A sense of History
A Sense of History: Some Components by Gerald W. Schlabach
All students who graduate from a liberal arts college should take with them an indelible awareness of the following:
1. Some things happened before other things.
Studying history is much more than the memorization of dates. But if we get things out of chronological order, we'll inevitably get a lot of other things wrong too. Imagine that we are in a new city trying to find "408 N. 5th St.," but vandals have taken down the signs for 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th streets and rearranged them in random order. We'll probably fail. Neither can we expect to succeed in the study of history if we think Socrates was Aristotle's student, and they both argued with St. Paul when the Christian apostle preached in Athens.
2. Some things only happened in certain places.
Athens is in Greece, of course. It may be nearer to Jerusalem than some people think, but the two cities are on different sides of the Mediterranean Sea. In other words, geography is as basic to the study of history as is chronology. Time and space are the most basic units of historical study because they are the most basic units of historical existence. We must respect them both.
For a human being to exist in a "place," however, also means to exist in a particular community, society, and culture. When the third-century Christian apologist Tertullian asked, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" he was not denying that there were routes for travelling between the two. He was not talking about geography. He was insisting that Greek philosophy and Christian theology grew out of very different cultures or worldviews. He may have been wrong to exaggerate their differences -- but he was right to expect differences. To expect and recognize cultural differences is also to exercise a sense of "place."
3. Meanings and definitions of words change.
Let's say we read the word "virtue" in an English translation of a text that the Christian
All students who graduate from a liberal arts college should take with them an indelible awareness of the following:
1. Some things happened before other things.
Studying history is much more than the memorization of dates. But if we get things out of chronological order, we'll inevitably get a lot of other things wrong too. Imagine that we are in a new city trying to find "408 N. 5th St.," but vandals have taken down the signs for 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th streets and rearranged them in random order. We'll probably fail. Neither can we expect to succeed in the study of history if we think Socrates was Aristotle's student, and they both argued with St. Paul when the Christian apostle preached in Athens.
2. Some things only happened in certain places.
Athens is in Greece, of course. It may be nearer to Jerusalem than some people think, but the two cities are on different sides of the Mediterranean Sea. In other words, geography is as basic to the study of history as is chronology. Time and space are the most basic units of historical study because they are the most basic units of historical existence. We must respect them both.
For a human being to exist in a "place," however, also means to exist in a particular community, society, and culture. When the third-century Christian apologist Tertullian asked, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" he was not denying that there were routes for travelling between the two. He was not talking about geography. He was insisting that Greek philosophy and Christian theology grew out of very different cultures or worldviews. He may have been wrong to exaggerate their differences -- but he was right to expect differences. To expect and recognize cultural differences is also to exercise a sense of "place."
3. Meanings and definitions of words change.
Let's say we read the word "virtue" in an English translation of a text that the Christian