Charlotte Mason’s Principles-The Greatest Idea
Part Two
“Our business is to give children the great ideas of life, of religion, history, science; but it is the ideas we must give, clothed upon with facts as they occur, and must leave the child to deal with as he chooses.” Volume 6 p.40
I have been pondering this thought overnight and asking myself what are the great ideas of life? Are they just ideas that are well known and accepted by others? Are they ideas that that the culture accepts? Is there a way to know what those ideas are? And how can I present them all to my children? What if I don’t know all the ideas?
In my heart I know that the greatest idea of life that I can give my children is eternal life through Jesus Christ. This is the most important idea and I am always mindful of this goal as I present more of the great ideas of life. I do not feel that this is the only idea that should feed their mind but it is certainly the one that I want to make sure they know. God’s great gift of free will means that they will chose how they use that idea but my role as a parent is to show them God’s ideas from a Biblical world view.
Charlotte Mason warns us about presenting ideas that are inane and twaddle. I believe that we also need to be warned about ideas that oppose God—ideas that erode faith. So should we stick to ideas only from the Bible. Should we make sure everything that is presented before our children, only represents the idea of God from a Biblical perspective? This is a point that we need to think through! My answer is no! We should not limit ourselves to only Christian material but (a BIG BUT) when we choose to present material to our children that is not specifically Christian we should show them what God thinks about that idea.
Everything is permissible”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”–but not everything is constructive.” 1 Corinthians 10:23
Great post!
Yea, I am actually thinking through this right now as my dd who is turning six soon has incessantly been asking me about other religions and other gods etc. I feel she's questioning why we believe Jesus is the one true God and leaves me stumped some times with her questions.:) Timely post for me. I like what you said about presenting the ideas but then telling them what God thinks of that!