Point Loma Nazarene University
Philosophy of Knowledge and of General Education
DRAFT 3/13/06

The purpose of this document is to make explicit the vital connections between Point Loma Nazarene University’s identity-defining values (Grace, Truth, Holiness), the academic expression of those values (Hospitality, Conversation, Community), and our consequent approach to General Education at PLNU.

Grace as foundational in knowledge and hospitality as an attitude of mind
Although the world is sinful, it is God’s creation, gifted with His presence at its start and, through the work of prevenient grace, still marked by His presence and His redemptive will, even in its fallen state. Thus, at Point Loma Nazarene University, we invite our students to explore the riches of knowledge and of God’s infinite creation in a spirit of open inquiry, open to new ideas, to discourse with what is “other.” This intellectual hospitality is grounded in a comprehension of self and other as parts of God’s creation, albeit flawed and needing God’s redemptive work.

• Since God’s creative activity encompasses both the subject and object of knowledge, we recognize an understanding of God, however finite that understanding, as central to all educational activity. Thus our general education program aims to help students realize what it means to be Christian, and most particularly to be part of the Wesleyan-Holiness movement as well as to understand how faith in God is a life-defining act.
• Conceiving of general education as an open-hearted, hospitable exploration of the fullness and complexity of God’s creative and redemptive work in the world encourages us to open our curriculum and our students to current knowledge in all its diversity.
• This hospitable openness to knowledge also underlines the importance of equipping our students with the intellectual skills needed to grapple with the complexity of modern thinking.
• Because we wish to train in our students a hospitable mind and heart, the general education program presents the multiplicity of perspectives afforded by different disciplines and by the different cultures of a highly diverse society and an ever-shrinking world.
• Because one must know who one is in order to hospitably welcome the other, our general education provides students with courses designed to help them understand themselves as psychological, social and physical beings.

Truth, the connectedness of all knowledge and conversation as an investigative tool
Presenting the complexity and multiplicity of knowledge does not mean encouraging hopeless fragmentation. As followers of a God who asserts, “I am the truth, the way and the life,” we believe that God guarantees the connectedness of all knowledge, the ultimate complex unity of truth. We also know, however, that as those who “see through a glass darkly,” we may always have only a partial and imperfect grasp of that unity. Thus we wish to teach our students to boldly believe that knowledge is woven into a single cloak of truth and to humbly recognize their own human limitations.

• Because knowledge is interconnected, our general education strives to be programmatic, a whole whose parts are meant to interact and converse with each other.
• Because knowledge is interconnected, general education should include interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary opportunities that allow students to experience the conversation between various parts of this complex whole.
• Because knowledge is interconnected, it only gains full significance when situated in its context. Thus general education should provide students the beginnings of a cultural, historical, and intellectual map.
• Because knowledge is interconnected, our general education seeks to present resources broadly, to include the self as a whole person and the created world.
• Because knowledge is interconnected, it is endlessly complex and complicated. We thus recognize that, by necessity, learning is a lifelong process in both the acquisition and the application of knowledge. General education should prepare students to understand the ongoing need to sustain their spiritual, physical, and psychological health and the necessity of becoming lifelong learners. Students need to recognize how much more remains to be learned and to have the skills needed to continue learning on their own.

Holiness of life, the meaningful use of knowledge for the public good and community as an expression of God’s love  
Finally, knowing that God calls us to know Him not simply for the sake of that knowledge, but so that we may live holy lives and build communities of care, we believe that knowledge fulfills its purpose when it connects us to each other and the world. Knowledge should lead to action and involvement in the world.

• Because meaningful knowledge leads to real-life action, general education should connect to co-curricular experiences, internships, and other forms of connection between academics and real world action.
• Because meaningful knowledge and purposeful action should help create communities of care, our general education aims to encourage and support service learning initiatives.
• Because we are called to care particularly for the communities close to us, our general education program should help train students to be responsible citizens. 
• Because the communities to which our students are called include other cultures, general education should encourage and support international experience.
• Because our students are ultimately called to the community of God’s created world itself, our general education should help students comprehend the importance of the stewardship of resources—both the resources of the external world and of their own selves.

Because we believe in the power of God’s saving and redeeming grace, because we recognize the connectedness of all knowledge as flowing from God the creator and because we know that God calls us to transform our worlds, PLNU’s general education program is designed to support and balance a student’s academic specialization so that PLNU graduates have the skills and knowledge needed to live full productive lives as responsible citizens and members of meaningful personal communities.

In particular, PLNU’s general education program aims to help students do the following:

Acquire knowledge of basic tenets of Christianity and, most particularly, of the Wesleyan, especially Nazarene, tradition.

Advance in the development of crucial intellectual skills, such as analytical writing; critical thinking; oral persuasion; quantitative reasoning; and informational, technical, statistical literacy.

Develop an ability to interrogate issues from a variety of perspectives and a willingness to consider divergent points of view.

Build a general cultural background that will include knowledge of the Western European tradition, an understanding of cultures outside that tradition, and an experience of their importance.

Understand the varied aspects of the self and of the world and appreciate the need to be a responsible steward of all these God-given resources.

Learn the vital connections between knowledge and judicious, effective action, between academic learning and real-life experience, between theory and practice.

Diagram of the Theoretical Relationship
Between PLNU Theological Themes, Academic Values,
Understanding of Knowledge and General Education Directions