Four Values: An Analysis Of Mccullough's The Love Of Learning

Many leaders and prominent figures in the Church emphasize the importance of learning and building a foundation of knowledge and understanding. However, the way in which this foundation is built can be unclear to young people. An analysis of McCullough’s The Love of Learning, Hartvigsen’s Learning, Our Theology, Bednar’s Learning to Love Learning, and Nibley’s Zeal Without Knowledge reveals that the foundation can be built by embracing and applying the following four values: curiosity, diligence, flexibility and discernment. Perhaps the most important value to embrace when building a foundation for learning is intellectual curiosity. Someone who wishes to be successful in learning should never stop asking questions and actively looking for

One should be flexible in looking for answers to their questions. Too often people are looking for a specific answer and disregard everything that doesn’t support the conclusion they’ve already reached. This is unfair to those who have put time and effort into researching and carefully considering an issue, and it is unfortunate when this practice prevents someone from finding the truth. Hugh Nibley condemned this practice when he said “Why do it the hard way… when God has given us the answer book? The answer to that is, because if you use the answer book for your Latin or your math, or anything else, you will always have a false sense of power and never learn the real thing.” (p. 377) It’s all too common for Christians especially to disregard research on evolution simply because the Bible says that God created Adam from the dust and Eve from Adam’s rib. They don’t seem to consider that the Bible is full of metaphors or that God could have created Adam and Eve using any method He chose. This is just one example that highlights the detrimental nature of being inflexible in seeking answers. When someone thinks that they already know the answer to their own question, their perception of other explanations is distorted and they fail to examine the complexity and nuance of the issue. In order to be flexible, one should remember that questions rarely if ever have truly simple

It’s important to consider many possible answers to questions and to give other scholars a fair chance to prove their point. It’s equally important, however, to ultimately come to one’s own conclusion about the issue at hand, and to refrain from sacrificing faith for the sake of becoming “enlightened”. Far too many young people espouse open-mindedness as the ultimate principle of enlightenment and condemn judgement of any kind. Unfortunately, one cannot find truth without making at least a few judgements about the quality of information they have received and other elements of their education. Hugh Nibley expressed concern about lack of judgement in the quest for knowledge when he wrote, “The shortage of knowledge is an intolerable state and so the mind will do anything to escape it; in particular, it will invent knowledge if it has to.” (p. 375). In the search for answers to questions, one might be so eager to find any answer at all that they accept the first answer offered to them without evaluating the logic or evidence behind it—in other words, they do not make an effort to discern the truth from the many possible explanations offered to them. This principle of discernment both contrasts and coincides with flexibility because it requires learners to be humble enough to consider other perspectives without accepting all of these perspectives as correct and absolute truths.