all essential, I would go so far as to say. Knowledge is no lower than the others, at least, not to the effect that it’s less valuable. But knowledge is for the ultimate goal of understanding, and understanding is for the ultimate goal of wisdom.

One problem, I think, is that education only tackles knowledge.

It’s a bit hypocritical of me to critique this fact at all, because (as I pointed out earlier) most of my learning has been historically for the sake of knowledge and nothing more, too. But it did eventually lead me to seek understanding and wisdom. 

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones has a paper on the subject, titled “Knowledge: True and False” (much more on that later). One point he makes therein is that true knowledge leads you to action — you don’t know things apathetically if you know them truly. Another issue  I find with college is that there’s no appreciation of this distinction.

Now, that wasn’t my thought to begin with. I tend to approach college rather methodically. Yes, I was content to be a straight-A student, even if that means I graduate having read and written and “learned” a lot for my professors’ sake and not my own. It’s been Davis who changed my thinking on the folly of that approach. We were discussing his philosophy class recently (it comes up surprisingly often) and he made a point that was a bit of an eye-opener for me. “I’m paying to learn, not to get an A. I’d rather fail a class and learn from it than graduate with an A that doesn’t mean anything.” The sentiment startled me, but I think he’s right. I don’t intend to fail any classes, but I also don’t intend to breeze through college without truly learning anything.

But where does that leave me? If my college education system is so flawed as to give me a string of As and no actual learning, — what do I do about that?

I don’t know yet, so allow me to set those questions aside for the time being. (I haven’t touched my thesis yet.)

I’ll address now Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s question of true or false knowledge. (His definition here doesn’t distinguish between knowledge, understanding, and wisdom as I do, so I’ll use knowledge to refer to all three.) Davis recommended the paper to me one evening when we had been discussing (you guessed it) the education system. Now, Lloyd-Jones’s paper is mostly on the subject of divine or theological knowledge. I expect that it hit closer to home for Davis than for me, because he has actually struggled with apathetic, theoretical “head-knowledge,” if you will, of theology. But the paper addresses other sorts of knowledge as well. The main driving thesis is that true knowledge is emotional, that it moves and stirs and points us back to God. 

(There’s also a lot on different dangers of learning and knowledge, which I don’t have time to address here. Read the paper; it’s worth doing.)

Here’s how Lloyd-Jones describes the two sorts of knowledge. “If you just go in for that sort of theoretical intellectual knowledge, the devil will let you talk of doctrine enough; you will turn from Arminianism to Calvinism, you shall be orthodox enough — if you are content to live without Christ’s living in you” (36). “But when you realise that all this knowledge, everything in the Bible, is meant to bring us to know God, the Everlasting and the Eternal in the Glory and the Majesty and the Holiness of His Being, — how can a man be proud of his knowledge when he realises that that is the knowledge about which we are speaking?” (36-37)

Lloyd-Jones says all the knowledge contained in the Bible, but I would go further. I would argue that all the knowledge is this sort, meant to point and draw us to God. Full stop.

So knowledge is gained when we learn facts. All facts are of God’s creation. I’m not going to argue that point. Understanding, I contend, is when we humans catch a glimpse of “the Glory and the Majesty and the Holiness of His Being” through our limited knowledge of His creation. And wisdom is when these fragments of knowledge and shards of understanding show us how best to live in God’s world. And none of this is apathetic or bland or done in a vacuum. It points us to glory. It moves us to awe.

Okay. That was a great deal more philosophy of learning than I really intended. I come now to the same question that has haunted me for longer than I like to consider.

Where does all this leave me?

Clearly, if all knowledge, understanding, and wisdom ultimately lead us back to God, education itself is of the utmost importance. What I would contend is that it shouldn’t, mustn’t, can’t end there. There’s nothing wrong with studying and reading to ace a test. But I, we, need to stamp out whatever tells us that’s enough.

So we have to pursue knowledge and understanding and wisdom beyond whatever life throws at us. Have intentional conversations, ask real questions, seek real answers. Read beyond what school or work or church advises. Lloyd-Jones recommends alternating theology and biographies. I’d throw fiction and especially fantasy into the mix because I enjoy them, and I think that imagination is another vital part of our faith (an essay for another time). Also poetry because words are essential to development and scope of knowledge (another essay for another time). And write. Spill your thoughts, like I have here, until you understand them better, until you catch a glimpse of wisdom. Pursue knowledge and understanding and wisdom until they point you back to the God Who made them all.