The Essence of Education is Religious

Abstract

It was the late British mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead (1962, p. 23), who expressed the remarkable and oft-quoted insight: ‘The essence of education is that it be religious.’ It is this somewhat startling insight which prompts this philosophical and theological reflection on the nature of education as inherently religious. There is no doubting that education—be it in regard to pre-school, school, or post-compulsory education—is a topic of great interest in the public domain, as is so evident in the frequent discussion of issues pertaining to education in the public press. Discussion of various social problems, be they road safety or obesity or dysfunctional relationships, is almost always accompanied by a call for better education, usually at school level, to address the problem. It would seem that no one lacks an opinion on what education should address and achieve. But in the current context of the separation of the public from the private domains of life, and the relegation of the religious to the private domain that is so strong a feature of contemporary Western postmodern life and culture, it may seem somewhat odd to speak of the essence of education as religious! Yet, that is indeed the exploration that I want to pursue in this chapter: that the essence of education is religious. Note that I am not saying that the essence of religious education is that it be religious, but that the essence of education, understood in its broadest and indeed its deepest sense, is religious. In choosing Whitehead’s engaging expression, let me also state clearly that I do not intend to chart the development of his thought, to critique his work, or even to evaluate his contribution. Prompted by Whitehead’s words, what I explore in this chapter is the notion of the essence of education as religious. So much of the contemporary discussion of teaching and learning in the education sector—primary, secondary and tertiary, as well as in the professional and vocational training area—is expressed in terms of measurable outcomes, graduate attributes, and bench-marking indicators. But I suggest that to limit one’s understanding of the educational endeavour to measurable outcomes represents a serious reduction and attenuation of what is involved. Our endeavours in education radically transcend such a limited horizon. I contend that education is indeed an inherently religious exercise, more even than an inherently spiritual exercise, though the spiritual dimension is undoubtedly an element of the process. (See Carrette & King, 2005.) Hence, my aim is to explore and tease out the meaning of education as a distinctly religious endeavour, even if that religious character remains implicit and unthematised (i.e., not expressly recognised or articulated or acknowledged).