I thought I would share with you the brief introduction I wrote to set up the chapters of my doctoral dissertation. I am, Lord willing, defending this dissertation within the next month (or maybe two). The chapters are all written, I am editing them now, receiving feedback from my dissertation committee, and making revisions as necessary. I think I was about 23 years old when I first said to myself, “I’d like to earn a Ph.D. someday.” I am now 39 and I have been working on my doctoral program since the Fall of 2013. None of my children know their father as anything but a perpetual student and my youngest two have never known me to not be working on my Ph.D. I am very thankful to my family for supporting me, and I am thankful to God to have finally come to the final stretch after so many ups and downs.
It is my hope that the work I have done will, in the near future, be published for the benefit of everyone (or at least I hope it is beneficial for everyone). So I thought I would offer you a bit of a teaser just to see if anyone might like some more.
Thanks for your support and encouragement of the work going on at STGB. You have no idea what it means to me.
INTRODUCTION
Civilization is in an unparalleled crisis. What we are witnessing in our own day is the result of a radical break from the realm of objective reality. God is the absolute ground of all reality. Truth, goodness, and beauty are three aspects of our experience of the divine in the created world. There is a straight line from the rise of anti-realist philosophy (Ockham) to our own day where people are denying their own biological sex, claiming there are as many genders as there are grains of sand on the seashore, and discussing “my truth” versus “your truth”. Well meaning as he may have been, when William of Ockham denied the real existence of universals (what Plato would have called “forms” and Augustine “the Ideas of God”) espousing instead his philosophy of nominalism (the idea that we simply give common names to particular things of similar appearance) he tipped a domino that set off a multi-century chain reaction which led us to the place we now are.
If there is no immaterial reality that grounds being and makes us, and all things, what we are then there is only the material world. The immaterial world is immutable but the material world is alterable. If the essential substance of what a thing is can be altered (because it is purely material) then it is true that we have power over its nature. We are become gods, making ourselves and other things after the images we have developed in our own hearts. Whatever we call a thing, or ourselves, is simply what it is. We have determined it to be so. At least what it is for us. It is my truth that I am a man or a woman or a beaver or a tree. Your truth may be different from mine but it would make no sense to say either of us are wrong. Why? Because that would require objectivity, a fixed immovable reality that grounds the being of all things, something which does not care and is unmoved by our ridiculous attempts to redefine the nature of reality with our silly little words.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, summarizes the biblical teachings about God’s nature and being stating:
There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal most just and terrible in His judgments; hating all sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty.
God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of Himself; and is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them; He is the alone foundation of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom, are all things; and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever Himself pleaseth. In His sight all things are open and manifest; His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature; so as nothing is to Him contingent or uncertain. He is most holy in all His counsels, in all His works, and in all His commands. To Him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience He is pleased to require of them.
In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.1
At the end of it all, it comes down to this. If God exists, as the Christian Scriptures proclaim, then he is the ultimate backstop behind all reality. Objectivity concerning what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful is grounded in him. What God knows is what is real. What God believes is what is true. What God is, and wills, is what is good. What God has made, and that which honors what God has made, is beautiful. If there is no God, there is no objectivity. If there is objectivity, then there needs must be God.
This is the crisis of modern man. Many people in contemporary society desire objectivity but do not desire the God of objectivity nor how he defines reality. Those who have leaned into relativism live in the world of absurdity every day. They operate as though truth exists when crossing the street, when reading their medicine bottles, when dealing with their bank accounts, but they deny reality in their bedrooms and in public bathrooms, they deny it at modern art exhibitions, they deny it even in math classrooms. The result of denying truth is madness. The result of embracing truth is coming face to face with God. Some people fear both of these things equally but they will end up doing one or the other.
This dissertation will focus upon the aspect of objective reality known as “goodness”. The word “virtue” should essentially be seen as a synonym for the same concept. Goodness is virtue, virtue is goodness. Truth, goodness, and beauty are constantly bumping into each other whenever you try to talk about any one of them. This is because ultimately they are one thing just as God is one. God’s attributes are many in our experience but they are really a perfect unity in God’s own unchanging being. We experience God differently at different times not because he changes but because we do. God’s holiness, justice, wrath, love, mercy, etc., are all just our mutable perspectives of God’s perfection as we move in relation to his unmoving. The fire that warms is the fire that burns depending upon where we stand in relation to it.
Similarly, what is true is good and beautiful, what is good is true and beautiful, and what is beautiful is true and good, because they are all one. We encounter different aspects of this unity as we, the changeable ones, move through time and space and look at the same unchanging reality from different angles. This unity allows us to test claims concerning what is true, good, or beautiful because, ultimately, whatever is not all three of these is not even one of these. Affirming this unity it is, nonetheless, the universal human experience to see reality in trinity. Perhaps we experience objective reality in trinity because the God who made it is The Trinity. So, even though truth, goodness, and beauty are one, it is beneficial to spend time thinking about each aspect individually because it will, in turn, help us understand the unity all the better.
Moral virtue, as will be expounded upon in the chapters of this dissertation, is synonymous with moral goodness. Virtues are excellencies, strengths, which have been acquired through habituation, and they are the primary constituents in personal and societal happiness. No one without virtue can be happy. No society without a virtuous citizenship can thrive. It is the contention of this author that the path back to sanity for our society lies in the direction of embracing objective reality, the world God made, as he made it, and by rejecting the practice of trying to make reality after our own image. Moral sanity involves acknowledging the God who is there and turning to him in faith and seeking to live the good life as he says it ought to be lived. These principles of goodness are evident in the created world which is why throughout history even the pagan nations have largely stumbled upon the basic precepts of morality (goodness) and these principles came to be known as “the cardinal virtues”. The pagans had enough sense to see that there is an unchanging reality behind all things which we must submit to. “Enlightened man” however now dwells in great darkness, claiming to be wise, we have become fools, and we have exchanged the truth for a lie. When the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinkers sought to get down to the bare truth, by rejecting the revelation of Scripture and metaphysical philosophy, in favor of personal verification, they were confident that they would solve all the mysteries of the universe. Instead, having divorced themselves from the ground of all truth, they set man adrift in the ocean of subjectivity without a life vest.
It is for this reason that the call of this work is for us to do something rather drastic, namely, to go back to a premodern understanding of the world. If there is any hope for civilization then we must accept the understanding of reality that man used to have. We must affirm the existence of God and of objective reality and submit to both. The pursuit of moral virtue is no less than the pursuit of personal fulfillment and happiness, something we all desire more than anything. But this requires a humility that modern man is not used to expressing. It will be a hard lesson to learn for many but it can be learned through repentance.
There yet remains, even in our modernist and postmodern world, an anchor that continues to call us back to virtue. Man’s love of great stories remains a lighthouse in the storm of moral relativism. The fact that people continue to recognize what a real hero is (and what a real villain is) when they see one is a testimony to the enduring truth of moral realism. The fact is, everyone admires kindness, generosity, self-sacrifice, and abhors when someone betrays the people closest to them, or when someone seeks their own welfare over that of their children, or when someone is willing to harm others to benefit themselves. People connect with stories, they believe stories, they affirm in stories what they try so hard to deny in their own life. Stories are powerful. Good stories point us toward virtue and away from vice.
From the earliest recorded history to this very day, stories have been used as vehicles to train each successive generation in virtue. The greatest moral teachers in history have always been storytellers. Stories cannot help but convey claims about what is true, good, and beautiful. The best stories align with reality and they also help to align the story receiver with reality. It is for this reason that the goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate that storytelling plays an essential role in the development and preservation of virtue in every generation. As go our stories so go our people. There are well written stories and poorly written stories, and there are good stories and bad stories, but these are not the same thing. A story is only good insofar as it aligns the story receiver with reality, that is to say, with God. Stories may be good by degree, they may be good in parts and bad in others, but they are good or bad as they align with reality and align the receiver with reality.
This dissertation will be divided into two main parts. In the first part virtue itself will be examined. The chapters in part one will make clear the nature of virtue of itself (Ch. 1), why virtue is desirable (Ch. 2), how we can come to see what is and is not a virtue (Ch. 3), how virtue can be acquired (Ch. 4), and the distinction between the cardinal virtues (Ch. 5) and the theological virtues (Ch. 6). In the second part of this dissertation the focus will shift to examine the role of virtue in education. The questions “should virtue be taught” (Ch. 7) and “can virtue be taught?” (Ch. 8) will be carefully examined. In chapter nine the place and power of storytelling in virtue education will be evaluated. Chapter ten will take a look at the mediums and modes of storytelling, ultimately arguing for the superiority of literature above other mediums for the purpose of virtue education. After this the role of history and myth in storytelling and virtue education will be considered (Ch. 11) along with the value of various genres of fiction (Ch. 12). Finally this dissertation will end with a short chapter addressing some practical matters when it comes to using stories (particularly literature) to teach students about virtue (Ch. 13).
It is the desire of this author that this work be a leaping off point for further study and work concerning the connection between storytelling and virtue. May this work, and subsequent efforts in the same vein, serve to connect people back to reality and help them to find a door back to the one who made it. God is constantly telling the world a story. It is the story of how to come home to him. May the world no longer stop its ears to the true story that is being told. May we all be more like Lucy from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader who asked, “‘Oh, Aslan,’ said Lucy. ‘Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?’ ‘I shall be telling you all the time,’ said Aslan. ‘But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.’”2
“The Westminster Confession of Faith,” Ligonier Ministries, accessed July 21, 2023, https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/westminster-confession-faith.
C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (New York, NY: HarperTrophy, 2000), 140.
I would love to read your finished dissertation.
I can tell that this is going to be fantastic. The introduction gave me goosebumps.