Christian Approach Analysis

Critical Thinking and the Christian Perspective:

A Response to Baird and Soden

by Wendy Dutton, Thomas Hart and Rebecca Patten

Patten College

In their article, "Cartesian Values and the Critical

Thinking Movement," Faculty Dialogue (Winter 1993), Dr. Forrest

Baird and Dr. Dale Soden critique the critical thinking movement

by suggesting that it is based on Descartes's paradigm. Unlike

educators who find the advocacy of critical thinking a worrisome

thing because it redefines the role of the educator as a

questioner who models thinking rather than as a lecturer who

prescribes knowledge, they raise questions about whether critical
As with the exploratory stages of

any new movement or method of teaching, the approaches are myriad

and indeed in the experimental stages. Some teachers use

critical thinking to study across disciplines - science,

economics, politics, art, history. (Descartes -- with his strong

leanings toward math and science - was indeed a forefather of

cross-discipline studies.) Some use an issue-oriented approach,

applying critical thinking to everything from gender to humor,

war and peace, even the media's treatment of certain issues. At

the root, critical thinking is used as a tool to examine our very

thinking processes - assumptions, stereotypes, biases, reasoning.

Critical thinking strives to point out that there are not only

two sides to every issue, but multiple sides. Critical thinkers

strive to break down preconceived thinking patterns and build a

more sturdy path to sound reasoning. Indeed, the most standard

criticism of critical thinking today is, "Don't we all do this

anyway?" In fact, we should. There is a "critical thinking

movement" in which many scholars are writing and
He also insisted that philosophical

discourse must start from scratch. His system of doubt advocated

a rigorous examination of preconceptions. This is where critical

thinking picks up the Cartesian tradition - as surely as it

relies on the work of other great thinkers. According to Baird

and Soden, critical theorists "are deeply committed to a mode of

thinking that will bring one closer to certitude, objectivity,

and dispassionate analysis" (Soden, p. 82). Further, Soden

accuses critical thinking of aiming for "perfections of thought:"

thinking which is clear, precise, specific, accurate, relevant,

consistent, logical, deep, complete, significant, fair, and

adequate. (Soden, p. 82 quotes Paul, What Every Person Needs, p.

563). Soden argues that these terms suggest "a debt to Descartes

and his followers." We propose the question: has any serious

thinker ever aimed for any other kind of thinking?

More basically, the important issue of doubt should be

examined here. First of all, according to one of Richard Paul's

major works, Critical Thinking, What Every Person Needs