Tuesday, December 04, 2007

RELATIVISM

I recently had a take-home exam for the class in which I'm enrolled this semester. It was given to us mid-day on a Friday, and due at noon (or thereabouts) on Monday. What resulted, for me at least, was 72 hours of frantic mental exercise. When I went to the professor's office to give him my paper at 12:30 on Monday, my brain was literally tired!

A few days later, we got our exams back. My grade was a 70 (out of 95 points total, according to the points summary). That was a bit discouraging, until I found out that the average was a 40, and so scores above that would generally be an A.

So I'm thinking that, relative to others, I did quite well, it seems. This is a frightening way of thinking, and one I've always had trouble with as an educator, and as a Christian. In my own classes, I set expectations that are related to some absolute criterion. Now, I also reflect and evaluate myself to see if students' grades are a product of their own efforts or my failure to teach effectively. As a result, I always try to be a better teacher today than I was yesterday so my students can understand the material I'm attempting to teach.

As Christians, if we don't have some absolute criteria by which we gauge our progress at "living", then we'll be very disappointed when it is time for our "ultimate final exam." God is not going to judge us by how our lives compared to others, but rather by how our lives compared to His (absolute) instructions. (In that respect, I suppose he may actually be comparing us to ONE other person, Jesus, Who lived those instructions for us during His time on earth.)

Do we look at others and think, "I'm just fine!"? Are we more spiritual than most people, and so we think our final assessment should be very good "after the curve"?

The standard has been set, and there will be no curve. It's a completely objective grading system, but "whosoever believeth in Him" can pass and receive "everlasting life." John 3:16 - check it out...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, Don! That's great - and a lot of food for thought..I quickly tried to find a verse that, I believe, says something like "compare not yourselves among yourselves"... Glad you got a 70, though, in class :-)

skier1998 said...

Good thoughts on your post. I have a quote for you even though you've probably heard it. It was on a t-shirt. "There are ten types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't."

Anonymous said...

OKAY, I'm leaving a comment, so that means you'll do a new post, right? The Relativism WAS really good!

Love ya!