Congraduations

Dear Graduates (and anyone else listening in),

Congratulations! We rejoice with you on this milestone in your lives. We know your parents are proud of you, and glad to see you growing into responsible adults.

If you are anything like I was a few years ago, you probably have lots of emotion surrounding this time. You are filled with excitement and anticipation of what is going to happen next, but perhaps a momentary sadness for the child you remember being, a child with dreams and plans and things that seemed so important at the time, although they have been forgotten long ago. And you stand face to face with the only constant in this polynomial of life: change.

For most of you, change will take the form of college. Many people will tell you to enjoy these four years, because they will be the best years of your life. To me, that sounds like an awfully early highlight, so instead I say, enjoy them, because they are now.

College is an amazing privilege. And it, like most of the rest of life, is what you make of it. If you are really desiring to learn and grow, you will be able to, even if what you are learning is not what you expected. And you can learn these things if you're not going to college, too.

You might learn that there are people in the world who are smarter and more talented and nicer than you. It's a hard lesson, but blessed are you if you learn it early. It will make the rest of life a lot simpler.

You might learn that you don't know as much as you think you know. The more education you have, the more you will become aware of your own ignorance, and the fact that you could spend the rest of your life studying important people and ideas and never know enough. This may be depressing, but it is useful, and can provide incentive for a habit of learning. "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire," said W.B. Yeats. Memorizing and regurgitating information for tests is not education. Thinking is education. Arguing sometimes is. Asking stupid questions is a big part.

You might learn that the people you think know things aren't always right. You will hopefully be challenged to think for yourself, and even if you're not, do it anyway. Ask yourself if what you are being told lines up with what you can see of truth.

Truth is not relative. But our understanding of it is, and that goes for your professors too. Unless they claim to have divine revelation (and if anyone does, he might have some problems), professors are making assumptions and looking at information based on their primary beliefs (see Kant's theory of knowledge-- and if you understand it, please explain it to me). Some of these primary beliefs may be skewed, thus skewing their interpretation of the evidence before their eyes.

You might learn that knowledge isn't all it's cracked up to be. "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools." Some of the most brilliant men alive have narrowed themselves because they will only believe something if it is observable and repeatable. Materialism limits thinking. As G. K. Chesterton wrote, "Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it."

A pursuit of knowledge as the highest good can lead to confused and disorienting circles. J. Budziszewski wrote of his thoughts when he was a nihilist, "I concluded that reality itself was incoherent, and that I was pretty clever to have figured this out—even more so, because in an incoherent world, figuring didn’t make sense either.” Knowledge for it's own sake is futile. It must be in pursuit of something-- or maybe Someone-- else. Knowledge can never explain the "why?" of life.

So don't take anyone's word for it (including mine). Have the courage to find out for yourself.
Happy Graduation to you all! But even more so, Happy Beginning.