The early Greeks saw the essence of education as Paideia: the process of forming a whole person into an ideal citizen. They emphasized the formation of virtues like prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance in preparation for active citizenship. In Plato’s Republic, we read that “The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful,” which involves the shaping of desire.1 For the Greeks, the purpose of education was training in virtue.
Later, the Christian tradition shaped higher education in the Medieval era as formation for the glory of God. The Christian tradition expanded the early Greek list of virtues with Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love along with character traits like humility, gratitude, generosity, and chastity.
But something happened in the eighteenth century—following the enlightenment, certain ways of knowing were elevated and education gradually shifted to emphasize empirical knowledge, science, and mathematics. The industrial revolution that followed in the nineteenth century came with a shift to value practical skills that could readily be employed in an industrial setting. Knowledge became increasingly instrumental—valued for its practical application rather than any connection to virtue or character. Education became more utilitarian and primarily training to “get a job.”2
I also got caught up in this way of thinking as an engineering student in the late 1980s. As engineering undergraduate students, we were sure the world was our oyster, and our education was more worthwhile than what was taught in other areas of campus. I can recall a slogan we were taught as engineering majors to chant at the arts and humanities majors during frosh week: “It’s all right, it’s ok, you’re gonna work for us one day!”3
Thankfully, despite trends in higher education, there are still some liberal arts universities and Christian colleges that maintain a vital core program and for whom formation of their students remains a priority. But many of these institutions are under intense fiscal pressure and some have even closed.
With the rise of AI, I wonder if things are about to change—but not the way that one might think. I suspect that the ongoing advances in AI will expose the limited value of a strictly utilitarian education. It turns out that many technical and practical skills are the most likely to be displaced by AI. Degrees in business and technology may no longer offer a secure ticket to a comfortable and lucrative career. AI is disrupting the labor landscape, and the jobs people train for may no longer exist in the not-so-distant future.
Consider a university student graduating from college in 2026. Suppose retirement age remains around 65 years of age and God grants them the life span; these students will work for roughly 40 years until the year 2066. Who knows what vast changes will occur over that time span? Contemporary computer architectures and languages will be displaced, new modes of doing business and accounting will emerge, engineering materials and processes will evolve, and medicine and health care will be transformed. Many of the skills taught today will be relegated to footnotes in the history of a discipline.
Even for the schools that are doubling down on teaching AI, the AI of tomorrow will not be the AI of today. Large Language Models (LLMs) will give way to new AI architectures with different strengths and weaknesses. Even the silicon computers of today may give way to quantum computers—or whatever other innovations emerge. Modern sounding skills like “prompt engineering” are sure to become obsolete—perhaps sooner than later (if not already). Gazing up at my office bookshelf (where I sentimentally store some of my undergrad textbooks) reminds me of how certain technical knowledge is timebound.4
We could be standing on the threshold of a renaissance that recovers what education ought to be: the formation of a person.5 This formation is something that will not become obsolete or fall out of fashion. A formative education can equip someone with the character they will need to flourish amid future change: contentment amid upheaval, courage in the face of change, hope amid uncertainty, prudence and wisdom to navigate new paths, justice to do what is right in ever new situations, temperance to maintain self-control, and a faith in an unchanging God, and a hope that God guides and holds the future in his hands.
Most Christian colleges are already ahead of the game when it comes to character formation. Residential, liberal arts, Christian universities with robust co-curricular and campus life programs are a many-splendored thing—quite distinct from large technical universities.6 A good slogan for recruiting in this era will be less about skills to be “future ready” but rather “what kind of person do you want to become?” Or perhaps, to put it more directly, “Why limit your education to garnering skills that AI will eventually learn, when you can become a person that AI could never be?” Rather than competing with secular universities on their terms, we will need to attract prospective students with a compelling vision of what their education could be (and then we need to deliver on that promise!).
Following on that idea, I think it makes sense for Christian Colleges and Universities to combine forces for a larger ad campaign to make the case for Christian higher education. Demand for Chrisitan higher education will require educating prospective students (and parents) about what we offer. We need to boldly advertise our “secret sauce” that includes a holistic, liberal arts, faith-based curriculum and co-curriculum (features that do not register in the Best Colleges rankings in the U.S. News & World Report). I suspect that with a greater awareness of the distinctives of Christian higher education, a rising tide will gradually raise all boats. Building on this rising tide, each Christian college or university can then pursue their own recruiting efforts to communicate their unique strengths in terms of programs, degrees, Christian traditions, faculty expertise, and locations. But a renaissance in Christian higher education must begin with doubling down on our distinctiveness and getting that word out.
As an engineer, I don’t want to dismiss more applied skills—a liberal arts, faith-based education does not exclude vibrant professional programs.7 Frankly, practical skills and professional programs open up concrete ways to love our neighbor. Wendell Berry notes, “How can you love your neighbor if you don’t know how to build or mend a fence… How can you be a neighbor without applying principle — without bringing virtue to a practical issue? How will you practice virtue without skill?”8 But in an age of AI, the “practical skills du jour”—on their own—will be insufficient, whereas virtue and character can endure. Paul makes a similar point about the importance of godliness in comparison to physical training when he writes to Timothy: “physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).
Call me naïve and idealistic, but my hope is that Christian universities and colleges are poised to be on the cusp of a renaissance, offering a timeless and distinct education in an age of AI-driven uncertainty. Let’s continue to foster a life-giving faith-based education—and let’s get the word out!
Footnotes
- Republic ,Book III, 403c.
- As a parent of children who attended college, I understand this is not unimportant, but it should not take on ultimate importance.
- As it turns out, I have now worked under several humanities majors.
- To be fair, practical books often encapsulate deeper concepts, for example: an outdated text on Pascal programming embeds the timeless concepts of algorithmic thinking, and old Calculus and Algebra texts include many timeless concepts.
- To be sure, all education is formative (for better or for worse), but I am referring to an intentional education that seeks to form faith, character, and virtue in students.
- Christian Study Centers and thoughtful campus ministry programs serve an important role to help bring faith insights into public university settings.
- Many CCCU schools (including Calvin University) have demonstrated that this is possible in areas that span engineering, computer science, speech pathology, medicine, and business.
- Wendell Berry, The Gift of Good Land, North Point Press, 1981, 275.
