Education, Love, and the Fear of God
In her paper “Ancient Travelers, Intercultural Contacts, and the Fear of Gods,” Elisa Uusimäki argues for the cross-cultural ethical relevance of the virtue the “fear of God” by situating the fear of YHWH in the larger context of neighboring cultures. In the first sentence of the paper, she characterizes this virtue as “universalistic,” without explaining more precisely the notion of universality operative. However, it is reasonable to presume that the intended universality extends chronologically before and after the writing and editing of the Hebrew Bible and geographically beyond the Near East.
In a similar way, Uusimäki uses in her paper expressions such as “universalistic connotations” and “universal connotations,” “universal aspects,” and a “universal dimension.” Finally, universal virtue is explained on page seventeen as when “the virtue in question is not conditioned by one’s socialization in a specific culture, nor does it depend on one’s knowledge of a particular local deity.” She also suggests that this means that the virtue was considered innate, and “universally binding.”
I find Uusimäki’s strategy to be interesting, that is, reaching back in order to go forward, of consulting old texts for ideas and nuances fruitful in a contemporary discussion. What is lacking in such a hermeneutical enterprise that focuses on biblical texts is, as in the list of values in Norwegian and Swedish educational national curricula, a systematic dimension. The biblical texts mostly use a narrative and symbolical logic and do not strive for the formulation of a coherent system. Evaluating the worth and usefulness of the fear of God in a contemporary educational setting requires placing this virtue into a larger whole, a consistent ethical theory. The dominant premodern examples in the Western world of such a virtue ethic is, of course, the Aristotelian and the later Christian tradition that used both the biblical texts and Greek philosophy for its ethical reasoning. Among the theologians attempting such a synthesis, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) holds a preeminent place. In the following, I will consult Aquinas’s understanding of the fear of God probing additional aspects fruitful for a discussion of a principle so foreign to the regulatory framework of modern Norwegian curricula
In a similar way, Uusimäki uses in her paper expressions such as “universalistic connotations” and “universal connotations,” “universal aspects,” and a “universal dimension.” Finally, universal virtue is explained on page seventeen as when “the virtue in question is not conditioned by one’s socialization in a specific culture, nor does it depend on one’s knowledge of a particular local deity.” She also suggests that this means that the virtue was considered innate, and “universally binding.”
I find Uusimäki’s strategy to be interesting, that is, reaching back in order to go forward, of consulting old texts for ideas and nuances fruitful in a contemporary discussion. What is lacking in such a hermeneutical enterprise that focuses on biblical texts is, as in the list of values in Norwegian and Swedish educational national curricula, a systematic dimension. The biblical texts mostly use a narrative and symbolical logic and do not strive for the formulation of a coherent system. Evaluating the worth and usefulness of the fear of God in a contemporary educational setting requires placing this virtue into a larger whole, a consistent ethical theory. The dominant premodern examples in the Western world of such a virtue ethic is, of course, the Aristotelian and the later Christian tradition that used both the biblical texts and Greek philosophy for its ethical reasoning. Among the theologians attempting such a synthesis, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) holds a preeminent place. In the following, I will consult Aquinas’s understanding of the fear of God probing additional aspects fruitful for a discussion of a principle so foreign to the regulatory framework of modern Norwegian curricula
Publisert i 13th Enoch Seminar – Nangeroni Meeting Virtus et Humanitas, 2022
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