On Teaching a Pig to Whistle
Virtue, and justification, and gospel, and more . . .
Martin Luther once famously said that justification by faith alone is the article of a standing or falling church. He also said this about Christian schools.
“Above all, the most important and most usual teaching, in both the universities and the lower schools, ought to be concerned with the Holy Scriptures . . . Oh! how unwisely we deal with our poor young folk, whom we are commanded to train and instruct [Prov. 22:6]! But we shall have to give a serious account of our stewardship, and explain why we have not set the Word of God before them.”
These two truths need to be held together, and more than that, tenaciously held together.
Many classical Christian schools want to emphasize the inculcation of virtue in the course of study they promote. But there are two ways to cultivate virtue. The first is to train students in what might be called earthly virtue—the kind that ancient pagans could and did instill in their students. In modern terms, we might call this the education of gentlemen and ladies. Too often these modern efforts either minimize or by-pass the gospel of grace—the gospel that is central to the education that Luther wanted to
The second form of education in virtue is a course of training that is basically an education in discipleship. There is absolutely nothing wrong with virtue, obviously. After all, the apostle Peter tells us this:
“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue” (2 Peter 1:3).
God has called us to glory and virtue, and if we are summoned there we really should go. A few verses later, Peter calls us to layer grace on top of grace, and one of those graces is virtue (2 Pet. 1:5). We are supposed to add virtue to faith, and knowledge to virtue, and temperance to knowledge, and patience to temperance, and godliness to patience, and brotherly kindness to godliness, and charity goes over the top of all of it. Virtue is obviously not a bad thing.
Neither is morality, but there is a way of trying to instill morality that an old Scots woman once dismissed as “the cold clatter of morality.” What she was after was sheer gospel—good news for sinners.
In the following quote, Luther was talking about universities, but elsewhere he applied this principle to every level of education.
“But I would not advise anyone to send his son to a place where the Holy Scriptures do not come first. Every institution, where the Word of God is not taught regularly, must fail. That is why we observe the kind of people who are now and will continue to be in the universities . . . I greatly fear that the universities are but wide-open gates leading to hell, as they are not diligent in training and impressing the Holy Scripture on the young students.”
If the Scriptures are central in the way they ought to be, then the gospel will be central in the way it ought to be. And if the gospel is central, then the students will be taught the right relationship between justification and sanctification.
Which is . . .?
Justification is a forensic act, whereby God through His free grace, imputes to the believing sinner the righteousness of Jesus Christ, in all of its fulness. The instrument He uses to impart this gift is the sinner’s act of resting and receiving this grace that is offered through the gospel. This is something that happens at a moment in time, and once it has happened, it is over and done. It is not a process. There is a moment before which it happens, and other moments that occur after it happens. Because of what is declared by God in this moment, the sinner is considered absolutely righteous. He is now justified, and the resultant legal status cannot erode, and cannot be improved upon. It is not in any way dependent on the subsequent quality of this person’s sanctification.
And sanctification is where education in virtue comes in.
The only way that a school can “aid” in the possible justification of the students is by making sure the gospel is set before them—in chapels, in assemblies, and in doctrine classes. “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14).
So the secondary instruments of justification would be things like presentations of the gospel. But the only primary instrument of justification is the faith of the one being justified, and that will only be present if God gives it as a gracious gift (Eph. 2:8-9).
In that passage, we are told that we are saved by grace through faith. We are saved by grace, and not by works, lest any man decides he wants to boast. So we are not saved by good works, but we are absolutely saved to good works, as it says in the very next verse. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
In a Christian school, the inculcation of virtue, therefore, has to build on the foundation of justification by faith alone. Because the sinful heart is always disposed to slip off this point, it must regularly be brought back front and center, in line with the Luther quotes above.
If a Christian school emphasizes the cultivation of “the virtues” in a wrong way, then one of two things is likely to happen. One is that the decent and well-washed students, those who want to be respectable and orderly, will take to it, the way Cicero took to his education. These virtues will be taken on as a substitute for gospel, but it will be transformed into a gospel of self-help, which in turn cannot be kept back from turning into a system of self-righteousness. In the end it ends in moralism and despair.
The second wrong way the path of virtue is taken is when the students regard it as a representative of the true gospel, but where they see all the standards of the Christian faith (law), without an understanding of the power that God gives us that enables us to live according to those standards (which is gospel). Attempts to inculcate virtue here will only provoke rebellion. As the old saying goes, never try to teach a pig to whistle. It is waste of your time, and it annoys the pig.
Thank you for directing me to this reading Sir. It was entirely relative to our introduction. Hearing your understanding of Martin Luther is provocative. Your tone is as easy to read as I'm sure it is to hear on Sundays. With Faithfulness is our Future.
-rwa
Doug, I respectfully disagree with the tone of your article, and here's why: the dichotomy you're drawing between teaching virtue and the gospel is, in my view, a false and dangerous one. In a world as chaotic and morally compromised as ours, raising children to be functional, responsible adults requires a deliberate effort to cultivate habits that align with both classical and Christian understandings of virtue.
While I commend the emphasis you place on the primacy of the gospel, the practical application of this principle doesn't align as neatly with your argument. Take, for example, the virtue of honesty. Instilling honesty in children requires intentional effort to counteract their natural tendencies to exaggerate, misdirect, or hide the truth. Stories like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" or "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" have historically been used to teach these values, emphasizing human agency and responsibility. These narratives show children that dishonesty can lead to lasting, often irreversible consequences. This is a truth that stands independently of the doctrines of salvation and justification.
Yes, we all require God's grace and mercy, but this reality does not negate the fact that dishonesty can destroy lives—whether through ruined careers, broken relationships, or lost opportunities. Teaching children the importance of integrity is not, as you suggest, a pursuit of a "gospel of self-help." Rather, it's a recognition that virtuous living has real-world consequences, both positive and negative.
I think it's likely that when you were raising your children, you taught them that they were capable of honesty and that you expected them to develop this habit. This expectation aligns with a long tradition of Reformed thought on child-rearing. Martin Luther himself warned of the dangers of neglecting a child's moral education, stating, "Nothing can more easily earn hell for a man than the improper training of his own children; and parents can perform no more damaging bit of work than to neglect their offspring, to let them curse, swear, learn indecent words and songs, and permit them to live as they please.”
Your article suggests what Luther should have written was, “Nothing can more easily earn hell for a man than not keeping the gospel at the very forefront of his children. Do not get too caught up teaching them not to curse, swear, learning indecent words and songs.”
Luther's words underscore the importance of teaching specific moral behaviors and that such programs do not necessarily threaten gospel teaching. The gospel should not be sidelined, but at the same time, we shouldn't falsely pit teaching moral behavior against teaching the gospel as if they were on opposite ends of a spectrum. A child raised with a robust understanding of morality is all the more aware of why we require accepting and resting in God’s grace.