Four years ago as I prepared to graduate from high school, I was all fired up to start learning theology at MLC in the fall. My graduation present was a Triglot, and I was going to start studying to be a pastor. As I filled out scholarship applications, I told everyone I was going to study “theology” or “Biblical languages.” I don’t think I ever wrote “liberal arts” as my major. The fact was, I didn’t want to write liberal arts, because liberal arts didn’t sound pastoral enough. Not surprisingly, my freshman and sophomore years were at times a disappointment. Sure, I had some Latin, German, and Greek, but the BHL classes were generally a review, and the rest of the time I found myself reading Chinua Achebe, Bacon, Donne, Machiavelli, Marx, Moore, Plato, Poe, and Shakespeare (and cutting up pigs). I suspect that most of us at one time or other have questioned the rationale behind a liberal arts education. I was no different. Now, however, as I again prepare to graduate—this time from college—I look back and realize that I’ve come to appreciate my liberal arts education.

I am certainly not the first one to write on the subject of a liberal arts education. Prof. Carleton Toppe and Prof. Paul Eickmann both wrote lengthy essays in defense of the liberal arts in the training of WELS pastors and teachers. Prof. Toppe was president and Prof. Eickmann was long-time Hebrew professor at Northwestern College. Because of their experience and research, their treatment of the subject was much more thorough than mine will be. If you’re in the habit of complaining about “pointless classes” at MLC, I would recommend reading Toppe and Eickmann. You’ll find both of them in the seminary essay archives (http://www.wls.wels.net/ library/Essays/essayindex.htm).

Eickmann wrote that, in addition to strengthening graduates in their faith, sanctification, and knowledge of the Scriptures, our synod schools seek to impart the benefits of the liberal arts:

The graduates we aim to produce are Christian human beings. They are curious, knowing that they cannot know everything, they listen and learn, remaining open their life long to all kinds of knowledge. They are current, not only aware of the world of information, thought and imagination in libraries, museums and laboratories, but interested in today’s newspaper, in the world of people and nature around them. Yet they are also conscious of history: understanding that there is nothing new under the sun, they are accordingly wary of being carried away by the spirit of their own times. They are creative, making use of the gifts of imagination and problem-solving ability God has given them. If true originality is beyond them, they are at least appreciative of the creativity of others. They are critical: they think, weighing values—not only moral values, but aesthetic values, too—and acting accordingly. To be prepared to exercise such qualities in life, they are cultured, but not in a “hoity-toity” sense: through education and experience they have cultivated the above qualities in many contexts. Finally, we aim to produce graduates who effectively communicate thought in speech and writing. This quality could be placed either last or first: it must be exercised in the learning of all the rest. (Eickmann 18)

This article, however, is an editorial. Here are some of my personal thoughts on the benefits of a wide curriculum that includes math, science, literature, history, social sciences, music, philosophy, and art.

What is the common thread connecting all these subjects? A liberal arts education strives to go beyond the facts. It seeks to teach skills that are very difficult to assess with a Scantron test. Math and science, for example, inevitably involve facts—solving a calculus problem, completing a physics equation, detailing the passage of blood through the heart, etc. That is all fine and good, but a liberal arts education isn’t as interested in producing someone who knows mathematical facts as in producing someone who can think rationally and solve everyday problems. Perhaps a Scantron test can give a rough I.Q. estimate, but the real test comes in applying logic to life. The same applies to the other benefits of the liberal arts, some of which Eickmann mentioned above: curiosity, musicality, a current and historical consciousness, creativity, and effective communication skills, to name a few. Try testing those with a Scantron! Yet such are the skills that are necessary both for life in our modern world and for reaching out with the gospel to the people of that modern world. Permit me to examine two skills more closely: an understanding of people, and the ability to think critically.

What could be better for the public ministry than an understanding of people and of human nature? It would certainly rank close behind a clear understanding of God’s Word and a godly life. The liberal arts claim that an understanding of people can be gained by reading the thoughts of others. A powerful way of learning is to learn vicariously—not in the theological sense of the word, but in the sense of taking another person’s place, of learning by walking in that person’s shoes. Some people claim that personal experience is the best or only way to learn. I would respond that literature is experience condensed, and that vicarious learning goes beyond the boundaries of experience in time and space.

Do you want to understand the hopelessness of an immigrant to America a century ago and the appeal of socialism? Read The Jungle. Do you want a taste of the psychologically shattering experience of the World War I trenches? Read All Quiet on the Western Front. Do you want to know why some people base their lives on the emotional and irrational? Read the poems of Byron, Shelly, and Keats. Learn from the masters. I’ve found that the best authors have the best grasp of what human beings are like. So, learn the facts—the names of Shakespeare’s characters and the geography of Denmark and Scotland—but then walk with Hamlet and Macbeth and strive to understand their human nature as they struggle and commit their crimes.

Fictional literature is only the beginning. Human nature is one of the underlying themes throughout liberal arts courses—that’s why so many of them are called the humanities. Do you want to understand how millions of common people, not so different from you and me, could be duped into enthusiastically following Hitler? Study history and read the Nazi propaganda. Do you want to know how the world solves theological questions apart from God and how it seeks to establish systems of ethics and aesthetics? Read philosophy. Do you want a scientific approach to human thinking and behavior? Read psychology.

Since we all plan to spend our lives opening God’s Word to people, a general knowledge of people is essential. Could I have learned about people apart from college? Certainly. But the fact is that I would not have found many of these written treasures if they had not been brought to me by my education.

As highly as I value the human aspect of the liberal arts, I would have to say that the single greatest benefit of my education has been the ability to think critically. Critical thinking is the ability to determine what it true and what is false. However, it is hardly ever that easy. Critical thinking is more often the ability to determine what it partially true and partially false and the ability to cut through superficial appearances in order to determine the speaker’s assumptions and bias which cloud the issue. Critical thinking is indispensable in everyday life—in making decisions and in avoiding all kinds of fraud. In the same way, Christian critical thinking is essential for avoiding spiritual fraud. The one who cannot determine with Christian discretion the difference between what is anchored in God’s Word and what is not will be blown to and fro by every theological-sounding argument. Critical thinking is a prerequisite for reading Reformed or higher-critical commentaries and dogmatics (or for reading any commentary in general, Lutheran or not).

MLC does the bulk of critical thinking teaching in the areas of literature and history. The principles of thinking critically then naturally apply to other areas, including questionable theological writing. Without the liberal arts emphasis, MLC would have a hard time teaching critical thinking. This is the reason: can a college such as MLC, which bases truth on an inerrant Bible and whose professors are considered reliable sources of orthodoxy, engender individual thought and critical thinking? Perhaps, but if MLC taught only religion courses, the cultivation of critical thinking would be very difficult.

Critical thinking requires the opportunity to pick sides and to defend that choice through logical arguments. In religion classes in which the final answer is “This is what God’s Word says,” there are very few opportunities to pick sides. This is where the liberal arts come in. Students can cut their teeth on one of the countless questions in history and literature which are difficult and yet which are of no momentous importance. For example, the question sophomore year that made me think was, “How did Karl Marx define the term ‘justice’?” That was a fairly innocent (and, many would say, boring) question. It forced me to wrestle for two weeks. The beauty of it was that, no matter how I answered in the end, no one could accuse me of false doctrine. The process was important, not the question itself. My critical thinking took a step forward and I was ready to consider tougher questions. The critical thinking projects I’ve been assigned as a senior this year—such as critiquing a commentary on Isaiah and evaluating translations of 1 Corinthians 7—would have been very difficult or impossible for me four years ago. The difference between now and then is not only that I now know Greek and Hebrew, but also that I’ve learned to think critically through my literature, history, and philosophy courses.

In conclusion, I must warn against the notion that the goal of knowledge is the accumulation of facts. If you think your purpose here at MLC is to collect various pieces of information which have the power to prepare you for the public ministry, you are in for a disappointment. You will soon be asking, “What does William Shakespeare have to do with my first graders?” “When will I ever use Karl Marx in the pulpit?” No education, through the liberal arts or otherwise, is able to teach every fact that can be known. The goal of liberal arts is not so much to teach facts as it is to train you as a person. Its purpose is to give you the tools for learning new things later and for understanding yourself, others, and the world in which you live. A Christian uses a liberal arts understanding of the world in sharing God’s message of salvation to that world.

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