In counseling a young fellow somewhat troubled about tensions in his marriage, I learned that he had some doubts about giving too much time to formal education. His wife was well ahead of him in her collegiate education, but he found her to be unaware about several matters that he identified with sharpness and knowing how to live, advance, be safe and find efficient procedures. One example he used was in her driving. He thought she should be more aware of the activity around her car, as she drove along, sometimes unaware of a stop sign, or an approaching car, or the way she made turns from the street, or even when the vehicle needed fuel. Although he saw his wife as better educated than he, he doubted that it was helpful to her in practical life, and that frustrated him. Like many persons, he assumed that competency in some areas would, perforce, carry over to competency in others. Education can be a barrier to knowledge or skills. It sometimes isolates us. There is neither personal time nor competency in modern life to become generalist enough to meet all human needs and experiences. The problem for this wife might have been simply that her motor skills, sense of directions, and the ability to adjust to needed skills and awareness for driving were poor. If a driving course would not correct the present omissions, she should not drive. One of the most insightful among men I ever met never drove a car. Many persons do not drive, even with the necessary inborn skills intact, because they do not have the affinities necessary for practice. Some young men are unwilling to adjust driving speeds to the conditions around them. As the young may choose excess, the elderly may, in aging, lose competency to meet standard expectations. The decisions of society must take into consideration the limits of the minorities and the majorities in determining laws and common culture. Purposeful education helps in such obligations, showing how to find evidence, test and apply it. All this requires some patience from persons relating to daily life.
Faith, trust and responsibility will have to increase in future society. Modern life offers an information overload for several reasons. One appears here for understanding. The population is so large that persons need to find something to do not only to contribute to others, but their labor (of whatever sort) is all they have to give to create personal wealth. In a technological society machinery takes on many laborious tasks, so something else needs to be found to use the energies of the population. Learning has advanced. Creativity is fairly common, and bounds forward faster than we can absorb it. Resulting conflicts and contradictions leave us in margins of doubt. I am currently reading a variety of opinions, articulated by Christian historians, about the differences in the emphases of those who communicate their research. The lay person wonders, which is it, these directions or those? I taught my college debaters that the same evidence could often be used for the affirmative in the first debate and apply just as well to the negative in the second – depending upon the presuppositions applied in the debate. Partisanship is found in the presuppositions. God, presumed or doubted in presuppositions that are not equal.
What is to be done when information increases (known as overload) faster than individuals can absorb it? There must be a way to live in faith and trust so that persons serve each other in their knowledge of God as they serve in gestures of physical labor and visible products for living. The Christian is to advantage in having a clear cut value system that favors persons. The person, serving truly in the meaning of the values of a loving God for all, ought to be the goal of body, mind and soul in mortal society. The needs of a massive world population will only be served by the application of assimilated values. Christianity offers that fully. The system, commonly noted as righteousness (rightness that includes values) can be advanced by the influence of those believing the divine instruction – an instruction so important that it is made into some commands from God recorded in Scripture. The Christian seeks the mind of Christ. In the common public mind the commands are seen as casual so to be diluted, or bypassed. It is common feeling that if there is God, he is too gracious to press mankind for committed obedience to values and obedience. That obedience may be interpreted as a violation of individual freedom. In some matters we need to be obedient to God as we expect children to be to parents for safety. God honors that. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020