The two main errors that hinder parents and teachers from passing on the Faith.
In my experience, the presence of certain philosophical errors has a devastating effect on the faith of young people. Even if the parent or teacher espouses them only unconsciously, they will influence how they teach and will hinder their ability to pass on the faith. These two errors are scientism and fideism.
On the one hand, scientism holds that the only valid or important form of knowledge is the scientific form of knowledge. It believes that if you can’t weigh it, measure it, or see it under a microscope, then it isn’t real. This view dominates our culture and is the air one breathes on college campuses today. Apart from denigrating many legitimate subjects (such as law, music, art, or philosophy) and that it contradicts itself (the claim itself is not in the scientific form of knowledge), it leads young people to think the faith is irrational, not real, or only for psychologically weak people. As a philosophy, it fails to understand that faith is essentially trust and that we can provide reasons for why we trust someone; we can and should provide reasons for why we have faith. Sadly, many young people have never heard of Augustine or Aquinas, let alone know their arguments for God’s existence or the motives of credibility they provide for the Christian religion.
At the other end of the spectrum, fideism also hampers handing on the faith to young people today. The main problem with it, is that it views faith as a simple act of the will unrelated to any ‘objective’ content or intellectual process. To be fair, this view developed when many elites said reason was inherently secular and intrinsically opposed to faith (during the 18th & 19th centuries). In response to this, many Christians simply retreated away from reason, holding that faith was entirely separate and in the domain of the emotions, impervious to rationalist critiques. Yet this led fideists to stop using reason to talk about God or defend the faith at all. They also came to view doctrines as at best, summaries of one’s private interpretation of Scripture, and at worst, inventions imposed by church leaders to maintain their power. While they were right to affirm the limits of reason (we cannot know everything about certain mysteries such as the Trinity) and the need for grace (we cannot argue one to faith; trusting someone does require a ‘leap’ at some point), it led many Christians to a schizophrenic worldview that divorced one’s ‘real life’ (the realm of science & business) from one’s ‘church life’ (the private realm of the emotions).
I am convinced that this dichotomy is behind the massive exodus of young adults from the Church. Young people (or anyone really) cannot live in two separate realities for very long. Without integrating faith into a unified worldview, it is only a matter of time until the culture kills off the supposedly ‘irrational’, ‘weak’, or ‘subjective’ life of faith.
Let us help our young people see the errors of scientism and fideism and pray for all those working to pass on the faith today!
Dr. Murray