To What End?
Telos. That word has come up a lot lately. Telos is the goal we pursue, the end to which we strive, the purpose of our life. Aristotle’s famous example of telos is that of the acorn. The acorn’s telos—or purpose—is to become an oak tree. That telos is built into the design of the acorn. An acorn can never become a maple or elm, nor can it become an iguana or a dog. Within the acorn is an inherent telos. The same can be said about any plant seed or animal embryo. It’s telos is that for which it is made to become. A puppy will not become a shark and a guppie will not become a fern.
Do human beings, then, have a telos? Do we have any built-in—i.e., designed—purpose? In this age of “live your truth” and self-invention, it seems almost quaint to discuss the telos of a human. And yet, many of our secular institutions do just that. Consider this excerpt from Ball State University’s website:
“Find your passion and purpose here.We help students turn an emerging passion into an enduring purpose. Our beautiful campus, welcoming environment, immersive learning, and collaborative culture provide the ideal place for you to pursue your academic journey.”
Or this excerpt from BSU’s strategic plan: Destination 2040: Our Flight Path (emphasis added):
“We make these promises to our students:
We will help you discover your purpose and translate that
purpose in to a fulfilling career and a meaningful life.“
The University has many strengths. Ball State, in particular, is excellent at building community among students as well as between student and faculty. It is famed for its Immersive Learning Experiences. It has very strong programs in a wide range of disciplines, most notably architecture, education, journalism, art, communications, and nursing. It also houses one of the largest branches of IU School of Medicine. The problem is, a secular institution like Ball State must be very careful to not prioritize one particular vision of being human over another.
While there is no doubt that Ball State is preparing its students to find solid employment, it must be careful to not point its students in any one particular direction or toward any final meaning or purpose. After all, to state that human beings are made for something or meant for something contradicts the autonomous spirit of the age. But like it or not, we all must choose some paths while rejecting others. Is there a true path? a good path? a beautiful path? Is there a wisdom in living within the grain of the cosmos or is every self-directed choice as good as any other?As Steven Garber asks in his book The Fabric of Faithfulness, “How does someone decide which cares and commitments will give shape and substance to life—for life?”
Alcuin Study Center comes alongside the university to help it to fulfill its mission by providing an historic Christian vision of the whole person—a telos toward which students can aim.
In The Aims of Education, T. S. Eliot states,
“The moment we ask about the purpose of anything, we may be involving ourselves in asking about the purpose of everything. If we define education, we are led to ask ‘What is Man?’; and if we define the purpose of education, we are committed to the question ‘What is Man for?’ Every definition of the purpose of education, therefore, implies some concealed, or rather implicit, philosophy or theology.”
If students are to discover their purpose and lead meaningful lives, they must first have some idea of the meaning and purpose of being human. Some of the professors and students with whom I’ve spoken advocate for the self-made meaning of existentialism. They begin with a presupposition that humans have no intrinsic meaning, but are “free” to invent their own. But this is not a freeing proposition—”you must define yourself with no outside help” is a crushing responsibility because it is an impossible task.
Every human being is made in the image of Yahweh, and when Yahweh created humans he declared them very good! The fact that we reflect our Creator that way is what enables us to have relationships with the rest of creation. The fact that our first parents rebelled is why those relationships are broken. And the fact that Jesus Christ—the second Adam—died and was resurrected is why we have hope of those relationships being healed. To use a term coined by Wendell Berry and popularized by Eugene Peterson, our telos is to practice resurrection. Our purpose is to work for the good of the city—and world!—in which we live until it is made new. Our meaning comes from the one in whose image we were made—a Creator God who calls us to create.
I love this quote, attributed to Hans Rookmaaker:
“Jesus didn’t come to make us Christian; Jesus came to make us fully human.”
Jesus didn’t come to make a new religious sect. He came to heal the brokenness incurred at the fall of humankind, to return creation to its former beauty…and then take it further! As such, his hand is in and over all things. Christ is not simply the god of Christians; he is the logos (or organizing and governing word) which holds all things together (Col. 1:15-20).
And while the Academy as such lacks the tools or authority to point its students toward ultimate meaning and purpose, the Church often has difficulty understanding that a person’s salvation is for more than personal piety. The redemption of Christ is not simply a redemption of individual souls, but the redemption of all creation—including institutions and systems of justice, civil engineering, medicine, education, performing & visual arts, literature, ecology, entrepreneurship, and the list goes on. In other words, human beings were made in God’s image to act as God’s envoys, working for the welfare of their neighbors, their city, and the world at large.
The opportunity is ripe for charitable, profitable conversation between the University and the Church. Alcuin Study Center is at the center of those conversations. We are helping students, professors, and community members understand what it means to see all of life through a biblical lens.
Faculty & Theology Collaborative
Recently, I had the opportunity to accompany two professors to a conference at The Center for Christianity and Scholarship (CCS) at Duke University. The conference, Faculty & Theology Collaborative: Creation Across the Disciplines, brought together faculty members from several universities, including Duke, MIT, UNC, UW Madison, UofM Minneapolis, and Ball State with theologians from Regent College in Vancouver, BC. The goal was to cultivate theologically-informed research and lesson plans within a wide variety of disciplines, including economics, music theory, science, medicine, and others.
Alcuin Study Center sponsored Dr. Nathanael Snow (economics, BSU) and Dr. Bart Peterson (medical education / metabolism, IU School of Medicine at BSU). I had the immense pleasure of joining these gentlemen on an epic road trip to Durham where we learned from some of the top scholars from across the country and enjoyed some great North Carolina BBQ.
“The Faculty Theological Collaborative: Creation Across the Disciplines was an engaging 48 hours promoting relationship building between faculty and Christian study center directors from multiple institutions. This was done within a framework where theology of creation was applied to multiple disciplines. I especially was drawn to the application to science, my field. We worked together to draft the syllabus for a potential course to offer pre-health professional students with the objectives of assisting them in discerning their career path and connecting Christian teaching to specific areas of healthcare. It was invaluable to learn from the experience of others who have already travelled this path of course development and implementation.”
– Dr. Bart Pederson
“I want to thank the Alcuin Study Center for sponsoring the trip to the Faculty Theological Collaborative at Duke University this summer.
This event provided a forum for engaging with top scholars seeking to live faithfully within the academy. The theological foundation presented by Jonathan Wilson on creation provided a sound basis for discussion within and among the disciplines. Seeking opportunities to integrate the testimony of Jesus’ sacrifice to the world into my discipline of economics has been a challenge. Working with others in the same pursuit was encouraging and the workshop equipped me with tools for my work. These are true manifestations of the Spirit and the Church.”
– Dr. Nathanael Snow
The School Year is Off to a Great Start!
Our first core course, Seeing Through a Biblical Lens: Biblical Theology & Worldview, has 16 participants, 5 of which are interns with a local church, two of which are retired BSU professors, as well as several other students and community members from a wide range of backgrounds and experience. We are reading D.A. Carson’s The God Who Is There and Albert Wolters’s Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview. For my lectures, I am drawing on Graeme Greene’s According to Plan as well as the work of G.K. Beale and others.
We’ve also encountered several new faces at our weekly open hours. This is a time for students and faculty to take advantage of our space—studying, working, reading, or engaging with one another on the things that matter, big and small. It’s kind of a combination of the old American front porch and European salon. We offer coffee, oreos, seltzer water, and other snacks, as well as an environment conducive to charitable dialogue and challenging ideas.
The ASC library has become increasingly popular. With just under 1000 circulating volumes, our library is becoming a well-used resource for students who wish to incorporate the Christian tradition and worldview into their studies. We purposely stock and promote top Christian scholars in nearly every discipline imaginable to assist students in writing academically rigorous and respectable papers from a Christian perspective.
If you would like to learn more about our mission and programming, please let us know!
Thank you for your interest in, prayers for, and support of Alcuin Study Center.
In pursuit of human flourishing,
