“All Truth is God’s Truth” Is Not Enough
It is common in Christian schools to hear the phrase all truth is God’s truth. This phrase is usually used in the context of curriculum discussions and the foundational philosophy of content. The theologies
“All Truth is God’s Truth” Is Not Enough
It is common in Christian schools to hear the phrase all truth is God’s truth. This phrase is usually used in the context of curriculum discussions and the foundational philosophy of content. The theologies behind the phrase are special revelation, which is the actual Word of God, and natural revelation, which is the created world. Authors like Moreland (1997) would add intellectual reasoning as a means to discover truth as well. The ideas imbedded in the Truth of God are not always adequate to describe the real importance of the Christian school distinctive. It is too easy for the Christian school teacher to say, “All truth is God’s truth” and then go on and teach content in the same manner as the public school. This is why Riesen (2002) says there is often little difference between the public, private and Christian schools. For education to be truly Christian, it must have a foundation in the actual words of God spoken through the Scriptures and consistently applied in every content area of the school.
Christ declared himself to be “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Therefore, when Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:20 to be “Ambassadors for Christ” it can also to be a call to be an Ambassador of the Truth. The greatest revelation of Christ is the Bible itself, making it the foundation for all understanding of the truth, regardless of the academic discipline. For this reason it is not enough to hint at Bible verses in a curriculum guide and call it biblical integration. The principles of the Scriptures must be one with the subject’s content. In his book Building the Christian Academy, Arthur Holmes (2001) put it this way,
"The integration of faith and learning involves far more than the conjunction of liberal learning and student formation. The unity of truth in the mind of an all-knowing creator underlies the reintegration of Christian beliefs with the foundations, the content, and the practice of academic disciplines. Christian beliefs provide theological foundations for knowledge and art, they reintroduce truths that would otherwise be ignored, and they give coherence to a worldview."
The great meaning here is that Christ holds all things together (Col. 1), unifying truth, belief, content and practice into one instructional whole that must not be overlooked by the Christian educator.
Further exploration helps to reveal how God’s Word can be used and misused in Christian education as a foundation for learning. Math teachers might view biblical integration as a calculation using facts like, “1 talent in ancient times would equal 75 lbs. of gold, what would 7 talents equal?” Instead, the Christian educator should use math to demonstrate God’s precision, unchanging and infinite nature. Language must be more than learning to read so one can study the Bible. Language Arts use written and verbal words as part 