Is there such a thing as neutral education or is education always normative? The secular humanist philosopher Floris van den Berg wages war against religious schools in his essay ‘Liberation of education and education from the religious yoke’. He advocates neutral education, but does that really exist? Isn’t he imposing his own ideology on children under the guise of ‘neutral’ education, which therefore has the appearance of objectivity and impartiality?
- Humanistic brainwash
- Indoctrination
- Providing scientific answers
- Science is limited
- Arguments from God also use the results of scientific research
- Scientist worldview
- Religious basic motives
- Intellectual schizophrenia
- Transfer of values
- Confess
Humanistic brainwash
Floris van den Berg writes in an essay: Children must have the opportunity to step outside the philosophical mold of their parents and environment. Neutral public education that addresses important philosophies of life enables well-informed opinion formation, so that children can choose for themselves when they are (almost) adults whether they want to adopt their parents’ religion or not. He’s not really into religion. In an additional article he says: “The government’s attitude towards religion should be the same as the government has been taking towards smoking for several years: active discouragement.” Van den Berg advocates a ‘non-religious unity school’, but critics argue that in such a school all children classified as neutral actually undergo a secular humanistic brainwash and are in a philosophical mold.
Indoctrination
In response to a former teacher of a Roman Catholic primary school who states: “There are no neutral points of view: a public school, with its secular climate, influences children in such a way that little or nothing comes of receptiveness to a philosophy of life,” he says wholeheartedly. : ,Yes that’s right (…). In practice, this will mean that not many people voluntarily choose a religion.” Van den Berg wants to give secularization a helping hand by withdrawing children from the religious education of their parents, at least at school, and by forcing them (because it is imposed from above by the government) to impose the secular worldview of the autonomous human being. That looks suspiciously like the totalitarian approach of people who think they have a monopoly on the truth and who believe that they can force ‘the unenlightened part of the nation’ to put their children on an infusion of the truth in the sect school of the secular.(1 ) The philosopher is full of religious indoctrination, but he does not see the beam in his own eye, according to critics.
Providing scientific answers
“The knowledge transferred in schools should be scientific. (…) When students ask a teacher: Does God exist? Then she/he must give the scientific answer: ‘There are no scientific arguments for the existence of God.’ Education should be secular, that is, religion should not interfere with education. Secular education is not atheist indoctrination. The point is that education transfers knowledge as honestly and objectively as possible. So also about religions,” says the philosopher, who views religion and belief in God in particular as a relic from a bygone era, long since outdated by the results of modern science.
Science is limited
Science has its limits. People make moral judgments, science does not. Science cannot answer questions about what is right and what is wrong. Well-known examples are the issues surrounding euthanasia or abortion. Scientists can explain all kinds of things about the development of life and how death works in a physical sense, etc., but whether or not it is permissible to end a life and if so, in what situations, science can don’t answer. The same applies to universal human rights: do people have rights and if so, which ones? Science cannot make aesthetic judgments either. Which color is more beautiful? Is this television program fun or extremely boring? Is this music pleasing to the ear or too ugly to hear? Science also cannot tell you how you should use scientific knowledge, although scientists often have strong ideas and views about this. For virtually all major scientific breakthroughs, one can imagine both positive and negative ways in which this knowledge can be used. Science helps us describe what the world is like, but it is up to humans to decide how we use that knowledge. In addition, science does not provide answers to questions about the supernatural. A scientist’s toolbox contains only the natural laws of the universe; above natural questions are beyond their reach. This does not mean that you cannot use the results of modern scientific research to argue that God exists.
With these limits of science in mind, let us consider what Van den Berg would answer to the following question from a student: ‘In many countries it is very common for girls not to go to school or to return within a few years. be taken off. Should these countries also comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, where Article 28 states that every child has the right to education?’ The philosopher – if he is consistent – would answer: ‘It is not for science to come up with a moral judgment’.
Provisional truth
The philosopher of science Karl Popper also assumes that all scientific statements only have the character of a hypothesis, a theory, which express a probability or suspicion, but not the truth. The search for truth is in fact an endlessly ongoing process. Scientific truth is always provisional truth, that is, a theory (not yet refuted) that has come or seems to have come closest to the truth to date.
Dandelions / Source: Sebastian Stabinger, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA-3.0)
Arguments from God also use the results of scientific research
You cannot prove God’s existence, but you can use arguments to make God’s existence plausible, including the results of modern scientific research. An answer that is as scientific (objective) as possible to the question ‘does God exist?’ can read thus: ‘If God exists, He is spirit and stands outside time and space. God cannot be examined the way a biologist examines a fruit fly, a dandelion or other natural elements. The existence of God can therefore be neither proven nor disproved. Anyone who thinks that is possible is making a category error: after all, God is spirit and not a physical being. The question of the existence of God does not fall within the domain of science. There are scientists and philosophers who claim that science provides evidence against or in favor of the existence of God or a higher Intelligence, such as the fine-tuning argument. In recent decades, many new arguments for the existence of God have been added, including through the work of Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, William Alston, Alexander Pruss, Robert Koons and Joshua Rasmussen. These and other arguments from God are compatible with modern science. In fact, according to philosopher Emanuel Rutten, they often use the results of modern scientific research. These arguments for or against the existence of God may be more or less plausible, but both movements will never be able to provide real (conclusive) evidence. The answer to the question of the existence of God cannot, strictly speaking, be given by science, but must be sought within a prescientific (metaphysical or religious) framework. The religious choices a person makes will not only influence his scientific work, but also his view of the world and the people around him. Every person starts from premises, that is inevitable, but you have to recognize them and be open.’
Scientist worldview
Van den Berg comes up with a very one-sided ‘scientific’ answer to the question of whether God exists. He starts from hidden assumptions. His answer comes from a scientistic worldview. Scientists reject the idea that true knowledge can be acquired outside of science. And they often try to apply the rules of science in areas where this way of working does not apply. However, scientism is self-refuting. Scientism tells us that we should only believe what can be scientifically proven. But what about this proposition itself? It cannot be scientifically proven. Therefore we must reject it. Scientism is shooting itself in the foot.
Van den Berg accuses theology of starting from the existence of God as a premise, but in the meantime he himself uses a pre-scientific assumption. Scientists are fundamentalist materialists. They assume that according to them the supernatural cannot exist. Scientism is self-refuting and materialism is an unproven position. However, Van den Berg does not come clean about his own assumptions, which he wants to smuggle into education under the guise of ‘objectivity’ and ‘science’. Compulsorily exposing all students to a secular ideology is, after all, atheist indoctrination.
,The natural sciences want to limit themselves to what can be measured and calculated. That is their paradigm, that is what they are good at. But that idea of ‘measuring = knowing’ has gradually been transferred to other areas of human life. Then love is ‘ nothing else’ than a chemical process and a tree ‘nothing but an oxygen factory’, as Herman Finkers noted in his show After the break. The empiricism of the natural sciences is part of the natural phenomena, but should not serve as a method of knowledge of the metaphysical basis of all reality., (Frank G. Bosman, theologian and affiliated with the Faculty of Catholic Theology of Tilburg University)
Religious basic motives
According to the philosopher, the knowledge that is transferred in schools should therefore be scientific and science stands for neutrality and objectivity. Is that right? Not at all: unbiased, objective, neutral science does not exist and will never exist. Just as there are no unbiased, objective, neutral people. (WJ Ouweneel) The philosopher of science Karl R. Popper puts it very aptly in his book The Growth of Knowledge: What we must do, however, is this: we must give up the idea of the ultimate sources [perception/reason] of our knowledge and recognize that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our mistakes, our prejudices, our dreams and expectations.(). (2)
Source: Bussum School postcard with the Bible
Man’s thoughts and actions are deeply determined by religious beliefs and opinions, which the philosopher H. Dooyeweerd calls ‘religious basic motives’. These basic motives govern our will, our aspirations, our instincts and feelings, as well as our intellectual considerations. The distinction between faith and science is therefore a deceptive one. Science without religious principles is completely unthinkable.
Intellectual schizophrenia
Every person is guided by religious principles that influence how he conducts science. These religious assumptions are called ‘prescientific’; They cannot be scientifically substantiated, but neither can they be scientifically refuted. However, they do influence the way the scientist thinks and acts and thus the work of the scientist. These principles, so to speak, precede every scientific practice. It is therefore not the religious scientist who suffers from what Van den Berg calls intellectual schizophrenia, but himself, by placing an impenetrable wall between faith and reason and playing them off against each other. However, he is a patient without insight into the disease, who is also very convinced of his own right and these are often the most dangerous patients for those around them.
It is not about the contrast between faith and science, but about the contrast between faith and disbelief. These are the two most fundamental and diametrically opposed principles of faith.
Transfer of values
At a school, not only neutral knowledge such as tables is passed on to children. The content of a number of lessons may be ‘factually substantive’ controversial; think of the theory of evolution or intelligent design (ID). For example, the choice to pay attention to the theory of evolution in lessons and not or hardly to ID or to present the theory of evolution as factually correct and proven is not a neutral scientific choice. This is preceded by religious beliefs, although these are often covered with a scientific (read: materialistic) layer.
A school not only transfers knowledge and skills – which, as we have noted, is not always neutral – but also transfers values. There are a number of basic liberal values that all schools, regardless of color, should actively promote and practice. The most important is the development of critical capabilities that promote autonomy. Autonomy means that conceptions of the good are accepted, adjusted or rejected in a critical manner. (3) By developing autonomy, a child can later exercise his or her individual freedom rights. Every school should be steeped in these general liberal notions, which make possible and underlie a free society.
But a school cannot avoid, if that is desired, that substantial values or views of the good life are also promoted directly or indirectly. These values can relate to the meaning of life (what are we on earth for), to matters such as love, sexuality and relationships (cohabitation / marriage / homosexuality), medical-ethical themes (abortion / euthanasia) and other topics. A public school will highlight these topics in a completely different way than, for example, a Catholic or Protestant school. A public school also engages in the transmission of values and is certainly not without philosophical color. They often take on the color of the dominant movement(s) in society and then assume generally acceptable values.
In short, a teacher is not a neutral channel of purely objective knowledge and never can be. Every teacher lives by norms and values.
Science is limited. Science can only determine what is and not what should be. (A. Einstein) That’s why we have philosophy, philosophy and religion.
Confess
Is God the founder and confirmer of values or are thoughts about the good merely the domain of autonomous man? These are two radically different and diametrically opposed principles that are roughly expressed in Christian and public schools respectively, although I am well aware that many Christian schools today can be called humanistic, because – apart from some external characteristics – there is little left is of the original Christian thought. That aside. The point is that public schools cannot be called neutral either. It would be good if public schools showed their true colors and explicitly formulated and wrote down their philosophical principles, vision and identity. In practice, there is no neutral education, but all education is philosophical – and therefore special. Schools should be clear about their identity, so that all parents are free to choose the school that educates their children in the spirit they want.
Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution
regulates, among other things, the freedom of education; the equalization of public and special education.
Article 23, paragraph 1Education is an object of continued concern by the government.
Article 23, paragraph 2 Providing education is free, subject to government supervision and, as far as forms of education designated by law are concerned, examination of the competence and morality of those who provide education, all this at the to regulate by law.
Article 23, paragraph 3 Public education is regulated by law, with respect for everyone’s religion or belief.
Article 23, paragraph 4 In every municipality, sufficient public general primary education is provided by the government in a sufficient number of schools. Deviation from this provision may be permitted in accordance with rules to be laid down by law , provided that the opportunity to receive such education is given.
Article 23, paragraph 5 The requirements of soundness imposed on education to be financed in whole or in part from public funds are regulated by law, taking into account, as far as special education is concerned, freedom of direction.
Article 23, paragraph 6 These requirements are regulated for general primary education in such a way that the soundness of special education funded entirely from public funds and of public education is equally adequately guaranteed. In particular, this arrangement respects the freedom of special education with regard to the choice of teaching materials and the appointment of teachers.
Article 23, paragraph 7Special general primary education that meets the conditions set by law is funded from public funds according to the same standard as public education. The law establishes the conditions under which contributions from the public fund are granted for special general secondary and preparatory higher education.
Article 23, paragraph 8 The government reports annually on the state of education to the States General.
Quotes about the freedom of education
The Amsterdam Christian workers’ association ‘Patrimonium’, founded in 1876, wrote the following in their magazine ‘De Bazuin’ about ‘the school issue’ (the school struggle):
,We are in favor of freedom of education and deny that the state is entitled to indirectly intervene in that freedom in such a way that someone, against his conscience, is obliged to have his children receive state education, which, even with the most sincere intention, cannot be neutral and it – according to the testimony of those authorized to judge from an unsuspected house – is also not.,
Langedijk, D. The School Battle, 1935, p. 158.
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,Yet the parents, who are opponents of a school with the Bible or of a Roman Catholic school, are forced to teach their children – whose minds are still undeveloped, whose minds are still unformed – by people completely unknown to them. to be educated for life. And this is all the more important, because it is not disputed that school is not about merely imparting a certain dose of knowledge, but about giving a certain fold and direction to the mind and character. These parents must therefore entrust their children to the care of teachers, whose religious and political principles usually do not correspond in any respect with those of father and mother.,
Wilde, H. de, The Anti-Revolutionary Party and its Program of Principles, Vada, Wageningen, 1903, p. 224-225.
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Alexander Frederik de Savornin Lohma n, leader of the Christian historical movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, shouted about the school issue:
,We do not ask the state for Christian schools. We only expect them from God. We only ask freedom from the state! , De Savornin Lohman considered
a public school for those who had no other school to be completely legitimate. In his opinion, the pernicious aspect lay in the fact that the public school and the direction of that school had been made the direction of the Dutch people. (Speech of the House of Representatives, August 23, 1889).
Suttorp, LC, Jhr Mr Alexander Frederik de Savornin Lohman 1837 – 1924, His Life and Works, AAM Stols, The Hague, 1948, p.317.
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The SDAP member AH Gerhard stated in the House of Representatives in 1917:
,Neutrality has become a philosophy of life. So if we let the state pay for the public school with that philosophy of life, why not the special one?,
Jong Ozn., K. de, The Secular Big Mouth, The Good Life, August 15-22, 2008, p.18.
Footnotes:
(1) The leader of the CHU (Christian Historical Union; a predecessor of the CDA) Savornin Lohman scornfully called the public school the sect school of the moderns because of the often modern character of the public school.
(2) Popper, Karl R., The growth of knowledge, Boom Meppe l/Amsterdam, (1963) 1983, p. 53.
(3) Ger Snik & Johan de Jong, Should a liberal government fund special schools? Pedagogy, 21st volume, no. 3, 2001, 242-258.
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