The Joy of the Truth » Education

YouCat and the Church Fathers

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 01:15:57 +0000

The next objection to the YouCat that I wanted to explore is that it places greater weight on modern scientific speculation than on the Church Fathers’ unanimous interpretations of the first chapters of Genesis. Again, this objection is closely related to the others. But instead of rehashing what I’ve already said about the Church and evolution, I’d like to take this opportunity to explore the role of the Church Fathers.

Now, there is no denying that the early Church Fathers are an awesome and important source of knowledge of what is believed about Christ and the Church. Their importance is mostly due to their closeness to the apostles. The Church Fathers were directly discipled by the Apostles and, unlike the Apostles, they did a lot of writing to preserve the Tradition of the Church and pass it down to future generations.

However, one thing that is often misunderstood is the role the Church Fathers play in the development of infallible doctrine. A doctrine is determined to be divinely and infallibly inspired when the Holy Spirit guides the Church to “always and everywhere” believe something. Practically speaking, this means tracing a belief back to the Apostles. The writings of the Church Fathers are valuable gifts given to the Church to help us understand how a doctrine came to us from the Apostles. That does not mean that everything the Church Fathers taught is infallible. For example, Origen taught that at the Final Judgement everyone (including the fallen angels) would be redeemed and end up in heaven. On the other hand, Augustine believed that most of humanity would be damned but a few people were saved by God’s mercy to be in heaven. Which Church Father would have the infallible statement? Even more confusing, both of these beliefs have persisted through time.

That is why our sure guide to what is infallible Tradition and how to interpret the Sacred Scriptures is the Magisterium of the Church, not the Church Fathers themselves. The Church Fathers are instructional and a great gift to the Church. But they are part of a Tradition that needs to be interpreted through the Holy Spirit’s guidance of the Magisterium.

So the Church Fathers are not a special authority on the Old Testament. They do not enjoy a special infallibility. Furthermore, Darwinian evolution was not really an issue they dealt with. The question to ask of Tradition would be – has science and faith been seen as compatible or incompatible? The answer is definitely compatible. Myths to the contrary aside (Galileo is so misunderstood), the Church has always embraced science as a method of knowing God’s creation, especially of knowing how God works (while the Bible explains why). I guess another question to ask Tradition would be if Sacred Scripture has been seen as a source of scientific knowledge.

The main teaching in the YouCat in the area of evolution is that Scripture and Science deal with different realms of truth. This statement is in line with Tradition, judging from what the Church teaches about the nature of truth in Sacred Scripture.

OK, I’m not feeling that what I wrote here was quite as coherent as my previous posts. Give me your feedback! What do we need to discuss / debate / clarify?

YouCat and Progressive Creation

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 14:50:07 +0000

The next objection to the YouCat is that it “teaches that God made an incomplete world filled with defects and deformities.” Again, I am assuming a bit here in my interpretation of the objection, but I think I know where they’re coming from. By giving a nod to evolution, the YouCat seems to side with those theologians who say that the creation of the world was progressive. These theologians say that God created the world, but that he did so as a process, not immediately as it seems to happen in Genesis 1.

First of all, let’s take a look at what the YouCat says.

The creation account is not a scientific model for explaining the beginning of the world. “God created the world” is a theological statement that is concerned with the relation of the world to God. God willed the world; he sustains it and will perfect it. Being created is a lasting quality in things and an fundamental truth about them.

from article 41

The Church teaches that God’s actions are not limited to time. God Creates. The Church also teaches that human beings cooperate in the work of Creation to perfect it for human use (see Pope John Paul II’s document Laborem Exercens – on the Dignity of Human Work – as an example). So, to see Creation as a process the way evolution does just doesn’t seem contradictory to the faith. In fact, Saint Augustine wrote about the progressive nature of Creation. He uses the figure of a seed – God creates the seed, with everything in it that makes it a plant. But the plant comes into the fulness of being through a process of growth. This does not mean that God did not create the plant, or that he created the seed and then abandoned it to grow into a plant on its own. God’s act of creating the plant is continuous, but within time it takes place as a process (“The Literal Meaning of Genesis”).

Look, is the YouCat saying that a good Catholic should believe in the theory of evolution? Nowhere does it say that! What it’s saying is that the scientific theory of evolution as a way of explaining the history of the world’s genesis within time is not opposed to Catholic doctrine or theology, and neither does it disprove Catholic faith in God as the Creator.

So you may ask, why even go there? The Catechism of the Catholic Church doesn’t get enmeshed in this debate. It sticks with the theological meaning and leaves the whole evolution question alone. The fact is that are youth do go there. They are hit hard and often with the message that evolution is truth because it is science and that Genesis is myth. The distinction that the YouCat makes between the realm of science and the realm of theology is really important for young people to get. The recognition that science and faith don’t contradict each other when each is properly understood is a point that I often make with young people that I teach, and to great effect. I applaud the authors of the YouCat for recognizing the need for the Church to address evolution in a way even a science teacher can understand.

YouCat and Creation

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:01:39 +0000

The next objection to the YouCat forwarded by those who are asking for it to be recalled is that the YOUCAT alleges that Genesis does not give a true account of creation. This objection seems very related to the first. The YouCat states that there is no contradiction between Creation and the theory of evolution as a scientific theory. However, it also states that we must believe that God is the source of all creation and that Creation was not a matter of chance. It states that science and Scripture are different realms of knowledge – and that Evolutionism and Creationism both err in erasing the line between science and truth. I do wish that this section would have taken the next step in saying that all truth is from God, but I don’t think its teaching is unclear. Again – no real objection here.
3 hours ago · Like

YouCat and Biblical Inerrancy

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:33:31 +0000

The first objection to the YouCat is that the “YOUCAT insinuates that The Holy Bible contains errors.”
From what I can tell, this objection stems mainly from a concern about the YouCat’s treatment of the Creation story. The concern seems to be that the YouCat gives in to modernist concessions about Evolution. Further objections state that the YouCat places more trust in modern scientific claims than in Church Fathers and Doctors.

The YouCat states that the Bible is without error in its revelation of God, but contains historical and scientific error because it was written by human beings who were immersed in a specific time and culture. There is nothing wrong in the YouCat’s description. The objection seems to be seeking a more Creationist form of literalism – a word for word interpretation of the text. There is a blatant confusion in the objection about the inerrancy of the Bible.

The Church’s unchanging doctrine is that the Bible is inerrant in its revelation of who God is, our relationship with him, and what he expects of us (morals). The Church does not doctrinally teach that the Bible is without any and all error regarding (for example) history and science. This is why biblical study is so wonderfully complex, with the different senses of scripture and various legitimate schools of exegesis.

Do you agree? I think it’s important that the people of God discuss these things!

Is the YouCat Recall Legitimate?

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:04:26 +0000

I have been touting the YouCat as the next important tool for catechesis and evangelization. It puts the faith in simple, everyday terms that young people and adults alike will find more understandable and relevant than the more formal theological language of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The purpose of the YouCat is to take advantage of the dialectic model of teaching used by other catechisms such as America’s Baltimore Catechism and the relatively recently released Compendium of the Catechism. I have said that I wish I had the YouCat when I taught in the Catholic high school.

However, not all of the news about the YouCat is good. There has been a movement to have the YouCat recalled due to doctrinal errors and ambiguities. In fact, the Italian translation was actually recalled and revised. So are there legitimate concerns about the English translation of the YouCat?

Here is what I have discovered so far. There are six major objections.

YOUCAT claims that the Bible contains errors.
YOUCAT alleges that Genesis does not give a true account of creation.
YOUCAT emphasizes modern scientific speculation over the Church Fathers’ unanimous interpretations of the first chapters of Genesis.
YOUCAT teaches that God made an incomplete world filled with defects and deformities.
YOUCAT gives confusing (some say ambiguous others say erroneous) catechesis on human sexuality and end of life issues.
YOUCAT can give the impression that modern Catholic and non-Catholic authors are more important for young people to read than the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

These objections are lifted from http://www.dfwcatholic.org/petition-to-recall-youcat-for-doctrinal-errors14256/.html but are repeated on a number of websites in part or entire.

I’ll answer each objection in turn. But what do you think? Have you read the YouCat? Have you found anything to be ambiguous, misleading or contrary to the teachings of the Church? Let me know in the comments below!

Catholic Learning Sequence

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:19:03 +0000

When you are trying to learn about the Catholic faith on your own, deciding what to do next is often as difficult as deciding where to start. This is no small question. While there is no specific sequence for learning about the faith, there is such thing as a wrong sequence. A poorly thought-out sequence of learning can result in a number of undesirable outcomes.

Getting Lost

You start with a video or a book or an audio presentation that gets you all excited to learn, but once you finish it you ask yourself, “Now where do I go from here?” Most people who find themselves in this situation are likely to fall out of the learning stream and go back to their old habits.

Losing the Connection

Another possibility is that you do pick up another resource and continue the habit of learning. You are still asking, “What next?” but you decide just to press ahead. Unless you strike a vein of grace, you will most likely struggle to understand how the two resources connect. Catholic truth is all connected. To truly learn our faith it is important to see the big picture, and to learn how concepts are connected. If we miss the connection, we are missing out on the fullness of the beauty of the truth.

Ineffective Learning

Again, there is no one “right” sequence in which to learn about the faith. However, an experienced educator knows that sequence is very important when it comes to maximizing learning. It is very important that new ideas and concepts build on what has been learned before. That is the way the brain most efficiently absorbs new ideas. If you are learning Catholic concepts in isolation from each other, you are less likely to be able to build on what you already know in order to better understand new concepts.

So, what makes a good learning sequence?

So, take some time to plan out your learning strategy in much the same way that a teacher plans out a curriculum. Think about how ideas and concepts build on each other. Here are some directions to take your sequence that might help. Try to use as many of these rhythms as you can.

Familiar –> New

Start with what you know. If you have a good grasp of the basics, build from there. For example, if you know the general idea of the Trinity, find some resources that can take your understanding one step further (such as Scott Hahn’s CD God’s Family and Ours: the Holy Trinity).

The Spiral

That first learning rhythm naturally flows into one of the key instructional patterns for teachers of more abstract subjects (such as theology). The idea of “The Spiral” is to come back around to revisit the same concepts over again, but at deeper and deeper levels.
Don’t give up on a concept just because you think you may have exhausted it. Keep digging (and praying) for new, surprising, deeper understandings of these inexhaustible truths.

Fundamental –> Speculative

We need to make sure that our learning is always grounded in the most foundational truths of the Gospel. That’s why solid theological programs always start with a course called “fundamental theology.” Once the basics are down, then our studies can slowly delve into the deeper, more abstract theological ideas. Then, finally, we can venture into the speculative (those things that we can only really guess at due to the depth of the mystery).

Theoretical —> Practical –> Theoretical

How exactly the practical and theoretical should be explored is a complex question. Our tendency is to start with the practical, since we find the practical more relevant to us. However, until we understand the fundamental theories that underpin the practical applications, we’re going to miss the point. Again, once we begin to live the practical applications of our faith, we need to dig deeper into theory in order to discover their meaning.

These inter-related instructional rhythms can be combined to create a powerful, meaningful sequence that can maximize our understanding of theological truths. It does take some work and practice, but this planning of our private study is as vital as careful planning is in a classroom. You won’t regret the extra effort you put into doing a little planning.

Levels of Commitment

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:04:27 +0000

The Problem

Think about most of the options for learning about your Catholic faith. Parishes offer study groups and parish programs. Both of these options are wonderful programs if you have the time to dedicate to them. And there’s the problem. It’s not that you are not dedicated to your faith. It’s not that you don’t want to learn about Jesus and His Church. It’s just that you have a family to take care of, a job to do, an education to get.

It’s human nature to evaluate anything we are asked to do with a cost-benefit analysis. We ask, “how much is this going to cost me?” The cost isn’t all about the money. It also includes other personal resources such as time and energy. We also ask, “What am I going to get out of this?” So, when we have an opportunity to attend a parish study or program, we look at making the trip to the parish at night after a long day, sacrificing one or two hours of our time, and then even possibly having “home work” on top of that, we find the benefits pretty difficult to see. The benefits are there, though – and they are great! The problem is in our perception and in our judgment.

The Solution

As in any area of life, the ability to embrace good things that come with a high price develops through virtue. Virtue requires building the habit to do something good over the course of time. Building the habit of learning about your faith usually requires that you start with learning opportunities that “cost” less in terms of time and energy (and probably money as well).

That’s where knowing all of your options and knowing which resources to seek out when becomes really important. If you choose the wrong educational experiences to start with, you are likely to quit out of frustration. On the other hand, if you start with low-cost options, you will be rewarded by learning some of the most fascinating concepts possible without being worn down by a large commitment of time and energy. You are therefore much more likely to seek more, and to gradually build the habit of studying your faith.

This diagram proposes a continuum of Catholic learning resources from those requiring the least investment in time, energy and finances at the lower left of the diagram, to those requiring greater commitments in the upper right.

This is one reason that I am such a proponent of Lighthouse Catholic Media’s CD of the Month Program. CDs are so easy to listen to while you’re driving or while you’re doing something else. Lighthouse Catholic Media has brought together some of the greatest talent in the Catholic Church and has worked hard to be able to offer these recordings at such a low price ($5/month). CD of the Month Club members get one of the newest CDs each month, so even if you get Lighthouse CDs from another source, being in the Club is worthwhile.

If you’re not a member of Lighthouse Catholic Media’s CD of the Month program, you can sign up by following the link above. It’s a great start to the adventure of lifelong study of the faith!

Learning Styles

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 23:35:14 +0000

One challenge with traditional Catholic educational methods is that they are not always in tune with the way you learn. One of the true advances of professional education has been the recognition of different learning styles. Which learning styles fit you the best?

Visual – Textual

Some people really connect with written language. They find that reading allows them to reflect on ideas more deeply. They may also enjoy writing out their own ideas as a way to clarify their thought process.

Visual – spatial

Some people learn best by seeing a physical representation of the idea. They find models and diagrams very useful in helping them visualize concepts. If they can see ideas acted out, they will retain the ideas much more completely than if they just read about them.

Auditory

Some people learn best by listening. They can hear someone talk about a concept and really absorb what is being said. They may also connect ideas with music or sounds, and can even learn to memorize long lists by putting the lists to music.

Kinesthetic

Some people learn best by doing. The more their bodies can be involved in the learning process the better. These people learn better from live learning experiences than they do from recorded programs. However, they learn best by doing and experiencing.

The recognition of different learning styles has allowed people who had trouble learning in a classroom setting to realize that they were not incapable of learning, but that they just learned differently than the auditory and visual-textual learning styles that tend to dominate the classroom setting. Likewise, Catholic educational opportunities tend toward one or two learning styles. If those opportunities do not use your learning style, you may feel like you just “don’t get this theology stuff.”

So what’s the solution? If you look for all of your Catholic educational opportunities in your parish, you may find yourself always encountering the same learning styles. The only way to really find Catholic education that meets your learning style is to seek out home resources.

You will find that using resources that correspond with your learning style will make learning about the faith not only easier but more enjoyable as well. This is a great place to start. However, you don’t want to completely avoid learning with the other learning styles. That would be to miss out on what they can offer. For example, auditory learning experiences tend to take the least amount of commitment from us – we can listen and learn while we do something else at the same time. Reading and writing offer the brain the kind of deep meditation that leads to a more intimate interior life with God. So, get started with your strongest learning styles, but as your confidence and knowledge grow, strike out into your weaker learning styles and strengthen them as well.

Do you know of any resources that meet the different learning styles? Please share them in the comments for this post!

Giving In To Senioritis – Extending Childhood Yet Again

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:08:16 +0000

May is the month for students to look forward to graduation and the approach of the end of the year. The classroom tends to take on an air of spring lightheartedness mixed with impatience for summer vacation. As a student I actually enjoyed this time of year – when homework could be done outside and the monotony of book work cold be broken by games of frisbee or volleyball, or even just a walk in the park or a bike ride.

However, as a teacher part of me dreaded this time of year. Students looking forward to summer vacation often wanted to begin their vocation a month early. Whining increased. Assignments arrived to my desk later. Bathroom breaks got longer. I felt a growing sense of frustration as my carefully crafted lessons fell onto deaf ears and daydreaming minds. I especially felt this sense of frustration as a teacher of seniors. I taught college level courses (Cooperative College Credit courses as well as Advanced Placement), and I saw my job as not only preparing these students for college but ushering them into a higher level of cognitive skill. I’m a bit of an idealist, so when seniors turn off and tune out, I find myself increasingly frustrated at their unwillingness to make the most of the time they have left in high school to grow in their ability to think and learn.

This frustration is nearly universal, and modern educational philosophy has begun listening to the whining of seniors as if it were the wisdom of the sages. Articles like USNews.com: More Calculus? Toss the Frisbee! appear periodically at this time of year expressing possible solutions to the problem of “senioritis.”

Other articles recommend giving in to senioritis by offering early graduation, work study programs (which are usually nothing more than time off of school to work part-time jobs, despite efforts to implement an actual curriculum), or “human interest” courses (read “blow-off class”).

The article from U.S. News & World Report brings up a great point, and the solutions it offers are actually pretty good: making the senior year a truly culminating education experience (senior papers or senior thesis presentations) and/or linking the senior year of high school to college by having colleges set standards for the senior year that must be met for college admission the following year.

Only 36 percent of seniors say they do six or more hours of homework a week. Only 1 in 3 seniors takes a science course, compared with two thirds of European students. (To be fair, more than half of American seniors spend at least three hours a day working, about three times the international average.) The result is that many of the 70 percent who now go on to college either have let their knowledge base decline senior year or never acquired the basic knowledge and study skills to succeed. At some universities, as many as two thirds of the freshmen must take remedial courses–and many never return for sophomore year.

No one blames the students. “I’d act the same way,” says Kirst, who sees slacking off as the natural response to the confusing cues sent by colleges and school officials. By admitting students on the basis of their junior-year grades, for example, colleges send the message that senior year doesn’t really count. The trend toward early admissions only exacerbates the urge to kick back.

However, even this article may be missing the point. The underlying assumption is that the main purpose of high school is to prepare students for college, which students need in order to get a successful job. This underlying educational philosophy has (in my opinion as an educator) eviscerated the power of schools to offer a true education. Traditional Catholic education philosophy tells us that the purpose of true education is to teach us how to think so that we can discover the truth.

Instead of following the way that students actually learn, modern educational philosophy turns it on its head. Elementary teachers who see memorization as restrictive attempt to gain students’ interest through activities and arts, when in fact elementary students are primed for memorization. Meanwhile, goaded by reports about how little graduating seniors “know” about history and science, high school teachers attempt to cram facts into their students’ heads, focusing on memorization rather than forming students’ growing ability to analyze and to think critically.

Is it any wonder that by senior year most students see education as irrelevant? High school students who start their freshman year complaining, “When will we ever use this stuff?” in the face of memorizing dates, names and events are by their senior year driven to distraction by even more requirements to memorize “useless facts.” In truth, they should have already learned these facts, and should by now be engaged in real thinking about their subjects.

Of course, anyone who knows adolescents and young adults realize that even changing educational philosophy and practice won’t get rid of senioritis. Fallen human nature pretty much guarantees that students will seek luxury and fun over the true good of learning how to think. However, even this struggle can be a good thing if it teaches the self-discipline of putting off what we think we want for the sake of a higher good. One thing is certain – giving in to senioritis is not what is good for our young adults. It does nothing more than keep them children when they should be embracing adulthood.

Teen Culture – a World of Their Own

Jeffrey S. Arrowood, MTS — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:57:19 +0000

In my teaching and writing for the diocese, I very often warn parents against the isolated “teen culture.” The modern school system encourages adolescents to learn socialization from each other. I often declare, “I don’t know who thought that letting ignorant, unformed adolescents socialize each other was a good idea.” Yet, critics of homeschooling most often state “lack of socialization” as their reason for opposing homeschooling. Children who do not go to school will not be socialized, they fear. The fact is that socialization can only truly happen when adolescents learn what it means to become adults and to live in adult community from adults. That is not happening.

Chuck Colson, a popular teacher on the importance of forming a Christian worldview and intellectual life, has often warned about the same phenomenon. “A World of Their Own,” a BreakPoint commentary, offered an excellent explanation of the isolated teen culture, which happens to precisely coincide with my own observations as a highschool teacher. After explaining one of the many school shooting tragedies that have happened in our country, Mr. Colson says,

If you’re wondering “Where were the adults?” it’s clear you don’t know how most American teenagers are growing up today. American teenagers operate in what has been called a “parallel culture” that operates free of adult interference.

As Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, wrote in the New York Times, American high schools are the site of something unique in American society: “a gang in which individuals of the same age group define each other’s world.” This definition includes the imposition of standards that have no relationship to what’s needed for success in the real world.

Ironically, the claim by proponents of those who support “traditional” schooling is that children need to go to school in order to learn how to deal with social conflict and with the complexities of the social world. They fear that homeschooled children will grow up sheltered from the real world, and will therefore be unprepared for adulthood. What they fail to see is that the school culture is not a reflection of the real adult world. It is a unique culture that is often reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, devoid of adult rules and guidance. This culture produces such head-scratching cultural anomalies as “sexting” (sending nude photographs of yourself by cell phone), as well as increased risky behaviors involving alcohol, drugs ans sex. And the worst part of this teen culture is that adults are afraid of it. Or, at least adults think that they have no right to interfere in it. As Chuck Colson says,

So we’ve got American kids operating from an artificial set of rules unrelated to real life; they’re going to schools where adults don’t question those rules, watching media that validates those rules, and being wooed by advertisers who tell them how insightful they really are. Worst of all, their parents are complicit in the creation of the parallel culture.

Whether it’s because of a lack of time, or a desire not to “repress” their children, American parents have adopted a hands-off approach to parenting. Instead of direct supervision they get what’s called “guilt money” — money given in lieu of real parental involvement. The lack of supervision and the money reinforce the parallel culture. It’s created a creature I call the “autonomous teenager.”

The immediate result of the teen culture is alienated young adults who see themselves as alien to the adult world, who are incapable of relating to their parents, and who don’t have the first clue how to interact with the civilized world. Most young adults don’t even greet you when you enter their place of employment, and sometimes don’t even serve you with any sense of politeness or interest.

The long-term results of the teen culture are going to be even more serious. We already see people from my generation, currently in their thirties, who have never grown up. This trend is going to get even worse if it doesn’t turn around. We are losing sight of the purpose of culture and society, creating societies that alienate and isolate us rather than bringing us together in true social interaction. Raising a generation unable to socially interact within an adult world, incapable of true conversation (vs. the empty, shallow communication they are almost constantly engaged in), disinterested in intellectual discourse, independent rather than interdependent and ignorant of politeness and civility, is only going to damage it more.

The Joy of the Truth » Education

YouCat and the Church Fathers

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YouCat and Progressive Creation

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YouCat and Creation

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YouCat and Biblical Inerrancy

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Is the YouCat Recall Legitimate?

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Catholic Learning Sequence

So, what makes a good learning sequence?

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Levels of Commitment

The Problem

The Solution

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Learning Styles

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Giving In To Senioritis – Extending Childhood Yet Again

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Teen Culture – a World of Their Own

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