Leader Guide | Created Order and Disorder Module 3 | Order, Scholarship and the Academy

Leader prompts:

• Consulting the diagrams attached to this session may help with bringing the different functions of the university to mind.
• It may also be helpful for participants to reflect on their own time in the university (whether as a student or an academic) and consider how they have grown through it.
• Discovery of truth, knowledge of the world, knowledge of self, growth in virtue (through perseverance and the attainment of the academic virtues), exchange of ideas, friendship, empathy for others and appreciation of the ways in which they are different from us (in scholarship, particularly in the humanities and social sciences), love of neighbour by attending to that neighbour (whether as colleague or the as the subject of one’s research), promoting human flourishing through research outcomes (curing diseases, addressing social problems, technological advancement, etc), training students to be agents of flourishing in their future careers.
• Hopefully identifying these goods will motivate participants in their pursuit of them!

Leader prompts:

• Helpful categories to consider might be structure, characteristics, and cultural habits. Again, the diagrams of different parts of the academic life will be helpful in answering this question.
• For each domain, ask ‘why is it structured this way? ‘Who decides? Who benefits?’
• Some examples might include equitable admissions and hiring processes; effective and efficient administration; an engaged and diligent student body (who do not use AI to write their essays!); effective teaching which equips students for future study or work; high levels of academic virtues among the faculty; research outcomes which discern truth effectively and contribute to the common good; good work-life or study-life balance; effective pastoral care systems; fair distribution of resources; etc.

Leader prompts:

• This question asks participants to explore the flaws or the fallenness of the academic institution and in the scholarly enterprise.
• Biggar names insecurity, the lust to dominate or maintain social power, the desire to advance one’s career as factors which can hinder the discernment of truth among academics. Sin might prompt us to inflate the significance of our findings or exclude counter-examples so our papers look more impressive. It might prompt us to resist accepting evidence which disproves our theory because we don’t want to admit we were wrong. We might denigrate proponents of a rival theory, or refuse to accept when they have a valid point because we disagree with the rest of their ideas.

Leader prompts:

• Biggar: ‘The created, given, objective moral order, therefore, does offer the possibility of a measure of moral consensus across cultures, and between Christians and non-Christians. However, whatever consensus emerges will be imperfect and tense, containing significant points of disagreement.’
• Biggar: ‘Since all human beings exist in the one world of God’s creating, subject to the same universal divine order, some consensus about what is good and right is to be expected and can be found. International agreements and institutions and cross-cultural enterprises, therefore, may involve common moral elements. However, Christians’ view of the human condition and belief in God’s saving activity occasion specific understandings of human goods and virtues, which not everyone will share. Cross-cultural or public agreement, therefore, will always contain a measure of disagreement. Consensus will be tense.’
• VanderWeele: ‘Understanding the physical, mental, social, and spiritual nature of the human person is in some sense the combined task of all academic disciplines. It is the study of the created order as it pertains to the human person and all that affects human persons. Such study can empower the discipline of public health. As we come to better understand what constitutes and contributes to a person’s physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being, we will come to a better understanding of how these various dimensions of human well-being can better be promoted.’
• Friedrichs on international relations: ‘In our intellectual quest for the truth, we must go beyond what furthers any particular agenda, including our own. Regarding the war in Ukraine, for instance, we must strive for an even-handed view even in the face of those who would not accept that any fault might lie on “our” side of the trenches.’
• Spence: ‘For the Christian leader there are therefore two challenges. The first is the challenge shared with all Christian academics of living authentically the prophetic witness to which they are called. The second is the challenge to construct (and, uncomfortable though it may be, the process is probably as deliberate as that verb implies) a personal brand that projects a commitment to the Christian epistemic virtues in an environment in which everything that they do is likely to be read in ways fundamentally at odds with the Christian witness to which they are called.’

Leader prompts:

• Kinds of uncharitable behaviour which we might want to counter: unnecessarily aggressive questioning in seminars or oral examinations; using ad hominem, strawman, or other fallacious arguments; exhibiting cultural tribalism or polarisation; unwillingness to admit one’s mistakes or to have our research challenged; cronyism and nepotism; penalising students who disagree with our positions; treating others as less important than ourselves.
• While making this point, Biggar writes of the need to inculcate and protect a culture of free speech, especially as it is practiced by people with whom we disagree. There might be various perspectives among participants in your group about the degree to which your context permits freedom of speech; you might also be in a context where freedom of expression is not a salient political value. You might wish to explore how these factors influence your answers to the prompts.
• Friedrichs models responding calmly and charitably to a challenge to his academic integrity.
• Encouraging charitable discourse might look like creating spaces where contentious topics can be discussed respectfully, as Gill has modelled. It might also impact our behaviour at conferences and seminars, or be something we demonstrate through our teaching. It may, on occasion, mean correcting a colleague who does not display this charitable behaviour.

Leader prompts:

• Biggar’s list includes:
  • Humility – acknowledging accurately the limits of one’s knowledge.
  • Docility – being teachable, or willing to admit to being wrong.
  • Patience – acknowledging that discerning truth takes time, and being gracious with those people and processes which take longer than we would like.
  • Justice – being fair in our depiction of others’ views.
  • Charity – being generous in our assessment of divergent or unwelcome views; treating people with grace.
  • Courage – being willing to assert unpopular truths, or to stand up for people or perspectives which are not treated fairly.
• Friedrichs gives a worked example of how they operate in practice.
• Wolterstorff suggests that Christian scholars experience two emotions in their work: ‘the emotion of awe before the intricacy and immensity of God’s creation, and before the ability of human beings to understand something of that intricacy and immensity and their ability themselves to create things of supreme worth, and the emotion of horror when considering what human beings have done to each other, to God’s creation, and to the Creator.’