This article is based on a presentation made September 8, 2005 at the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities executive committee meeting in Presbyterian Center, Louisville, Ky.
2005 happens to be the 125th anniversary of the founding of Presbyterian College and the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s miracle year. The connection between the two was set for me when a member of our faculty shared a contemporary epistle — a letter from one of the young saints — a graduate of the class of 2003.
I took your advice and thought about what my four years at PC meant to me as the bagpipes started playing that glorious, blue-sky Carolina Saturday that we graduated. … I may never be famous or powerful, but I do have something that no one can ever take from me. I have something that will follow me to the grave. That something is a type of understanding that I received from the college that goes beyond a normal education. I know why PC is so very special now … PC teaches you not just facts but how and why you should thirst for knowledge. PC teaches you not only to understand why Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge;” but PC also teaches you to love to imagine yourself. PC teaches you not only how the American justice system has changed in the last century, but PC also teaches you to strive for justice yourself. PC not only teaches you that God exists, but it also challenges you to examine God in your own life …
The discernment of truth is the business of higher learning. Einstein’s miracle year, in which he discerned five major truths about how the universe works, helps us understand the human tools the academy nurtures in the search for truth. To amplify these tools, I need to tell a story about two men: Galileo Galilei and Albert Einstein.
In 1632, Galileo imagined a problem in relation to his doubts about Aristotle’s statements on bodies in motion: Galileo imagined two people observing a sailboat, one from atop the mast and one from the dock. The sailboat is moving rapidly along and the person atop the mast drops a large stone. Where does the stone land? The man atop the mast observes that the stone lands at the base of the mast — straight down. But, to the man on the dock, the stone appears to fall at an angle and must have landed behind the mast. There it is! Our perception of bodies in motion is relative to our position.
At the age of 16, in 1895, Albert Einstein imagined a new problem resulting from his doubts about the universality of Galileo’s statements on bodies in motion: What if the man atop a very, very tall mast — a mast 186,282 miles tall, the distance light travels in a second — dropped a beam of light down the mast? What would the two men observe? They observe the same thing as with a stone. But how could this be since the speed of light is constant? In May of 1905, ten years later, on a walk with a friend, Einstein discovered the answers to his doubt. From the point of view of the person on the dock, the time it took the light to reach the ship’s deck was longer than a second. In order for this to happen time itself differs for the two observers. There it is! Time is relative! The world as we knew it was set on its head.
It was doubt — doubting what was currently taken to be the truth; it was imagination — imagining a new way of examining the status quo that led to new truth.
Doubt — imagination — truth, the domain of higher learning. We know how to do this very well. We have pulled back the curtain of ignorance and continually expanded the horizon of what we know to be true. We introduce students to the great questions of doubt, engage them in the best of what the human imagination has conjured up to discern how all this works. In answering how, reason reigns supreme in the academy.
Houston Smith, one the great commentators on human spirituality, was fond of saying, “The larger the island of knowledge, the greater the shoreline of wonder.”
What about wonder? What about the why? Why is all this here? What is the meaning of it all?
The church-related institution of higher learning is also concerned with why: the beauty of the birth of a child and the horror of the Nazi concentration camp … the awesome majesty of Mt. Everest and the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina. Reason helps us come to grips with how such things happen. Faith helps us come to grips with why.
Frederick Beuchner said, “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith.”
The church-related college works to clarify the doubts of young believers, expose them to the best and fullest expression of these doubts, and engages their imaginations in discerning truth. We seek to discern the path from doubt to faith … how to get from what we know to what we cannot know … how to get from our everyday experience to God when we reason we cannot place our hands on the wounds of the risen Christ.
The first quality church-related college, washed in the Reformed Tradition, comes at the quest for truth through the full powers of reason and faith fueled by doubt and imagination. This is what we do best. For the great quests of humankind that require both our capacities for reason and faith our graduates are uniquely suited.
Take for example three current issues:
Many scientists, some of them people of faith, claim that Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases can likely be cured by embryonic stem cells. Other people of faith say that to do so would violate the sanctity of human life by destroying human embryos.
Many government leaders, some of them people of faith, say that terrorism is fueled by cultural, economic, religious and political priorities of Islamic nations and will be solved through political means. Other people of faith claim that terror will cease only when Muslims are converted to a democratic and Christian way of life.
Many educators and scientists, some of them people of faith, say that the teaching of evolution in the public schools is essential to a solid foundation in the biological sciences. Other people of faith claim that this is problematic because it is a theory and not fact and leaves no room for God in the creation of human beings.
It occurs to me that all issues of substance are really matters of both reason and faith. And so, our commitment to examining the great issues of our time through the powers of reason must be second to none. Similarly, our commitment to understanding the meaning and perspective that faith brings to these same matters must be a defining characteristic of our missions. Our commitment to exploring the relationship between the two is our highest calling. This is the great undertaking that has defined Presbyterian higher education in America for nearly 300 years.
To each graduating class at Presbyterian College I pose a series of rhetorical questions. One of them is this: Have you learned that truth lies beyond your grasp, that seeking it is your lifelong quest; and that you are the children of God who alone is Truth?
God, for creating us in your image, we give you thanks.
For giving us the capacity to doubt and imagine, we give you thanks.
For planting in us the desire to know your Truth, we give you thanks.
For living and dying as a man, we give you thanks.
For living again as the Truth, the Way, and the Light, we give you thanks.Amen!
John V. Griffith is president of Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C.
