We are called to the difficult task of discerning the truth, but at the same time we are reminded that we are, in a very real sense, only children at play in God’s kingdom. We laugh and dispute and long to know the truth. And though our experience is often one of conflict, including the conflict of interpretations, as Christians we also have a genuine hope…
From Literature Through the Eyes of Faith
In the quotation above, Gallagher and Lundin get at a crucial problem my students have with English courses: sometimes it feels like there’s more than one right answer.
Or, to state it more radically, sometimes it feels like there’s no answer because everyone is entitled to their own answer.
Christians believe that just because we can’t have God’s total knowledge of something doesn’t mean our partial knowledge is false. In fact, we don’t need to worry about inevitable gaps in our knowledge or the conflicts that come with our pursuit, if indeed we are searching after Truth.
My students handed in their outlines for their first papers this past weekend, and none of them had exactly the same argument. I told them this was a good thing. Either their papers could complement one another so that they get closer to the truth together then they would separately, or in their very conflict they would clarify key issues that would help us pinpoint the key question or truth in the story under debate.
I’m excited to learn more about the stories these students are writing about, but I’m even more excited about seeing my students actively pursue truth through the writing their doing.