By Schubert Ogden
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In rereading Maurice's Subscription No Bondage, I've been struck, as I haven't been before, by the close convergence not only between his lU1derstanding ofeducation understanding of education and my own, but also between it and -– by implication, at least -– what seems to be H. R. Niebuhr's understanding.
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This convergence is no doubt most striking when Maurice says that "all knowledge" begins in "implicit faith" and argues that "in order to educate a people," one must lead them on from "that implicit faith, in which all knowledge begins, to that actual faith, which alone is knowledge" (6). A few pages later, it becomes clear that, on his use, very much as on Niebuhr's, "implicit faith" may be distinguished not only from "actual faith," but also from "explicit rational faith" -- the latter two terms being synonymous (20). Aside from the clarity with which "_"all_ _knowledge" is here said to begin in "implicit faith." and "knowledge" itself or as such is Wlderstoodunderstood to be "actual faith," or "explicit rational faith," which is to say, "belief," Maurice would evidently agree with Niebuhr in distinguishing different kinds offaithlbelieflknowledgeof faith/belief/knowledge, even ifhei fhe is not as systematic as Niebuhr was, or could be, in explicitly differentiating the principal kinds. This is evident, I say, from the statement of his beliefthatbelief that "there are three objects ofordinaryof ordinary human interest,_ _GOD, MAN, NATURE;_ _and that our education is not universal, ifthereif there is not a distinct branch of ofstudystudy corresponding to each oftheseof these objects" (24). It is also evident from what he says about theology -- that it is "a science" which, because it "manifestly concerns Humanity as such, and_ _in_ _which it_ _\[_sc_._ _Humanity\] discovers its own foundation and laws," is "the groundwork of ofHumanityHumanity and ofallo fall studies concerning Humanity" (56, 58)-- and about "the knowledge ofGodof God" -- that it is "the highest and deepest knowledge which men can enjoy, the sum of all knowledge, that in which alone knowledge finds its full and satisfactory meaning" (88)._ \\ |