Thinking as Christian Virtue: Reason and Persuasion for a Fractious Age

In his 2018 volume How to Think: A Guide for the Perplexed, Alan Jacobs offers strategies for improving our thinking in a fractious age. How to Think outlines a “humanistic” synthesis of psychologists, anthropologists, journalists and essayists, aimed at enabling people to disagree charitably, to avoid stereotyping and caricature, and to foster virtuous conversations in which people persuade rather than domineer. While Jacobs is open about his Christian belief, his text does not include much reflection on the way Christian traditions of thinking might contribute to, or hinder, his broader aims. This chapter extends the work of Jacobs by considering the biblical and theological resources available for Christian higher educational communities to form students as virtuous participants in intellectual conversation. Building upon the insights of virtue epistemology, a theological ethic of hospitality, and consideration of the “implied reader” of Scripture, we demonstrate the way that both the content of the Christian tradition and the phenomena of Christian Scripture resource Christian teachers for the task of forming students to practice both rigour and humility, conviction and charity, fidelity and open-mindedness.