This Page Last Updated December 16th, 2008 (new style reckoning)
Education
Godly
Instruction
Good
instruction is admired by God. There is no good reason to be running after the
instructions of this world. This is sadly exactly the action that the deposed
patriarch Nikon did. It is no wonderment at all that the outcome on
o
CHAP.
26. Concerning schools of learning in all the towns: And in accordance with the
tsar's advice we have jointly decreed that in the ruling city of Moscow and in
all the towns these same archpriests and senior priests, together with all the
priests and deacons, each in his own town, shall select, with the blessing of
their bishop, worthy, pious priests and deacons and married sextons and pious
men, with the fear of God in their hearts, who can be of use to others and who
know their letters and reading and writing, and shall establish schools in the
houses of these priests, deacons, and sextons, so that priests and deacons and
all Orthodox Christians in each town would send them their children to learn reading
and writing and church singing....
(The Stoglav
1551)
Simplicity
and firm faith will take a person all the way to Heaven. Being immersed into the
authentic ascetical life is all that is needed and take
the wisdom of this world with all skeptical reluctance. The righteous will find
themselves studying that which is of the Holy Spirit and by that those in this
world can learn what is right. Today this world learns from pagans, heathens and
heretics. If we would attain that place that saints keep we must
likewise take the instruction of Christ the Lord as they did. Instead, today, this world
acquires to itself its own speech, its own words, where their knowledge rests
only upon their tongues temporarily. What dangerous times we are living in.
Scholasticism
The
devil has tried to imitate good instruction, in these days the devils work can
be easily seen in modern scholasticism. What schools today do more than anything else
is teach “tolerance” and persuade the masses to strive for all
things temporary. The happiness and pleasures that this world can offer are so very fleeting, but colleges do not present this fact truthfully. St. Irenaeus explains that evil can be a teacher all of itself, as it is possible to learn good from our mistakes. But if we are careful we will not make mistakes in the first place, which is preferable. We should know better, we have no excuses. Not many who indulge themselves with evil are able to escape its grasp. We are able to see evil for what it is from a distance, and avoid it. Even though evil is subtle we can teach ourselves to recognize its approach. Parents are responsible for bringing a child up in the way they should go but who is actually doing that correctly anymore? Ultimately we are each responsible for our own education. Irenaeus thought is two centuries earlier than Augustine, and I think more aligned with what is right. I do not agree that it makes God the originator of evil. It is true that God is a sender of earthly suffering (often called evil) as a teacher to those who disobey Him, but if we think about they bring upon themselves this consiquence all on their own. That is something else than evil purpose which works to do away with what is good. So there are different meanings of the word evil.
The
local college spring quarter catalog has a subtitle that reads,
“Feel the Power of an Education!” to which I can only say, what
“Pride and Greed”. This tells me all too well what modern
education has come to.
The
devil causes a person to be deluded by their own individual opinion and even
today's seminaries contradict the beliefs and practices God has given as
instruction. Scholasticism conformed to Augustinian philosophy is brought into the
modern world, through education, movies, music and other interests of today. The
intention and purpose of scholasticism actually is to destroy the awareness
of the good teachers from iconography and hymnography, the good expression theology which brings us
real life. Scholasticism has now made a very big impression in practically
everybody all over the world. But it is still possible to take the evil use of scholasticism against itself, and illustrate its flaws. Most people though are very happy in their heresies and are immovable in their position that it is inherently a benifit and the means to success. They erroneously think they need scholasticism.