Reason-Endowed Sheep: The Way of the Will and the Way of Reason
Patterns for Life Audiobook chapter 4
Why we do what we do and how we do it matter just as much as what we do. We want our children to act in the right way because they know it to be right. We want them to say right things because they believe them to be true. We want them to make their lives into something beautiful because they incarnate their love for Christ in their own daily existence.
~Patterns for Life, Chapter 4
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By now we have established that we are not interested in producing a product, and we also know that book knowledge does not save a person. So what exactly are we trying to do? The answer is that we’re trying to build character. That may sound trite, but if we unpack it a bit we will see that it goes much deeper than we realize. Character is what motivates a person to do what they do. There are two inborn capacities that we all possess that help us develop character: will and reason.
We all possess a will — we are free to choose how we will act, and our will is strong insofar as we are able to compel ourselves to act or refrain from acting willfully. In other words, if we find ourselves losing control and giving in to our desires, even if we know them to be wrong, our will is weak rather than strong; we are acting as slaves to our passions rather than masters. Naturally our capacity to will is limited by circumstance and other boundaries in our lives, but it is well within our capacity to develop self-control, and it is our job as parents to help our children see that they have this power over themselves.
Reason is another capacity that we all possess. Usually we think of reason as an ability that we have to develop, and it’s true that logical, sequential, step-by-step deductive reasoning, and identification of faulty reasoning, can and should be taught. However, what we often remain unaware of is the fact that whatever ideas the mind accepts it will then bolster with reasoning, whether sound or faulty. This means we need to look beyond mere critical thinking, to the basic ideas that we think about.
How does training the will help one to develop character? Have you observed the will at work as described in the book either in yourself or your children? How can we help our children become aware that self-control is up to them?
How do the ideas we accept relate to our powers of reasoning? Have you ever accepted an idea and supported it with your reason, only to learn later that it was not a worthy or true idea in the first place?
Can you think of any times when you have had to help your children identify and examine their foundational ideas?