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Classical Education: Discussion for Everyone

Classical Education: Discussion for Everyone

Last updated on: September 8, 2026 at 6:47 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Classical Education: Discussion for Everyone 2026-09-08T18:47:20-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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The Discussion is for Everyone and Anyone

No machine-readable author provided. Alex Bakharev assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

I still miss Dr. Geier. I can close my eyes and see little scraps of paper, pieces of the Platonic text in Greek, that he would move around in front of him during class. His shuffling of these fragments when needed, and his ability to quote most of the text from memory, was beautiful, a dance that seemed an oracular liturgy. Was he finding the way? Class with him always had the potential to change the way we lived.

There is great beauty in finding a book together. The first time I read Plato’s Republic alone, as I never should have, I found the text lifeless. Two years of slowly reading it with Dr. Geier left me in love with every line of the dialogue. When Professor Al Geier died, I found it hard to read Republic again for a good bit. Only his own life and teaching made it possible for me to read Plato without him.

Eidos:

This is the seventh in a series on classical education. To read part one, click here.

We had discussed the last part of Book X for decades and were just gaining agreement on what it might mean at a deep level . . . and then he was gone. Fortunately, Dr. Geier had taught me that genuine education is not built on one man, one discussion, or any sage. He lived the truth that college freshmen were likely to teach him. The discussion was the thing. . . not our interpretation of the text, however important that might be.

The school is for the knower and not the knowledge. Human knowledge is in service to mankind. We do not serve the making of books. The text is a means to form a community to follow an argument where it leads. Any group of humans can form such a community and by God’s grace that community can flourish. No great tutor is necessary.

No Tyrant Leaders

Professor Alfred Geier never drew attention to himself. He allowed the discussion to flow where the group wished to go so long as the text chosen was honored. He came prepared to follow the discourse wherever it led. In this way, Geier was like Socrates. In a discussion Socrates could never be more than one of the participants! A real discussion requires at least two people and if Socrates genuinely listened to the other person this meant responding to what his fellow discussant was saying and not what the “teacher” wished he would say. This did not mean blindly following the majority if more than one person was involved but it did mean taking into account the nature or abilities of a particular person or group.

Following Socrates’ example, Professor Geier was willing to take time, even great amounts of time, to get every person “in the flow” of discussion if he could. You could reject participation in a session; consent matters, but nobody was intentionally left behind or forgotten.

Many first-time readers of a Socratic discourse wonder about the “level” of the discussion. Sometimes arguments made seem poor, or the young people in the discussion bring up foolish points. Like Jesus, Socrates was not always surrounded by the most clued-in followers. However, like Jesus, the Athenian loved his students to the end. He wanted them to flourish and he recognized that they had gotten the big thing right: they were willing to examine ideas and their own lives. So long as this was true, Socrates would follow them in their questions and reasoning even when they took him places he did not wish to go. At times in discussion, they would agree with what Socrates was saying when they should not have. For many readers of the Socratic dialogues, this is frustrating, as we have different questions for Socrates or see different problems than those the particular students see. Many classroom discussions begin with seeing the inadequacy of the recorded discussion and trying to do better.

Plato is helping us enter a genuine Socratic dialogue with the text! As we see what Socrates was saying or why (especially in historic and cultural context), the other discussants act as they do; most often, we learn that they are wiser than we are . . . and they are not wise. The harder lesson of this way of understanding the Socratic texts or how Socrates acted is that ultimately Socrates himself is unnecessary for Socratic discourse.

A text can preserve a conversation for us, but we must discuss it today. Now is the time for discussion. We do not memorize the discussions in the text or bow to the arguments. We argue. We agree or disagree, but a living community comes to the discussion. The book is for the discussion today, not “just” for preserving a historically significant moment. In the dialogue Phaedo, Socrates has to convince his friends that he is not their irreplaceable leader: that is the role of the tyrant of Book IX. Socrates must die. It is better for him to die. He will be given the death penalty, accept that penalty, expose the corrupt state and then the discussion must continue. This is possible because the divine Logos, the way of reason and discourse, cannot die. It is greater than any human who is not God incarnate.

Jesus was, is, and always will be the only irreplaceable teacher. This is so because Jesus is the incarnation of the Logos of God. There is no education without Jesus. . . even in places where He would not seem to be welcome. Just as he went to the feasts of sinners and so redeemed the party, so He comes to our classes, however imperfect and makes learning possible. The Christ is always looking for some people through whom He can teach wisdom.

The discussion does not need other indispensable leaders because, if genuine, it always has the presence of the Second Person of the Good God. Particularly as Christians, we do not need gurus because Christ is within us, full of grace and truth. If we will submit to the mystery of God, then we will find wisdom now and, in the age, to come. That is His promise, and when men have taken up that calling, they have created new sciences, beautiful art, profound music, and discovered new mathematical realities.

Every canonical Christian school is built around the living person Jesus Christ. The mission of that school must never be dependent on any men. While God delights to let us play a part in our time, we must always be willing to get out of the way of what God wishes to do. Our time will pass just as that of Socrates passed. Jesus will endure, and if we build our discussion on Jesus, then it will never end, grow wearisome, or become a vanity. The larger the personality, the greater the danger: God deliver classical education from any culture of celebrity.

The school built on a tyrant or on the tyrant’s teachings will be the school of Ecclesiastes: endless folly and futile weariness.

Nature of Community

There is a need for an educational community that is about academics, but about more than mere academic detail. A school has the task of teaching academic subjects for the sake of making just citizens in this age and fit subjects of King Jesus in the age to come. No canonical (classical) school can teach music for music’s sake. Music exists for God’s sake. All we do must be out of love for God. The good God commands us to take that love and give it to our fellow men. A canonical school centers in loving God and loving our neighbor. Each academic subject is valued to the extent that it advances this goal.

The best discussions with Professor Geier were great because we loved the text and each other. Love ultimately grounded in God takes learning from training to transformation.

This is not a call for religious propaganda where everything is given a Jesus juke, a facile religious overlay. Picture a science class introducing the three states of water to students. The class is not made better by comparing Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to Ice, Water, and Steam. The three states of water are not like the Trinity. Beyond this, even if this was a good analogy for the Trinity, the comparison in science class would not have made the task of learning about these scientific facts more holy. Theological truths are not holier than scientific truths, just as scientific truths are not more certain than theological truths.

With the right attitude, all good acts can be acts of worship, just as all acts that might be good (feeding the poor) can be useless to the giver if done out of bad intent. Love must be genuine. A scientist’s delight in doing good work and seeing creation gives glory to God if he so wishes.

A community must contain layers of competence, calling, and character. (I will turn to the creation of community in part eight.)

Something must knit together our minds and hearts in our little communities: love. A loving community sustains us when we are weak. A loving community rejects the racism and misogyny that threaten community in much of classical education. Love shows solidarity to all who would participate in the way. For Christians, this will be an education that is in harmony with our life in Christ found in family, church, and our people (living and dead). It will be powered by love toward the Beauty of the Good God.

In this education, the only indispensable man is Jesus Christ. He made all things, including the space for education, as the Alpha and divine beginning. He is the means of discussion: the Divine Logos of God. All our wanderings and wonderings have a good end only in Christ: the divine Omega.

Christ is, was, and is coming again. Connected to Jesus, our community will be kept in safety for all time. I know of no other name that can make this promise with a rational hope of fulfilling it.

I still look forward to discussions in Paradise with you, Dr. Geier.

General Christian

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About John Mark N. Reynolds

John Mark Reynolds is the Vice President of Advancement and Strategic Leadership at the College of Biblical Studies in Houston. As an educational entrepreneur, he was the founding president of The Saint Constantine Schools and College and the founding director of the Torrey Honors College at Biola University. As provost at Houston Christian University, he oversaw the formation of the apologetics and media programs. He is also a philosopher and joyous curmudgeon. He lives with his wife, the Fairest Flower in Christendom, his two granddaughters, daughter, son-in-law, and brother in the jolly Saint Theodora House. You can read more about the author here.

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