In the garden of the Bishop’s Palace in Exeter stands a sculpture by Frances Favata entitled ‘Trinity’. It consists of three separate figures, clearly relating together. They are set out with an inviting space between them so that, for a brief moment in the enticing green of the garden, one can take one’s place in the apparent conversation and so rehearse the meaning of salvation.
Conversation would appear to be an apt metaphor for the Trinitarian life. Conversation is, at is best, rooted in an assumption of equality and a pattern of reciprocity. It is not reducible to an exchange of information, but has more to do with the building up of a shared, common life. It concerns understanding in order to participate. In this way, conversation points to a relational notion of identity. One only comes to a true sense of self through, and not apart from, the other.
Conversation is an excellent image for God’s perichoretic life. In conversation there is a sharing of the contents of minds of the participants. The thoughts of one come to indwell the mind of the other. And if conversation is seen as the ability to overreach oneself into the other, then, conversation can also become an apt analogue of the incarnation: of the unfurling of the eternal divine life into the world of space and time.
Salvation, as I hinted at the outset, is also captured through this metaphor. Through the incarnate life of the Son, through his conversation with us is silenced in death yet renewed in resurrection, the Trinitarian God opens up his life for our participation; salvation is about an eternal stake in the conversation that is God’s life.
Having established the trinitarian currency of the notion of conversation, we may now extend this into the realm of education. In this task John’s Gospel is especially helpful. How does Jesus learn who he is and the meaning of his life? John suggests through conversation with the Father (enabled in the Spirit).
“About the middle of the festival Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. The Jews were astonished at it, saying, “How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught?” The Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me.” (John 7: 14-16)
The disciples’ own educational process follows the same pattern. In the company of Jesus they acquire the status of friends (no longer the economic category of slaves) as they come to share in Jesus’ own knowledge of the Father:
“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)
Education comes about from being called as a friend, as conversation partner, to participate in the Trinity’s conversation of love and life. From this conclusion we can create a general principle: education is about learning, through conversation, how to live in relation to that with which one converses. Such a comprehension of education takes us back behind the modern principle that one acquires knowledge in order to dominate or control, to manipulate and turn to a profit, to a “concept of reason as the organ of perception and participation (methexis)” (Moltmann, 1985, p.2). Education becomes essentially about learning how to takes one’s place in life, ultimately before God. It is not merely learning how to make a living.
It is a vital principle that the form education takes should seek to model the content one seeks to convey. Thus if education is about learning how to participate in life, learning itself must take the form of conversation. Accordingly two modes of learning are revealed as deficient: both the lecture as monologue, and completely unconstrained exploration. The interaction between student and lecturer should be neither entirely one-way nor without guiding content.
Further, conversation might be used to describe the purpose of a university as a whole. A university exists to bring discrete stands of enquiry into one shared conversation (Rowan Williams). A university that understands and appreciates its Christian heritage should thus aim to be a place of one conversation (concerning what counts as true?) via many perspectives.
No thoughts yet on “Education as conversation”