A wise teacher can change a man’s life and Al Geier is a wise teacher who has changed the lives of many students over decades of teaching. This weekend Torrey chums were lucky enough to sit with him and explore Charles Williams’ classic Place of the Lion.
Geier listens more than he speaks, but every so often he will speak a proverb of pedagogical wisdom. In one way, it is not fair to collect these proverbs, which make him sound more like the Socrates of Xenophon than the Socrates of Plato. Geier is no guru or cheap sage, you have to wait for his wisdom and it is applied quizzically and invites challenge.
You have to recall the hours of silence and the patient questions to know the true values of these brief words of wisdom.
Hear each one in that context and they are powerful. Let me present them to you with no more than a twitter-burst of response, a poor substitute for the Glaucon such a teacher deserves, and a question that haunts me. Wisdom does not, after all, end questions, but helps us ask better ones.
Wisdom is full of wonder.
(Only the first is an exact quotation, but the rest are close to exact. Geier’s ideas are in bold and mine are in pedestrian type.)
Al Geier, “We are in the logos and things are favored in the logos that are divine. So whenever anyone is about to speak in a discussion I think I am about to hear something divine. I anticipate, it is more than a hope, that something interesting will be said.”
For Geier rational conversation is one opportunity, though not the only one, for humans to approach the divine order of the cosmos. God is not the cosmos, but He sustains it and His work is dimly visible. The common grace of God fills each person and at any moment something might strike the image of God and produce a spark.
What is the impact of original sin on our expectations in a conversation? Does being “born again” change this expectation?
The logos favors us while we are in the discussion. There is a connection between the logos and the divine.
The Divine is always reaching out to any who would come to Him. The path of reason, the logos, pulls us toward its source: God. A good conversation reflects the Divine nature and so makes us, a bit, more like He is. There is no short cut to God, but reasonable thought is pleasing to Him.
How far can conversation take us? When does it fail?
The conversation and where it goes is completely unpredictable.
A conversation with an agenda will be still born, because it presumes someone (the teacher?) knows the truth. Short of having God with us that is a very presumptuous thing. Even then when broken humanity can grossly misunderstand His Word . . . even when the Christ was with humanity His most beloved students misunderstood His message.
Truth when it is found does not end the conversation, but leads to more and very unexpected questions.
What is the role of “fact gathering” in education? How should this “lower” but necessary task take place? How can I release my expectations and (even harder!) the expectations of my students?
What is the value of unpredictability? We are allowing ourselves to be led. We submit to the logos.
We are not pursuing chaos or randomness. We are searching for Him and desiring to be led by the Word and not be our wills.
Submitting to the Logos is hard, because we stubbornly think the truth can be find if our will is done.
How can I conduct a class in the power of the Spirit?
We are caught between hope and certainty that in a reasonable amount of time something interesting might be said by any one of us.
We are not certain that we will hear anything good in a class. That would be presumptuous. We are at the disposal of a greater power than we can control, but we need not be without hope because that power, we trust, is good. If He is moved by love, then our desire to understand will be met by Him.
God can use any mouth at any moment if it is open minded and willing. God does not need us, but choices to use the willing. Therefore any person can say something wise and our ears should be open to listen . . . even to a carpenter from Nazareth.
What is the role of preparation in a good discussion? How can I learn to listen with openness?
We have to break the habit of saying only what we already know.
Reflecting on Geier’s words makes me think that faith is the intellectual risk that love takes on God. We see dimly, but trust that Father will clarify our errors in His community if we take the risk of trying out new ideas.
There is no limit to what can be considered, but that does not mean truth is malleable. There is a truth, but knowing it is hard and rarely comes to the one who will not risk what he has on knowing more. We wonder about what we know, not in the sense of starting again (every time!), but in projecting forward past our level of intellectual confidence.
Does the nature of love itself limit the kind of questions we are likely to ask the Beloved?
You have to break out of your own shell and say something new. We have to be willing to be wrong.
The older I get the harder it is to consider that I have gone the wrong way, but it is necessary to be willing to begin again. Even a freshman may say a powerful word that shakes my vanity.
God make us intellectually modest.
How can we balance the Creeds with modesty? We think we know somethings. How can we hold to them with a light, but steady hand?
When people speak in a dialogue, they often don’t say what they mean, you have to hear what they are saying behind what they are saying.
I often find that in apologetics people ask questions or make claims having nothing to do with their real concerns. If I hasten to answer them, I miss their real needs.
The goal of a teacher must be to conserve about real needs and not felt needs!
How can I motivate myself and others when so often what motivates us is not even what we really want?
Thank you Dr. Geier.